An influential Bond University academic's career has been recognised with a top prize for research excellence - and a long-overdue moment in the sun for someone described as "a quiet achiever."
Professor Bruce Vanstone was named as the winner of the Vice Chancellor’s Research Excellence Award at a gala dinner to mark the university’s annual Research Week.
Currently the Associate Dean of Research for the Bond Business School and Director of the university’s Macquarie Trading Room, Prof Vanstone has published over 50 peer-reviewed research articles.
Alongside supervising a large number of Bond students, Prof Vanstone plays a critical role in driving Bond Business School’s research agenda through mentoring, targeted funding and support for the school’s three pillars – big data, transformational business, and entrepreneurship and family business.
His computational finance research largely revolves around IT-intensive quantitative trading and investment modelling, and he has brought in or been directly involved in attracting more than $500,000 of external grant funding.
Prof Vanstone said he was “elated” to receive the award, and highlighted the efforts of his colleagues alongside Bond Business School’s industry links.
“Getting an award like this is amazing recognition, but I work with a lot of other people, and any award you get is justification for the people working with you, so this result is really not for me, it’s for everybody that works with me as well.
“One thing we try and do in the business school, and particularly in the big data field, is work with industry, we want to work with industry partners who have big data challenges, and we want to try and help them solve those challenges in a way that they can apply the results to move forward in their business.”
Bond University President and Vice Chancellor Professor Tim Brailsford paid tribute to Prof Vanstone.
“Bruce is one of those quiet achievers, always behind the scenes, very much team-orientated, and I’m so pleased he got his moment in the sun.”
The Vice Chancellor’s Early Career Research Excellence Award was won by Associate Professor of Statistics, Dr Adrian Gepp, while Associate Professor Dr Peta Stapleton was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Research Supervision Award.
All three award winners receive a $5000 grant from Bond University to go towards their research activities.
Prof Brailsford said the quality of the award recipients at the gala dinner was testament to Bond’s research performance.
“At this annual event we once again show how we are punching above our weight, and the calibre of the winners would be suitable on any other campus in Australia, and I’m so proud of our individual but also our collective achievements.”