Curtin University PhD candidate, Amy Braddon, has been named the winner of the first ORGINS PhD Student Award, which includes $15,000 in funding to support her research endeavours.
Ms Braddon’s research project, DreamStart, will explore the role of infant sleep in early childhood social, emotional and behavioural development.
“The project will advance our understanding of infant sleep patterns, their impact on child neurodevelopment, and offers vital insights in order to guide effective interventions and shape public policies,” Ms Braddon said.
The ORIGINS Student PhD Award was designed to collaborate with and support exceptional PhD students with an investigative interest in helping children, families and communities to flourish.
To be eligible for award consideration, applicants needed a research topic related to the reduction of non-communicable diseases in child and adult health that fell under the following domains:
- Allergy, Inflammation & Immunity
- Brain & Behaviour
- Environment & Lifestyle
- Growth & Development
- Nutrition & Metabolism
- Oral Health
- Microbiome
- Mental Health & Wellbeing
- Parenting
Ms Braddon said she was excited to join the ORIGINS team alongside a community of researchers with like-minded sub-projects dedicated to ensuring each child receives a healthy start to life.
“To have the chance to ask advice, workshop and learn from these talented individuals is an opportunity not many PhD students get during their studies,” Ms Braddon said.
ORIGINS is the largest longitudinal study of its kind in Australia following 10,000 parents and their children, from their time in the womb and into early childhood, to improve child and adult health.
Through biological sample collection, routine data and web-based questionnaires, ORIGINS has built an online Data Catalogue with more than 400,000 samples in its Biobank and 16 million data points in its Databank.
PhD students that complete their research with ORIGINS will receive financial support to access data, along with biostatistics support, and access to an ORIGINS supervisor to oversee their research project, assist with funding proposals, paper submission and publication.
All students who undertake research with ORIGINS also get access to The Kids Research Institute’s Student Support Program, additional scholarship and award opportunities, and access to the institute’s health and wellbeing program.
For further information on working with ORIGINS as a PhD student, please visit our students page.