Swinburne academic awarded John Hughes Distinguished Service Award
In Summary
Swinburne University of Technology’s Pro Vice-Chancellor (Digital Frontiers), Professor Leon Sterling, has been recognised for his significant contribution and leadership in computing research, education and advocacy in Australia.
Professor Sterling has been awarded the John Hughes Distinguished Service Award from Computing Research and Education (CORE)- the national Computer Science organisation.
The award, which recognises outstanding service in the Information Technology community, is presented every two years and this is only the sixth time it has been awarded since its’ inception.
For the past 20 years Professor Sterling has been a strong advocate for the discipline, has promoted and championed the field of software engineering and been actively involved in the broader Australian computing community, at both the local and national level.
During that time he has also maintained a high research profile.
“It is an honour to receive this award, which is decided by my peers in the IT community,” said Professor Sterling.
“John Hughes was an outstanding contributor to the advancement of information technology in Australia and New Zealand.”
Anyone who has worked in academia in the IT sector for the past 10 years and has demonstrated leadership in the development of IT, public contributions to the IT community and has a track record that is more diverse than just achievement in a particular area is eligible to nominate for the John Hughes Distinguished Service Award.
Professor Sterling is responsible for the advancement of teaching and research capacity in information and communication technology areas across Swinburne.
He was previously Dean of the Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies at Swinburne, and before that was Professor of Software Innovation and Engineering and Director of e-Research at the University of Melbourne. Professor Sterling is immediate Past-President of the Australian Council of Deans of ICT.
He received a Bachelor of Science (Hons) from the University of Melbourne and a PhD in Pure Mathematics from the Australian National University. He has worked at universities in the UK, Israel, the USA and Australia.
His teaching and research specialties are software engineering, artificial intelligence, logic programming and more recently in integrating design and software engineering to build technology for an aging population.