Six Maribyrnong and Hobsons Bay residents have been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM), two of which are Kelly Rogers and Christine Anne Howard-Bobenko.
Associate Professor Kelly Rogers has been awarded an Order of Australia Medal for her service to medical research.
Ms Rogers grew up in the western suburbs, including Yarraville and has since travelled globally for her inspiring efforts in disease research.
Ms Rogers said she feels honoured and humbled to have received this award.
“It is extremely important to acknowledge I didn’t do this work alone, the team I work with are all really talented scientists from a range of different backgrounds and nationalities
Diversity in the team has been an essential element and is the ultimate key to success.”
In 2019 Ms Rogers became a Division Head at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, her Division is made up of more than 100 scientists whose focus is to make advanced technologies more available to the research community.
Ms Rogers has a career spanning almost three decades, graduating from her bachelors degree in 1994 from Deakin University.
She completed her postdoctoral training at the Pasteur Institute in Paris where she worked on developing an imaging tool that would enable researchers to understand brain function and development.
She came back to Australia in 2009 where her team worked to set up an advanced microscopy facility at WEHI.
Her most recent and notable work is her research into Malaria, working closely with Malaria research teams to discover more about one of the deadliest killer diseases ever known.
Christine Anne Howard-Bobenko is a Footscray resident who has been awarded an Order of Australia Medal for her service to the performing arts through dance.
Ms Howard-Bobenko has been heavily involved with the Australian Ballet School since the ‘60s where she started off as a student.
In 1974 she became a character dance/folkloric teacher where she finished up in 2021, she was also a co-ordinator at the summer school for 20 years and has been a member of the administration team since the ’90s-2010s.
At the Victorian College of the Arts at the University of Melbourne she was a former character dance teacher, and at the Kolobok Dance Company of Australia she has been a performer since the ‘70s.
She was principal dancer from 1974-1980 and was also assistant to the artistic director in the same year.
Her other dancing achievements include her time as a guest artist at the Australian Ballet from the 2000s-2010s, as well as a character dance teacher at the Houston Ballet Academy in the United States of America in 2016.
In addition to her global adventures , she attended the Ukrainian Summer Dance Programme at the University Kyiv in 2006, and was the former adjudicator at the Royal Academy of Dance and Cecchetti Ballet Australia.
As well as being a member of the advisory committee at the Victorian Arts in the ‘80s.
