Celebrating our first ever Henzell Awardees!
July 24, 2025
We are very excited to announce our inaugural Henzell Award recipients!
Congratulations to our four awardees from the University of Adelaide, the University of Sydney, and the University of Tasmania, who were selected from a competitive pool of applicants from around the country, all keen to get on the ground experience in agriculture for development early in their studies.
With the support of Ted and Frances Henzell and family, these national awards fund brief visits by Australian undergraduate students to international agricultural research projects in targeted tropical developing countries.
It’s been wonderful to introduce these awards, as they extend the Crawford Fund’s NextGen suite of activities by including undergraduate students. As we have seen with our post-graduate Student Awards and students and Early Career Researchers involved in our RAID Network, we hope the experience will encourage even more interest in further study and ultimately grow the cadre of Australians in careers of relevance to food production and food and nutrition security of benefit to partner countries and to Australia.
“The awards offer students who may not have previously visited a partner country, let alone projects in partner countries, with a visit that has plenty of guidance from their nominated supervisor and a project team. They will come away with first-hand experience of what research or capacity building in another country and culture is like, and the impact they can have on food and nutrition security. Spending time with others already down the career path in ag for development and meeting other partner researchers and farmers, they will hopefully better understand the personal and professional benefits of being involved,” said Cathy Reade, Director of Special Projects.
“We were particularly pleased to note that most of the applicants in this inaugural year were able to identify a project for their proposed visit, as it means that even those who were not successful have managed to connect with people already involved in agriculture for development, most often in ACIAR projects or Crawford Fund training or mentoring projects.”
The Crawford Fund wishes to especially thank the judging panel this year:
Nominated by the Crawford Fund:
- Emerita Prof Lyn Abbott at UWA, internationally recognised leader in soil science and soil biology, and our WA Coordinator and
- Tania Paul, consultant DT-Global with a career in community driven development, capacity building, natural resource management and agriculture, and our NT Coordinator.
Nominated by the Henzell family:
- Dr Eoin Wallis, senior Qld executive in Ag R&D, with connections to sugar and horticulture industries and ACIAR.
As it was our inaugural year, the panel, with Ted Henzell’s involvement, had the important job of offering suggestions for tweaks to the award guidelines, process and judging. These will be included when the awards open in early 2026 for the next round of applicants.
We look forward to sharing the new experiences of our undergraduate awardees with you, and we wish them well in their travels and studies.
Congratulations to our 2025 Henzell Award Recipients!
Ava Christie, University of Tasmania
Degree: Bachelor of Ag Science (Sustainable Agriculture) + Bachelor of Science (Plant Science)
Focus/Location: Forestry, Vietnam
Other collaborating Australian institutions: ACIAR
Shreya Nidumolu, University of Adelaide
Degree: Bachelor of Economics (Advanced)
Focus: Ag Economics
Location and collaborating Australian institutions to be confirmed
Ava Robertson, University of Sydney
Degree: Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Advanced Studies (Hons)
Focus/Location: Soil, Samoa
Other collaborating Australian institution: ACIAR
Amelia Ross, University of Sydney
Degree: Bachelor of Science (Agriculture) (Hons)
Focus/Location: Wheat, Ethiopia
Other collaborating Australian institutions: ACIAR/GRDC
