The Academy congratulates Dr Beverley Kingston AM FASSA and Professor Skye McDonald AO FASSA, who were both recognised in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours List.
Professor Skye McDonald was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to clinical neuropsychology, and to research into social cognition disorders after traumatic brain injury.
Professor Skye McDonald is a Clinical Neuropsychologist at the University of NSW. She leads a NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Brain Recovery. Her research is in disorders in social, emotional and communication processes and neuropsychological rehabilitation more generally. She has developed novel approaches to assess and remediate emotion perception, social skills and communication in adults with traumatic brain injury. Her work extends to other neurological disorders such as dementia and developmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorders.
With colleagues, Professor McDonald developed Psycbite a database freely available on the internet that indexes all research ever published in English that provides empirical evidence attesting to the efficacy of treatment for neuropsychological disorders arising from acquired brain disorders. She has also been instrumental in the establishment of a rating scale and reporting guidelines to improve standards for reporting single case experimental studies.
Dr Beverley Kingston was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to community history, and to tertiary education.
Dr Kingston, is an honorary research fellow in the School of History at UNSW, and published A History of New South Wales in 2006. In 2009 the Pearl Beach Progress Association commissioned her to write Pearl Beach and progress – the story of a community and an ideal, 1929-2009.