The debate over shipping’s lack of gender diversity appears to have now even reached the lofty heights of academia, with a woman winning the Onassis Prize in Shipping for the first time.
Professor Mary Brooks of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, will share this year’s award and $200,000 prize money with Professor Wayne Talley of Old Dominion University in the US state of Virginia.
Since the Onassis prizes in finance, trade and shipping were launched in 2007, they have been won exclusively by male academics.
Announcing the awards at a reception in London’s Mansion House, Alderman David Graves paid tribute to the lifetime contribution of the winners to better understanding the mechanisms underpinning trade, shipping and finance.
Professor Brooks has specialised in competition policy in liner shipping, strategic port management and shortsea shipping.
“I am so honoured to have been chosen as one of two recipients of the 2018 Onassis Prize in Shipping,” she said. “To be the second Canadian, and the first woman, to be awarded this most prestigious prize accorded to academics in the field makes it even more of an honour.
“I grew up in a small town in Nova Scotia, a province where shipping was critical to its history and economy, but I did not know then how important the industry was to global prosperity.
“No great journey of discovery is ever completed alone, and my success is shared with all the colleagues and mentors who worked with me over the years.”
Professor Talley is an expert in maritime and supply chain management. He intends to use the award as a platform to launch a PhD programme in maritime business, which would be the first for a university in the US.
Anthony Papadimitriou, president of the Onassis Public Benefit Foundation and chair of the judging panel, told guests at the reception that the awards were “the essence of excellence”.
“The contributions made to the research in these fields by today’s winners is such that we can safely say they have brought us not one but many steps closer to the knowledge we will enjoy in the future,” he said.
The awards will be presented at a banquet in London’s Guildhall in September.
