PhD wins national medal

CRC associate student Dr Greg Penney has taken out a national award for his PhD research into operational effectiveness and firefighter safety during wildfire suppression.

Dr Penney, who completed his PhD with Edith Cowan University in October 2020, has been awarded the Eric Wigglesworth Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Education Medal by the Australian Institute of Health & Safety (AIHS).

The award brings with it a commemorative medal and certificate, a Professional Development Fund to the value of $3,000, and membership of the AIHS until June 30 2022.

“The Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC’s support was a big help in producing the study,” Dr Penney said.

“I plan on using the grant to fund professional executive development that will assist me to translate my research into tangible safety improvement in fire and emergency services practices for frontline responders.”

The National Eric Wigglesworth Award recognises achievement in OHS education in the Doctor of Philosophy, and recognises:

• a high level of OHS technical skill and knowledge
• the ability to apply OHS knowledge to practical solutions
• good communication skills.

The OHS Education Awards will be presented in accordance with the Wigglesworth Lecture on Thursday 17 June 2021.

CRC Research Director Dr John Bates congratulated Dr Penney on his award.

“The National Eric Wigglesworth Award is a testament to the value of Greg’s research and the work that he has put in over many years. Congratulations Greg,” Dr Bates said.

Dr Greg Penney is a Superintendent with the Department of Fire and Emergency Services in Western Australia, with more than 16 years’ operational and incident management experience, both as a firefighter and paramedic. His PhD research, Through the flames - quantitative analysis of strategic and tactical wildfire suppression, examined the critical components of bushfire suppression to improve firefighter safety and operational effectiveness during siege bushfire response. Dr Penney’s study adopted a fire engineering approach, incorporating both empirical and physics-based computer simulation to analyse suppression efforts with a significant focus on firefighter tenability.

Upon completion of his PhD, Dr Penney has written A Handbook of Wildfire Engineering: Guidance for Wildfire Suppression and Resilient Urban Design, which draws on his research and is designed to promote the emerging field of wildfire engineering and provide practical guidance to firefighters, incident management teams and urban planners to improve fire suppression operations, firefighter safety and resilience community design at the rural urban interface.