Anyone wishing to get in touch with a member of Swinburne’s alumni, please contact Angela Taaffe on (03) 9214 5134 or ataaffe@swin.edu.au

Film and TV alumnus Anthony Lucas may not have brought home an Academy Award, but his experience at Hollywood’s Oscars is something he will never forget.

Anthony was nominated in the best animated short film category for The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello. The film was made using the silhouette animation graphic style Anthony has been perfecting for many years, but it was American duo John Canemaker and Peggy Stern who won the award for their hand-drawn animation The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation.

Despite the disappointment of not winning, it was an unforgettable experience for Anthony and his wife Julia, who was co-producer of the film, mixing with Hollywood's elite in the week leading up to the Awards and basking in the surreal experience. Highlights included breakfast with the director of Ice Age, lunch with Jeffrey Kratzenberg from DreamWorks, a meeting with John Lassetter from Pixar and a stay at the Skywalker Ranch where George Lucas wrote the last three Star Wars movies.

Since being nominated, Anthony has been interviewed by numerous media outlets and overwhelmed with congratulations and work proposals. His film was also nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award, and has won several prizes, including two Australia Film Institute (AFI) awards.

Swinburne alumna Norma Redpath recently received an Honorary Doctorate from the University. Norma is an internationally renowned sculptor who has made a significant contribution to the development of Australian sculpture.

Pictured left to right: Chancellor Bill Scales, Norma Redpath, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Higher Education) Dale Murphy

Norma initially studied painting at Swinburne Technical College before turning to sculpture. She was only 21 when she was invited to exhibit with the Victorian Sculpture Society and in 1953 won her first award in the Baillieu Library mural competition.

Three years later Norma headed overseas to study in Italy where she had the opportunity to work with craftsmen and saw the possibilities of working with bronze and not just wood.

She returned to Australia where she taught at Swinburne and won the Mildura prize for sculpture twice. In 1962 she was awarded an Italian travel scholarship and returned to what she saw as the ‘broader vision’ of Italy and established her headquarters in Milan.

Norma had her first major Australian exhibition in 1963 and soon after completed a major commission from the Australian government for the Treasury Fountain in Canberra.

Other major works include the Immortal Warrior (1967) for the Reserve Bank, South Australia, the Sculpture Column (1969-72) for the Reserve Bank, Brisbane, The Victorian Coat of Arms for the facade of the National Gallery of Victoria (1968) and Landscape Caryatid (1980-85).

In 1970, Norma was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) for services to sculpture and closer to home she is currently working on plans for a sculpture to adorn Swinburne’s Atrium.

Congratulations to TAFE alumnus Nathan Deakes who walked his way to two gold medals in the men's 20km and 50km events at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

His latest achievement has given him back-to-back Commonwealth Games doubles and elevated him to the elite category of Australian track and field athletes. His accomplishment of four golds in two Games is a record for an Australian track and field athlete and will put him at the frontline of 2008 Olympics contenders.

Alisa is Australia’s first-ever female and first-ever snow sport Winter Olympics gold medallist. She has an extensive background in competitive sport in running, gymnastics and sailing and only took up skiing at the age of 19.

She has also worked as a television commentator for the Australian coverage of the 2004 Athens Olympics Games. When she is not competing or in training, Alisa works for IBM.

Joanna Wojtalik is reaping the rewards for an idea she came up with while studying marketing at Swinburne in 2003. You’ve heard about messages in a bottle, but what about messages on a bottle in the form of a mini-magazine?

The launch of her venture took place in Melbourne earlier this year and is set to overhaul the print publishing world with the coupling of publishing and consumer goods.

Entitled On-Product Publishing the tiny 32-page full-colour gossip magazine is contained within a glossy label found on 600ml bottles of spring water. The technology has been patented by start-up publisher Modern Media Concepts.

Initially Coles and 7-Eleven will carry the product as the company moves to step up production. The bottle is preserved by a specially produced plastic wrap to protect the magazine from condensation in refrigerators.

The magazine’s parent edition entitled iLove targets women, and there are plans for men's and children's versions. Four issues of iLove have been published and recently the magazine became a weekly publication.

"These gossip mags are a quick read, quite fun and we will be producing lots of them,” said Joanna.

Computer science and business alumnus Craig Hinkley said he is “living the American dream”. In 1998 he moved from Melbourne to San Francisco, taking a chance on an IT consulting job with the Bank of America he had been hired for over the phone.

Craig’s first assignment for the Bank of America was consulting on its LAN and WAN infrastructures. His presence was felt immediately and it wasn’t long before the IT executives there realised his potential and he was promoted to take on a full time assignment to build a national IP backbone. The backbone was designed to support the newly expanded company and was the first generation of what became the bank's optical core network, which now spans 14 cities. He was then offered a full-time job with Bank of America, and has since been made a senior vice president. He is now coordinating the installation of the bank’s new system in banking centres and enterprise locations with the rollout scheduled to continue during 2007.

Sports Leadership program graduate Jasmin Wright has been awarded a State Government Sport Development for Women grant to further her work with the Aboriginal community. Her focus is on creating healthier lifestyles for Melbourne’s young Aboriginals.

The grant will cover training and professional development in Jasmin’s work for the Melbourne Aboriginal Youth Sport and Recreation Association. This will enable her to assist in the organisation of the 2006 National Indigenous Football and Netball Carnival.

Jasmin is of Indigenous heritage and believes in promoting healthier lifestyles for Indigenous people. “It’s about keeping men, women and youth active but there’s also a social side to it,” she said.

As a continuation of her training, Jasmin will also attend a leadership program and take part in a research project on women’s leadership in sport.

Alumna Courtney Mathieson won the best makeup design prize at the Midsumma Festival for an outlandish ‘Madame Dragonfly’ creation.

Armed with only a brief to be wildly creative, and competing among categories such as skin art, costume and ‘fetish fashion’, Mathieson won a trophy and $400 cash prize for her creativity, which was paraded before hundreds of festival-goers in the Treasury Gardens.

“The more crazy the creation the better,” Mathieson joked. “It was highly theatrical and drag-influenced, with lots of colour.”

Taking over three hours to painstakingly create, Mathieson used prosthetics to exaggerate the face, including sculpting a long corkscrew-like prosthetic for the chin made out of clay.

Bachelor of Business graduate Russell Allwell was recently appointed Managing Director of Penford Corporation’s Australia and New Zealand Operations. Penford develops, manufactures and markets specialty natural-based ingredient systems for various applications, including papermaking, textiles and food products. The company has nine locations in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

Russell has a strong background in food industry management with Berri Ltd, Simplot Australia, Kraft, and more recently George Weston Foods. He is looking forward to taking on the challenge of servicing customers’ needs in the domestic markets and in the Asia-Pacific region.

Postgraduate film and television alumna Niki Caro’s directorial work has been featured at the world’s film festivals for more than a decade. Her short film Sure to Rise was in the competition at Cannes in 1994 and Footage made it to the Venice Film Festival in 1996. Her first feature length film, Memory and Desire, was selected for Critics Week at Cannes in 1998 and in 2003, Whale Rider scored fifty or so international prizes, including the best actor Oscar.

Niki’s latest film North Country was released in February and was her first Hollywood studio film. The film featuring Charlize Theron, is a fictional retelling of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the United States.