In 2019, ACUADS awarded five awards in the following categories: Innovative Teaching, Innovative Research and Lifelong Fellowship. Awardees were announced on 31 October 2019 at the Margaret Lawrence Gallery, as part of the 2019 ACUADS Conference held in Melbourne, Australia.
Innovative Research Award — Dr Erica Seccombe, ANU
Dr Erica Seccombe has contributed ground-breaking research in the field of visual art and interdisciplinary art/science. As a visual artist, initially a ‘printmaker’ in practice, she is a pioneer in the field of 3D and 4D micro-X-ray computer tomography (Micro-CT). Her research is uniquely placed between the ANU School of Art & Design and the Department of Applied Mathematics. Erica’s PhD GROW: experiencing Nature in the Fifth Dimension (2017) investigated time-resolved (4D) Micro-CT through immersive stereoscopic digital projection installations and 3D printing. Projecting the resulting time-lapse data stereoscopically in cinematic 3D, her final work Out of Season creates a translucent and mesmerising experience as the ‘virtual’ seeds come to life. Since 2013 she has been collaborating with scientists at the Natural History Museum in London to visualise key objects in their collection. Her time resolved work Metamorphosis (2016-18) won the prestigious Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize at the South Australian Museum and has also been recently selected for the 2019 International Lumens prize. The new knowledge her research has generated has had a far-reaching impact in the sciences as her research pushes the boundaries of interdisciplinary thinking, particularly in biology. She has shared her knowledge by training numerous honours, HDR students and post-doctoral researchers from medicine, physics, palaeontology, biology, forensics and geology and the visual arts.