At this year’s Science at the Shine Dome— the flagship event of the Australian Academy of Science — MegaMove’s Research Director, Lead Coordinator and Founder, Assoc Prof Ana M. M. Sequeira, was awarded the prestigious Fenner Medal for Biology 2024.

The Fenner Medal recognises outstanding contributions to the biological sciences by researchers within 10 years post-PhD. Ana was recognised for her work leading large-scale analyses of marine megafauna movement and for building global collaborations to better understand how human pressures affect highly mobile species. These efforts form the foundation of MegaMove’s mission to synthesise movement data across jurisdictions to improve marine conservation outcomes.

The award was presented during the Academy’s annual ceremony, held at the Shine Dome in Canberra. The 2024 edition marked the 70th anniversary of the Academy and brought together scientists from across disciplines. The event concluded with a gala dinner at the National Arboretum, attended by Her Excellency the Hon Ms Sam Mostyn AC and the Hon Ed Husic MP.

This recognition reinforces the importance of bringing together global tracking data for understanding how marine species move through the global ocean overlapping with human pressures — a key theme in MegaMove’s work and one of the major challenges to conservation in the ocean decade ahead.