Val Williams Scholarship in Botany

The Val Williams Scholarship in Botany is sponsored by the North Shore Group of the Australian Plants Society. The Scholarship honours the memory of our former esteemed member, Val Williams (1937-2004). There is a wonderful account of Val's life and achievements on the Australian Flora Foundation website here.

Applications are sought firstly from Honours students and also from Masters or PhD students undertaking research at universities in the Sydney region.

The project must contribute to the knowledge of the ecology, conservation or propagation of native plants in the Sydney and surrounding regions.

See below for details of the 2025 winner and a link to earlier years.

Round Eighteen - 2026

Applications for the 2026 Scholarship have closed.

The Val Williams Scholarship in Botany has increased to $4,000 for 2026.

This scholarship is awarded by the North Shore Group of the Australian Plants Society to Honours, Masters and PhD students of Botany.

Applications close on 6 March 2026. See below for other important dates. Scholarship conditions are described in the 2026 scholarship application forms. Application forms for the 2026 scholarship are available as pdf or word files.

VW Scholarship Application Information 2026.pdf

VW Scholarship Application Form 2026.docx

VW Scholarship Application Form 2026.pdf

Please note: No part of this scholarship can be used to cover administration costs.  

Application Time line for Round Eighteen:

• 6 March 2026 – Applications close
  
• 29 March 2026 – Assessment of applications completed
  
• 2 April 2026 – Successful applicant is notified
  
• 15 April 2026 – Remaining applicants notified

More information: email: vws.scholarship@gmail.com, Phone: 0415 043 671 

Val Williams Scholarship in Botany - Recipient 2026 Danielle Blackfield

I am a PhD candidate in the McArthur Behavioural Ecology Lab at the University of Sydney. I’m originally from the United States and decided to pursue a PhD in Australia after my first visit. I fell in love with the unique flora and fauna and wanted to help aid in the conservation of the country’s biodiversity. 

My PhD project is focused on herbivore management as a strategy for aiding in the protection of endangered plants. I am working with the New South Wales government to help protect Granite Zieria (Zieria obcordata). Its primary threat is believed to be excessive browsing by swamp wallabies (Wallabia bicolor).

Research on herbivore foraging has found that problem browsers, such as macropods, rely on odour information to efficiently identify and locate a food source. This project aims to artificially manipulate the informative odour in a landscape to prevent herbivores from detecting Z. obcordata. By introducing a distorted version of these informative odour compounds next to the plant, my aim is to negate the naturally occurring informative odour, essentially rendering Z. obcordata ‘invisible’ to olfactory browsers and subsequently reducing the severity of browsing. 

Funding from the Val Williams Scholarship in Botany will be used to aid in the costs of running a manipulative experiment testing the efficacy of this treatment in reducing the degree and frequency of browsing of Zieria obcordata by swamp wallabies. If successful, this strategy could be deployed to aid in the protection of a range flora in a variety of contexts, such as for conserving endangered plants and reducing browsing of agricultural and economically valuable plants.

Previous Recipients of the Val Williams Scholarship in Botany

2025 Natalie Allen

2024 Paola Raupp

2023 Sashini Perera

2022 Sarah McInnes

2021 Harriet Simpson-Southward

2020 Shubham Chhajed

2019 Farhad Masoomi-Aladizgeh

2018 Susan Everingham and John Whale

2017 Aaron Phillips

2016 Johanna Wong

2015 Jon Pankhurst

2014 Desi Quintans

2013 Jessica Mowle

2012 Diane Warman and Berin Mackenzie

2011 Nathan Emery and Tanya Bangel

2010 Alison Hewitt

2009 Liza Xian

Details of these winners and their projects can be found here.