20112011 Alumni Awards Judging Panel
Jen Tyrell, Counsellor (Education), Australian Embassy Beijing
Ms Tyrell is the Education Counsellor at the Australian Embassy in Beijing. Ms Tyrell is responsible for promoting cooperation with overseas education stakeholders, enhancing government to government relations, and providing strategic and policy intelligence on developments in the education sector.
Prior to taking up this position, Ms Tyrell worked in a number of roles across the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. During her time there, she has led reform and implemented initiatives in the senior schooling and vocational education and training sectors in Australia.
Ms Tyrell has an Arts/Science (Hons) degree from the University of Melbourne, majoring in History and Conservation Biology.
Edward Smith, Founding Member, The Australia China Alumni Association
Edward is a senior Australian businessman who has lived and worked in China for more than 15 years since first visiting in 1990. He holds a Bachelor of Information Systems degree from Monash University and is a fluent Mandarin speaker, having studied Chinese at Melbourne and Monash universities, as well as the Johns Hopkins Centre at Nanjing University and the Beijing Second Foreign Language Institute.
Edward’s career has spanned stints at National Australia Bank, the Australian Embassy in Beijing, and Austrade where he helped set up the Australian Consulate General in Guangzhou. He has also worked for Fortune 500 Japanese trading house, Kanematsu, and a leading US consulting company specializing in assisting Western companies to invest and establish operations in China. Edward co-founded the Beijing Consulting Group in 2000 with two partners and is now Managing Director. He is a former Deputy Chairman of the Australian Chamber of Commerce in Beijing where he served as a Board member for many years.
Edward founded the Australia China Alumni Association in early 2007 and has driven it from conception, to today working with 23 Australian University funding partners from across 5 states, as well as several Australian government agencies (including Austrade, AusAID, and AEI) and corporate partners.
Edward has extensive experience advising Western companies on doing business in China and has served on the board of several joint venture companies in China. He is married with three children and lives permanently in Beijing.
Eliza Chui, Consul (Education) and Education Commissioner for North Asia, Australian Consulate-General Shanghai
Eliza Chui is the Education Commissioner of Austrade for North Asia and Consul (Education) at the Australian Consulate-General in Shanghai. Her role is to contribute to overall leadership and direction in promoting Australian education in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea and Mongolia. Eliza is also the Country Team Leader of Austrade China overseeing the marketing and promotional work in education.
Before joining Austrade, Eliza had held wide-ranging managerial roles at five universities in three different countries. Her previous work portfolios included faculty administration, human resource management, donations and external affairs, Freedom of Information and copyright compliance, and research policy and performance analysis. Her knowledge and experience in international education dated back to the late 1980s when Australia de-regulated the provision of education to international students
Her professional highlights include being the recipient of the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Professional Staff, selected for a Commonwealth Government secondment for the quality audit of universities, and appointed as a member on the AVCC Publications Expert Group for research publications audit, and as speakers at international education forums.
Eliza holds the degrees of Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) and Master of Educational Administration, and a Certificate in English-Chinese Translation.