EVENTS CALENDAR



Talented Australian Artists Exhibit at the Agora Gallery, NYC

Agora Gallery  10-Feb-12

More Upcoming Calendar Events

 
 Dinner honoring Amgen's Kevin Sharer and
Chevron's Dave O'Reilly a runaway success
 

On November 9, over 500 people gathered at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City for the Association's 2009 Benefit Dinner honoring Kevin Sharer, CEO of Amgen and Dave O'Reilly, CEO of Chevron.


Fox 5 New York also covered the event - click here to view the clip.

The Dinner was an outstanding success with $1,850,500 in funds raised. The Benefit Dinner supports the Association's Education Fund.  Chevron led enthusiasm for the Education Fund announcing a Chevron Fellowship to enable top Australian postgraduate students to pursue advanced research in geology, geophysics or reservoir engineering in the US over the next 5 years.  In a surprise announcement, Amgen’s Kevin Sharer revealed that Amgen would be supporting a Fellow in the biopharmaceutical field. The crowd roared later in the evening when James Gorman announced that Morgan Stanley would also be supporting a multi year Fellowship.

GLEE's Amber Riley. 

Chevron's Dave O'Reilly and
Amgen's Kevin Sharer.

There were many highlights of the evening. Guests were treated to an exclusive preview of a musical rendition from an upcoming episode of FOX's hit show GLEE. 
 
Amber Riley, GLEE’s resident diva belted out a show stopping rendition of Don't Make Me Over followed by Imagine with a finale of Hate on Me.  Amber’s big voice bought the crowd to a hush as they realized they were witnessing the emergence of a new, huge talent.
The Association’s Education Fellows were presented with awards. Some Fellows gave brief presentations about how the Fellowship is a tipping point in the pursuit of their research dreams and goals. Ed Sanders (The Dow Chemical Company Fellow) spoke about energy, climate change and sustainability.  Tracy Slatyer (Qantas Airways Fellow) an astrophysicist spoke about her advancement of new theories to explain “dark matter” (unknown particles) which comprise 85% of the universe.  Anna Barron, the Neurological Fellow is developing new hormone therapies for preventing Alzheimer’s disease in women.

Special guests included champion Australian swimmer, Ian Thorpe OAM a five-time Olympic gold medalist and the first person to win six gold medals in one World Championship. An outstanding musical interlude was performed by Simon Gleeson and Natalie O'Donnell who were flown in from Melbourne especially for the evening.

The Association is delighted at the support and assistance provided by so many in making the Benefit Dinner such a great success and we thank you for the support as we continue to work towards strengthening the alliances between the United States and Australia.

Proceeds from the Benefit Dinner go towards building the Association's Education Fund. To date, more than 95 Fellows have received awards totaling over US$2.5 million to pursue studies in critical fields - from key medical research to sustainability - at top institutions such as MIT, Harvard and Princeton.

For further information on the Education Fund please contact Diane Sinclair Vice President diane.sinclair@aaanyc.org 

Click here for more photos from the 2009 Benefit Dinner.