The 2015 VALA Student Award for a student at Monash University goes to Viviane Hessami.
Viviane Hessami holds degrees in History and Asian Studies and a PhD in Political Science from Monash University. She achieved outstanding results in the Postgraduate Diploma in Information and Knowledge Management at Monash University, receiving the highest marks in all the Library and Archives subjects and being awarded a Dean’s Achievement Award for her overall performance. She is also the recipient of the Australian Society of Archivists Margaret Jennings Award for the top student in an Archive course in Australia and the Mander Jones Award for the best student paper for her research essay on the Recordkeeping Issues Arising from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Viviane thoroughly enjoyed completing her Library professional placement at VicHealth during which she remodelled the way physical library resources were presented and she assessed VicHealth’s staff information needs and information access preferences in order to inform the development of a new Information Management portal. She is currently working at Monash University as a Teaching Associate and a Research Assistant in the Centre for Community and Social Informatics, collaborating on projects to facilitate access to Archives and Records and in the area of Community Informatics. She is also developing the website of the Records Continuum Research Group.
Congratulations, Viviane, and good luck!