The ANSTO Australian Synchrotron and the User Meeting 2025 Organising Committee announced the following awards at the Australian Synchrotron User Meeting 2025 which was held at ANSTO’s Clayton Campus from 26-28 November.
Dr Samantha Alloo - Stephen Wilkins Thesis Medal
Dr Samantha Alloo is the 2025 Stephen Wilkins Thesis Medal winner for her thesis titled “Decoding the Flow of Speckles to Unlock Multimodal X-ray Images”. Dr Samantha Jane Alloo is a postdoctoral researcher in the X-ray Imaging Group at Monash University. She is an imaging physicist with a broad interest in applying and integrating diverse optical techniques.
Dr Alloo earned her PhD in Medical Physics from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, in August 2024, where she developed an efficient computational phase- and dark-field retrieval algorithm for the emerging technique of speckle-based X-ray imaging. Her PhD combined theoretical development, experimental work, software implementation, and data analysis. Dr Alloo's current research explores the application of the Fokker-Planck equation to paraxial imaging, focusing on its practical implementation, solution strategies, and potential extensions for revealing additional sample information.
A/Professor Kaye Morgan - Australian Synchrotron Mid-career Research Award
A/Professor Kaye Morgan is the recipient of the 2025 Mid-career Researcher Award. A/Prof Kaye Morgan is an x-ray physicist at Monash University who develops new methods of x-ray imaging and applies them in medical research. By looking not only at the x-ray 'shadow' created by bones, but also how x-rays are refracted and scattered, it is possible to capture detailed images of x-ray-transparent organs like the lungs. A/Prof Morgan is best known for developing imaging methods that utilise a patterned x-ray beam to achieve high-speed phase and dark-field x-ray imaging, methods now adopted globally. She has taken part in over 50 experiments at the Australian Synchrotron's MicroCT and Imaging and Medical Beamlines, and more than 30 international synchrotron experiments, publishing over 80 papers based on synchrotron data.
Dr Qi (Hank) Han - Australian Synchrotron Early-career Research Award
Dr Qi (Hank) Han is the Australian Synchrotron Early-career Research Award winner for 2025. Dr Han is a Research Fellow at RMIT University, Melbourne. His research investigates how proteins, nanomaterials, and other soft materials behave and assemble in solution, especially using synchrotron-based small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) to reveal structures invisible to conventional techniques. He has developed high-throughput SAXS methods to study protein stability, aggregation, and nanostructure formation, advancing biophysics and colloid science. Since 2020, Dr Han has led 12 awarded SAXS beamline proposals and taken part in over 30 synchrotron experiments, including 4 crystallography campaigns that solved seven protein structures. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers and continues to develop synchrotron approaches for understanding complex colloidal systems.
The judging committee for the Early-career and Mid-career and Research Awards consisted of:
Student Poster Awards
Afnan Alasmari, La Trobe University
Ruichang Xue, RMIT University
Student Oral Presentation Awards
Lucrezia Guarneri, Monash University
Christian Arzberger, Technical University of Munich
Olivia Mejias Gonzalez, University of Queensland
Chris Hill, Monash University
Sowbarnika Senthilkumar, University of South Australia
Nandish Hosadoddi Srikantamurthy, RMIT University