Dr Rong Zhu wins 2022 SA Young Tall Poppy Science Award

In August 2022, Flinders University's Dr Rong Zhu was awarded the 2022 SA Young Tall Poppy Science Award. Created in 1998, this award recognises young scholars’ contributions to research and communication and community engagement.

“I am grateful to the research environment that has made my research outputs possible,” says Dr Zhu. “As a winner of the Award, I will take part in activities organised by SA government to promote interests in science among students and teachers and in the broader community. My first activity is to help at the Tall Poppy Booth in STEM Day Out – Science Alive! at the Adelaide Showground.”

Dr Zhu's research areas include health, labour and education economics, and economic evaluation of social policies (eg Age Pension reform, poverty reduction). These research areas align with two of the College of Business, Government and Law's strategic focus points—health and social impact.

He has published 38 journal articles (7 as sole author, 25 as corresponding author). According to 'Publication in the last 10 Years, Research Papers in Economics (RePEc)'—the world’s largest economics database—Dr Zhou is ranked in the top 5% economists globally, top 5% in Australia, and 2nd in SA.

In 2021, Dr Zhu was appointed as a Research Fellow of the prestigious Institute of Labour Economics (IZA) and a Fellow of the Global Labour Organisation (GLO).

And Dr Zhu's community engagement is equally impressive!

He is one of 12 members from academia (the only economist) serving on the Research Working Group for the National Strategy of Volunteering, which will be launched in February 2023 by Volunteering Australia. He is also an editorial board member for the Volunteering Research Papers Initiative at Volunteering Australia.

Dr Zhu has enjoyed working with the media, including a telephone interview with ABC News (2021), SA talkback radio FIVEaa (2019), written articles for The Conversation (2020) and The Austaxpolicy Blog (2021).

In November 2021, upon invitation, he delivered an online research presentation to the World Bank. Dr Zhu has also offered support to external postgraduate students as well as SA high school students in their research projects.