Professor Emily Hilder from the UTAS School of Chemistry was awarded the LCGC Emerging Leader in Chromatography Award.
A high-achieving young chemistry professor at UTAS has won an international award.
Professor Emily Hilder from the UTAS School of Chemistry was awarded the LCGC Emerging Leader in Chromatography Award.
LCGC is a scientific magazine focused on chromatography and the separation sciences (specific lab techniques for separating mixtures). It is the largest dedicated publication in the North American chromatography market with a circulation of over 50,000.
The Emerging Leader award recognises the achievements and aspirations of a talented young scientific or technical professional who has made strides early in his or her career toward the advancement of chromatographic applications and techniques.
Prof Hilder is also an ARC Future Fellow in the Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science (ACROSS) at UTAS.
UTAS Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Rathjen congratulated Prof Hilder on her achievement.
“The latest in a series of accolades recognising Prof Hilder’s commitment to and talent for chemistry, the Emerging Leader in Chromatography Award, is much deserved.
“Her roles in ground-breaking research, including the development of the MilliSpotTM polymer technology and the ACROSS bomb-detection project, attest to her skill.”
Prof Hilder developed the MilliSpotTM polymer technology, which enables researchers to test a pinprick of blood (rather than a vial) with greater ease and sensitivity than other absorbent materials can provide.
She was also part of the ACROSS team that developed a range of technologies to detect and identify homemade bombs.
Prof Hilder said she was honoured to have gotten the award.
“It has previously been presented to others in the field who I really respect, so I feel in very good company there."
“Most of all I'm proud and excited to be recognised in this way by the international separation science community.”
In 2009 Prof Hilder won the inaugural Tasmanian Young Tall Poppy Award, which recognises and celebrates Australian intellectual and scientific excellence.
In 2010 Prof Hilder was also awarded the UTAS Foundation Graduate Award, which recognises high-achieving UTAS graduates in their early to mid career pathways.
Professor Hilder was born and educated in Tasmania and first graduated from UTAS with a Bachelor of Science in 1996, after which she was awarded a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours in Chemistry a year later and a PhD in analytical chemistry in 2001, both from UTAS.
She gained international experience with postdoctoral appointments in Austria and California before returning to Tasmania and taking up her first academic position at UTAS in 2004 as an ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellow.
Image: Professor Hilder in the lab.