Ronika Power - Biography#

Prof. Power is Australia’s premier practitioner of Biocultural Archaeology and is recognised as an international leader in the broader discipline of Bioarchaeology. She has a globally unique research profile that simultaneously employs Science, Technology, Arts and Humanities, Mathematics and Medicine to study health and disease in the past. Her position as a research leader and interdisciplinary pioneer has been acknowledged via the receipt of numerous national and international awards and prizes, including the highest indicators of peer esteem in her field. In 2019, she was awarded the Max Crawford Medal by the Australian Academy of the Humanities. This is Australia’s most prestigious award for outstanding achievement and promise in the Humanities. It is presented to an Early Career Scholar whose research and publications make an exceptional contribution to the understanding of their discipline by the general public. In the same year, she also received a New South Wales 2019 Tall Poppy Science Award from the Australian Institute of Policy and Science. These awards recognise and celebrate Early Career Scholars who demonstrate intellectual and scientific excellence as well as publicly-engaged scientific leadership. Prof. Power is the first person in Australian history to win the nation’s most prestigious Early Career awards simultaneously in both the Humanities and Sciences. The global uniqueness, value and impact of her research was further acknowledged by the receipt of the inaugural 2019 Kwang-Su Lim Early Career Award of the Union Académique Internationale (UAI, Brussels). This award acknowledges a worldwide Early Career research leader with a strong track record, innovative projects, and extensive international collaborations. Other international peer-esteem indicators for her research include: invitations to serve as a reviewer for the European Research Council Starting Grants and leading journals (eg. Nature: Scientific Data; International Journal of Osteoarchaeology; Near Eastern Archaeology; PLOS One; Journal of Archaeological Science – Reports); elected editorships for high-profile serials (2014, 2015, 2016, ISSN 1468-9421); invited membership of peer-reviewed journal management committees (Mediterranean Archaeology). Prof. Power is also an elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries London and the Royal Society of New South Wales.