Engineering champion Grant Maher awarded 2023 Kernot Medal

Grant Maher, founding Director at engineering consultancy Jabin Group and inaugural Chairman of Engineers Australia’s Indigenous Engineers Group, has been awarded the 2023 University of Melbourne Kernot Medal, which recognises distinguished engineering achievements and the championing of engineering in Australia.

Mr Maher is a proud descendant of the Gumbaynggirr and Biripi nations of Northern New South Wales, and his Brisbane-based Jabin Group is Indigenous owned and managed. He has extensive engineering achievements, having worked in façades, design management, procurement and fabrication in government, aviation, defence, residential and commercial sectors.

His work includes creating new traffic control towers for RAAF bases across Australia, designing and testing the façade for the new Powerhouse Museum in Parramatta and developing sustainable, and cyclone-proof housing for remote and regional communities delivered as a flat-pack that can be erected by locals within 16 hours.

To increase Indigenous participation in engineering, Mr Maher, an Engineers Australia Fellow, worked with Engineers Australia to develop an Indigenous Engineers Chapter to form a united group of shared knowledge, perspectives and empowerment for Australia’s First Nation’s engineers. He has been the group’s Chair since its establishment in 2016.

“When I decided to study engineering in Year 10 during an Engineering Summer School, I had not met an Indigenous engineer,” Maher said.

“I am now dedicated to ensuring the next generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth are aware of the many opportunities engineering offers."

The University of Melbourne Kernot Medal was established in 1926 in memory of the University’s first Professor of Engineering, William Charles Kernot, and has previously been awarded to notable engineers such as Sir John Monash and Sir John Holland.