The American Australian Association is delighted to announce the selection and award of the following scholarship recipients. Meet our scholars and find out more about their career aspirations below.
Natasha Moy is driven by a deep interest in how space can improve life on Earth, and the role of mission control in enabling the complex missions that make this possible. She holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechatronics) and a Bachelor of Science (Genetics) from the University of Adelaide, as well as a Diploma of Arts (Women’s Studies) from Flinders University. This interdisciplinary background underpins her systems-focused yet human-centred approach to spacecraft operations. Natasha previously served as a Flight Director in Australia’s first national mission control centre, where she commanded AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird constellation, the largest commercial satellite fleet in low Earth orbit.
Natasha will soon begin a Master of Science in Space Studies at Rice University in Houston, learning from NASA Johnson and the surrounding commercial space sector. Through this experience, she aims to return to Australia with advanced technical expertise and strong U.S. ties to help build sovereign mission control capabilities and support Australia’s growing space industry.
Dr. Sajad Razavi Bazaz is a Biomedical Engineer currently conducting postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. With a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and prior experience as a single-cell specialist at the Children’s Cancer Institute Australia (CCIA) where he contributed to the liquid biopsy program for pediatric cancer, Sajad’s work bridges engineering innovation and translational oncology. He specializes in developing microfluidic systems for liquid biopsy, with a particular focus on sample preparation, handling, and manipulation for single-cell studies.
His contributions have led to over 50 peer-reviewed high-impact publications, filed patents, as well as international recognition, including the ISAC Leadership Award and the Royal Society of NSW Scholarship. Sajad also serves as a reviewer and guest editor for leading biomedical journals. His current research aims to create clinically translatable diagnostic tools that can improve cancer care globally.
Kishaya Delaney is a Pro Bono Solicitor at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, supporting clients to access free legal services and contributing to the firm’s charity advisory practice. A proud Wiradjuri woman, Kishaya is committed to increasing First Nations participation in legal and political systems. Kishaya holds a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) and a Bachelor of Communication from the University of Newcastle. Her career spans corporate, legal, and non-profit sectors.
She previously led a team of researchers for the Towards Truth project, mapping the impact of law and policy on Indigenous Australians since 1788. She was an Uluru Youth Dialogue Ambassador for the First Nations Voice in the 2023 Australian Constitutional Referendum and was named First Nations Lawyer of the Year in 2023. Kishaya is now pursuing a Master of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School to strengthen her ability to address the complex challenges facing Indigenous communities.
Sam Nichols is a writer and multiplatform journalist, currently based in Sydney, Australia. His work, which is largely centered around narrative journalism and creative non-fiction, often examines the stories, issues, and communities that intersect with healthcare, drug policy, medicine, illness, substance dependence, and technology. His work has been published by a number of outlets, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, SBS, and VICE.
Sam has a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. At the New York University Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, he will be undertaking a Master of Arts with a concentration in science, health and environmental reporting. His goal in studying at NYU’s Science, Health & Environmental Reporting program is to further improve his skills in science reporting, feature writing and narrative journalism, allowing him to better report on Australian drug and health policy with both local and international publications.
Jane Millward is an electrical engineer who is passionate about signal processing. After graduating from the University of New South Wales where she won the University Medal for Electrical Engineering, she received a Fulbright Future Scholarship to pursue a PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For her PhD research, Jane is developing privacy and security preserving signal processing techniques for machine learning and wireless communications applications. She is particularly interested in applying her signal processing research to challenges in the defense and national security sector, having completed internships with Australia’s Department of Defense and cybersecurity company PentenAmio.
In 2024, Jane was awarded a Quad Fellowship, a fellowship which supports graduate students working at the intersection between science and social impact. Outside of her research, she enjoys classical singing, trying new restaurants in the Boston area, and CrossFit.
Dr Tom Meredith is an academic Interventional Cardiologist with interests in transcatheter management of coronary and valvular heart disease, as well as clinical research. Dr Meredith completed physician and cardiology training at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. He thereafter undertook two years of Coronary and Structural Intervention Fellowship training at St Vincent’s, specialising in percutaneous coronary intervention as well as minimally invasive transcatheter mitral, tricuspid, and aortic valve intervention. Dr Meredith has a master’s degree in clinical trials research and recently completed his PhD at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Sydney, investigating machine learning algorithms to predict favourable cardiac recovery following aortic valve replacement. He has been previously awarded competitive research scholarships from the National Heart Foundation and Cardiac Society of Australia & New Zealand. Dr Meredith will undertaking a post-doctoral clinical and academic fellowship at Stanford University Hospital, where he plans to leverage his experience to investigate predictors of favourable response to novel transcatheter tricuspid valve therapies, develop advanced procedural skills, and foster international research collaboration.
Lauren Brincat is a contemporary artist with a Master of Fine Arts, working across performance, video, installation, and sculpture. Her interdisciplinary practice explores movement, rhythm, and non-verbal communication, often through site-responsive works that engage local communities and probe historical ruptures and failures of language. Brincat’s use of sound sculptures, performance instruments, and collaborative methods challenges conventional boundaries of artmaking. Her current research focuses on the tactile and communicative potential of textiles to question binary thinking and expand embodied expression.
During her 2025 residency at Art Omi in Ghent, New York, Brincat will experiment with textile-based processes that draw on the history of fabric as an ancient form of communication. Her research aims to generate new visual languages and provoke alternative perspectives on gender, connection, and collective memory through participatory, material-driven inquiry.
Dan Cullen is one of Australia’s most accomplished writers and composers, his debut work Dubbo Championship Wrestling Winning New Musicals Australia and the Eric H. Weinberger Award for Emerging Librettists. A Fulbright scholar, Dan holds an MFA from the National Institute of Dramatic Art and is mentored by Broadway composer Eddie Perfect.
With the help of the American Australian Association, Dan will undertake his master’s in musical Theatre Writing and Production at New York’s Berklee College of Music. This year spent learning from practioners at the forefront of the American theatre will be invaluable in Dan’s long-term goal of crafting Australian musicals that can succeed on the world stage.
Julian Curtis toured Australia in 2024 as an understudy in ‘Gaslight’ (Queensland Theatre) and was nominated for Best Ensemble (Matilda Award) for Playlab’s ‘Horizon’. Theatre: ’25 Down’, ‘Bernhardt Hamlet’ (Queensland Theatre); ‘The Glass Menagerie’, ‘Dead Devils’ (LaBoite Theatre); ‘Embers’, ‘Gallipoli’ (Sydney Theatre Company).
He is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and has participated in television shows such as, ‘Are You Afraid of the Dark: Ghost Island’, ‘Dance Academy’, ‘Spooked’, ‘Rescue’, ‘East West 101’ and ‘Legend of the Seeker’. Julian creates his own work including directing ‘The Norman Mailer Anecdote’ in 2024 and his debut play ‘Legacy’ was accepted into the National Workshop x Playwriting Australia for development in 2018.
Eklavya Mudgil recently completed a Master of Music Studies (Performance) degree studying Collaborative Piano with Dr. Theresa Leung at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (SCM). In September 2025, he will study at the New England Conservatory (NEC) in Boston with Ms. Vivian Hornik Weilerstein and Dr. Cameron Stowe. Previously, he completed the Bachelor of Music (Performance) degree at the SCM, graduating with First Class Honours. Eklavya has received many academic prizes, including the George Henderson Scholarship, allowing him to participate in numerous summer festivals overseas and masterclasses with internationally acclaimed musicians.
He was also a finalist in the SCM’s Piano Concerto and Sonata-Duo Competitions, and the Accompanists’ Guild of NSW David Miller Award. Eklavya has also collaborated with Alexandra Osborne, violin (Associate Concertmaster, Sydney Symphony Orchestra), Rachel Siu, cello (Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra) and Liisa Pallandi, violin (Australian Chamber Orchestra).
Lisa Sammut is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Kamberri/Canberra, Australia. She is known for poetic, intuitive and experiential works and sculptural installations that draw on found archival imagery, historical events and visual culture— using the cosmos as a framework for understanding the dynamics, relations, and dimensions of our personal, political and social worlds. Since completing an MFA by Research with Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship from UNSW Art & Design, Sydney, she has exhibited widely in galleries, museums and universities.
Her work has been supported through scholarships and recognised as a finalist in prizes including the Churchie Emerging Art Prize, John Fries Award and Ramsay Art Prize. In 2025, Lisa will study circular astro-botanical imagery held within rare magical and scientific texts during a H.P. Kraus Fellowship at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Isabella Trimboli is a writer from Sydney, Australia. She publishes essays, criticism and fiction, with a strong focus on the work and artistic practices of women. Her work has been widely published in Australia and abroad, at publications such as The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, The Los Angeles Review of Books, New Left Review, HEAT Journal and The Sydney Review of Books, among others. Previously, her work has been supported by Creative Australia’s Projects Grant and the Ian Potter Emerging Artists Fellowship.
In 2024, she was shortlisted for the Kat Muscat Fellowship, and in 2021 received the Sydney Review of Books Emerging Critics Fellowship. Her writing career began after co-founding the award-winning Australian music journal Gusher in 2016. In 2025, Isabella will begin a two-year Creative Writing M.F.A at New York University, where she will complete a non-fiction manuscript as her thesis project.
Robert Fielding is a contemporary artist of Western Arrernte, Yankunytjatjara, Pakistani and Afghan descent, living and working in Mimili Community on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. Fielding’s practice encompasses new media, painting, printmaking, and traditional craftsmanship, deeply grounded in cultural knowledge and intergenerational learning. As a son of the Stolen Generation, Fielding has spent years reconnecting with his cultural heritage through both institutional research and lived community practice. He has led archival research projects with the South Australian Museum, the Australia Council for the Arts, and Mimili Maku Arts, focusing on repatriation, cultural maintenance, and First Nations knowledge systems. Fielding’s current research explores Indigenous-led approaches to archives, cultural collections, and cross-cultural exchange. During his Kluge-Ruhe residency, he will expand this work through dialogue with Native American institutions, participation at the ATALM conference, and the development of innovative printmaking and letterpress techniques that integrate First Nations epistemologies across global contexts.
Holly Greenhalgh (Poli-Pearl) is a Whadjuk/Wadandi Noongar First Nations composer, producer, and performer whose work blends jazz, electronic, and experimental soundscapes. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Marine Science from Murdoch University, with honors focusing on marine biology. Holly further honed her artistic practice through studies in visual art, music production, and composition at leading Australian institutions including WAAPA. Recognized internationally, she has released music on the prestigious Rhythm Section label, receiving Creative Victoria funding to produce her debut album Special Feelings (2024), which has garnered over 20,000 monthly Spotify streams.
Holly’s dynamic performances at major festivals like Bigsound and SXSW Sydney, and collaborations with artists such as Bradley Zero, demonstrate her growing influence in global jazz-electronic scenes. Currently, she is developing PANDA LILY, a project merging First Nations storytelling with experimental music, exploring cross-cultural narratives and sociopolitical themes through innovative sound design and jazz.
Megan Tan is a visual artist with a vocational background in accountancy from Melbourne. She has a BFA in Visual Art from Victorian College of the Arts, a BFA Honours from Monash University and a Graduate Certificate of Professional Accounting from RMIT University. She has received a Stuart Black Memorial Scholarship, a National Gallery of Victoria Women’s Association Award, and the Daniel Dorall Prize. Megan’s essays have been published by Melbourne art imprints Discipline and un Projects.
She is preoccupied with developing a curated program of artistic e-ink implementations in Melbourne and Chicago. The AFNGA AusArt Scholarship supports her MFA in Art at University of Illinois Chicago, where she will develop a thesis on printmaking and conceptual art’s potential for impactful monetary interventions. The MFA research is informed by Chicago’s history as a vital center for trade in the Midwest and an epicenter for global economic policy change.
Alana Hicks is a Papua New Guinean Australian writer and director with a Graduate Certificate in Screenwriting from AFTRS, a master’s in media arts and production from UTS, and a Diploma in Digital Content Producing from Metro Screen. Her award-winning work spans drama, comedy, and immersive media, with a focus on identity, belonging, and cultural hybridity. Alana’s recent directing credits include MONI (SBS, 2025), Project Tightrope for the Australian Museum, and a VR training program for the Department of Communities and Justice. Her AACTA-nominated short Chicken won Best Director at Flickerfest and screened internationally.
Through the scholarship, Alana plans to undertake New York-based directing workshops to build practical directing craft and industry insight. While in New York, she will also advance her debut feature film through targeted meetings and networking, deepening creative and professional connections across the US/Australia screen landscape.
Annabel Keenan is a New York-based writer specializing in contemporary art and environmental sustainability. She contributes to several publications including The New York Times, The Financial Times, and The Art Newspaper. She is the author of “Climate Action in the Art World: Towards a Greener Future,” published in 2025 by Lund Humphries and Sotheby’s Institute of Art, which explores the intersection of the art world and sustainability, highlighting areas for improvement and case studies of climate action on the part of museums, galleries, art fairs, shippers, and artists, among others.
With this grant, Annabel will expand her lens to Australia, researching how individuals and institutions in the country engage with the environment in the content of their work and in their operations. Annabel holds a BA in Art History and Italian from Emory University and an MA in Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center.
Marius Basanovic holds a detailed understanding of the challenges associated with transitioning from military service to civilian life and higher education. Informed by both lived experience and professional insight, his background in public policy and law informs his research initiative to improve long-term outcomes for those pursuing academic or professional reintegration after service. Professionally, he is a Legal Officer with the Australian Government. Academically, he holds a Bachelor of Arts from Murdoch University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Western Australia.
He remains active in academic publishing and conferences, with a sustained interest in the legal intersection of military issues and public policy. He contributes regularly to complex legal and regulatory issues affecting veterans. Supported by the American Australian Association Veterans’ Scholarship, Marius is engaged in postgraduate research addressing the structural and institutional factors that influence access of veterans to public service and higher education.
Dr Samuel White will be a Resident Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia Law School’s National Security Law Program under the AAASV Grant. Samuel has served as both a Royal Australian Infantry Corps and an Australian Army Legal Corps officer in a variety of tactical, operational and strategic level postings. He transferred to the Army Reserves in early 2023, and in 2024 was appointed the inaugural Army Visiting Fellow at the Australian War Memorial – a role he continues to hold.
Dr White entered academia as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Adelaide Law School, where he completed his PhD on Australian constitutional executive power. Whilst writing his PhD, he concurrently published his first monograph, Keeping the Peace of the Realm (LexisNexis, 2021) which assessed the triggers and thresholds for when Federal troops can deploy domestically, without State consent. This is the topic he will be pursuing during his Fellowship at Columbia.
AMERICAN AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATION SCHOLARSHIPS ARE PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY
