NAIDOC recognises Aurora alumni successes

Aurora alumni Naarah Barnes and Tui Nolan received National NAIDOC Awards at the annual NAIDOC Ball hosted in Adelaide on 7 July.

Naarah Barnes is a proud Gija woman from the Kimberley who grew up in Iutruwita/Tasmania. She was awarded the 2024 NAIDOC Creative Talent Award for her exceptional talent as an actor, performer, singer and creative. Naarah was also named the 2024 Young Australian of the Year for Tasmania for her contributions to performing arts and activism. She has recently completed  a Master of Musical Theatre at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she was supportedby a Roberta Sykes Scholarship. She is passionate about elevating First Nations voices in the entertainment industry and is driven by the motto, ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’. Naarah’s star continues to shine bright, and we are thrilled that NAIDOC has recognised her through this award.

Tui Nolan is a proud Gudjal man who has dedicated his career to advancing machine learning models, following his passion for quantitative science and data-driven innovation. He was awarded the 2024 NAIDOC Innovation Award for his extensive contributions and successes in machine learning. In 2019, Tui undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University, supported by a Roberta Sykes Scholarship and a Fulbright Scholarship. Most recently, he was a research fellow at the University of Cambridge, where he used his machine learning and biostatistics expertise to tackle challenging problems related to COVID-19 and immunodeficiency. He is now working towards his PhD in Statistics at the University of Technology, Sydney, and focusing on diabetes through his work at an international pharmaceutical company. Tui is driven to help people live happier, healthier lives, and we are so proud his achievements have been recognised by receiving this award.

A special shoutout also goes to Graham Akhurst, Kokomini man and Aurora alum who received a nomination for the NAIDOC Creative Talent Award following the success of his critically acclaimed debut novel Borderland.

Congratulations to Naarah, Tui and Graham for your successes at this year’s NAIDOC Awards. We are thrilled for you and look forward to seeing what you do next.