UNSW Associate Professor Gordian Fulde has been awarded the 2016 NSW Senior Australian of the Year for his work leading the emergency department at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital.

Associate Professor Fulde, from St Vincent's Clinical School, is the longest serving emergency department director in Australia, having served as the Director of Emergency at St Vincent's Hospital and Sydney Hospital for more than three decades.

As the doctor on call when disaster strikes, has seen it all and is passionately outspoken about the scourge of ‘ice’ and alcohol-fuelled violence which delivers a flood of people into Australian hospitals each weekend.

Associate Professor Fulde is also actively involved in teaching and training students and staff in many facets of emergency medicine. A member of the Board of the Thomas Kelly Youth Foundation, he also supports many schools and community organisations, sharing his stories of working in an urban war zone, and warning of the dangers of a binge drinking culture which is overwhelmingly the main cause of injury in Australia’s emergency departments.

UNSW alumna and former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick, who was recently awarded an honorary Doctorate of Laws by UNSW for “eminent service to both the Australian and international community”, has been named 2016 NSW Australian of the Year for her work as a social change innovator.

A full list of the 2016 NSW Australian of the Year finalists can be found here. The national awards will be announced on 25 January 2016 in Canberra.