Young achievers’ accomplishments celebrated

Two young members of the University of Adelaide community have been honoured for their accomplishments in sustainability and innovation in the 2023 South Australian 7 News Young Achiever Awards.

Alumna Mary Kelly and current student Anna Woodley took home awards in the competition, which was created to promote the achievements of young people under the age of 30 throughout Australia and acknowledge their positive impact on local and wider communities.

Mary Kelly was awarded the First National Real Estate Innovation Award.

To help accelerate the transition away from single-use plastics, Mary founded Adelaide based sustainability start-up Reusably, while participating in the Hacker Exchange Program in the USA in 2018.

She started by developing the idea of a coffee cup swap system, which grew into a solution that could support the exchange of reusable containers with several applications. In late 2022, Reusably launched a Community Café.

Mary holds a Bachelor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Anna Woodley was awarded the Scouts SA Environmental Social Governance (ESG) Award.

Anna learned how ESG solutions were developed in countries with economic and resource constraints when she participated in the Engineers Without Borders’ Cambodia Summit in 2020.

She was also involved in implementing sustainable practices in the mining industry with OZ Minerals. Anna has been selected to attend UNITE 2030’s Camp 2030 Summit in New York during the United Nations’ Global Goals Week.

Anna is currently completing a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) (Chemical) with Bachelor of Biotechnology.

The University of Adelaide is a proud sponsor of the STEM Award category, which was won by Lauren Jones. Lauren’s research demonstrates an interoceptive pathway by which enterochromaffin (EC) cells physically sense food, allowing EC cells to release serotonin and drive healthy gut function and digestion. Lauren is a Postdoctoral researcher in the Gut Sensory Systems lab at Flinders University.

As category winners Mary and Anna each received a prize package worth more than $2,500, a trophy and complimentary membership to the Impact Collective, a not-for-profit led impact investment initiative for social enterprise. There were 48 finalists overall spread across 12 award categories.

The awards were presented at a gala dinner held on 5 May 2023 at the Hilton Adelaide, with winners celebrated alongside the achievements of all the young finalists.