Aurora Alumna Named 2023 NAIDOC Week Awards’ Youth of the Year

Courtney Burns, an alumna of the Aurora Internship program and recipient of the 2022 Google Future Leaders in STEM scholarship, has been named the 2023 National NAIDOC Week’s Youth of the Year. Courtney is a 25 year old Gunaikurnai woman (land and sea country) from South Gippsland, Victoria who is currently studying Marine Science at James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville, Queensland, and assisting in the shark research lab in Townsville.

Courtney is deeply passionate about ocean Country health, and interested in the links between elasmobranchs, ocean Country and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Elasmobranchii is a class of cartilaginous fishes, including sharks, skates and rays. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been living off sea country since time immemorial, yet there is no evidence in the scientific literature of relationships, positive or negative, with sharks.

In the Summer 2022/2023 round of the Internship program, Courtney was placed the ‘Physioshark’ team in which she assisted with epaulette shark research projects and husbandry care of epaulette sharks and cinnamon clown fish. During the internship she also tackled a metadata analysis on neonate blacktip reef sharks, focusing on their health.

Courtney’s goal is to continue her research to be able to change the way the world sees sharks. She aims to promote action in their conservation by understanding the physiological effects of anthropogenic stressors (like climate change) on sharks, and how she can bring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures into scientific literature to further aid this goal.

Congratulations, Courtney on this fantastic achievement!

Click here to read the other National NAIDOC Award winners’ profiles.