A past winner of the Club’s Baden Wales Scholarship has won a World debating championship. ANNA GARSIA won the World University Debating Championship in Vancouver, Canada, late last year, five years after winning the Club’s annual bursary for academic achievement. By BEN JOHNSON
The honour follows another outstanding gong for the 23-year-old – the 2005 University Medal for Biochemistry Honours.
The daughter of Dr Roger Garsia, one of Australia’s leading immunologists who pioneered HIV research after winning the Baden Wales scholarship and a University Medal himself 30 years ago, represented the University of Sydney.
Her and team-mate Julia Bowes were shock winners of the annual championship, hosted by the University of British Columbia in 2006. “It was surreal – we had never expected it,” Ms Garsia told the Journal from an internet café in Italy a few weeks after her win. “I had to keep pinching myself for days.
“It was also incredibly exciting – just amazing really.” The brilliant pair were initially overlooked by Sydney University’s selectors and thus dubbed the G-team in one metropolitan newspaper report. |