The most outstanding former students of Redlands College
We asked Brisbane schools to nominate their most outstanding former students and the response has been overwhelming. Today we present Redland College’s most notable alumni.
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We asked Brisbane schools to nominate their most outstanding former students and the response has been overwhelming. From Supreme Court judges to musicians, artists and more than a few politicians, their lists prove our schools have long been producing leaders in their fields and continue to do so. Today we present Redland College’s most notable alumni.
BRISBANE HIGH SCHOOLS ALUMNI HONOUR ROLLS
* Brisbane Girls Grammar School
* St Rita’s College College, Clayfield
LAURA ALLEWAY
Professional footballer
Class of 2007
Laura began her professional football career with the Melbourne Victory, playing with them in the first two seasons of Australia’s W-League.
A talented defender, she has since played with the Brisbane Roar (2010-2015), Melbourne City (2015-16) and Orlando Pride (2016-17) before returning to the Melbourne Victory in 2017.
Laura was first selected for the Matildas in 2010 and has since played 60 internationals, including the 2011 and 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cups, the 2017 Tournament of Nations and the 2016 AFC Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
In 2015 she was nominated for the PFA Women’s Footballer of the Year, which recognises the most outstanding Australian footballers playing abroad or in the A-League as well as foreign players playing in the A-League.
DUNCAN MCCONNELL
Program Director Paramedicine at Griffith University
Class of 1995
A senior lecturer in paramedicine at Griffith University, Duncan is also Foundational Director of Paramedicine in the QUT School of Medicine.
He was the developer of a world-first ambulance simulator which uses the fully-equipped rear of a real ambulance and simulates the motion of a moving vehicle, enabling students to learn lifesaving skills in conditions they will experience on the job.
Duncan also works across developing countries designing and implementing EMS/ambulance/paramedic services and systems, based on the needs of the countries’ health systems.
In 2018, he and a QUT colleague went to Mongolia with donated with life-saving trauma kits to deliver multi-casualty and disaster training to more than 60 doctors and nurses.
In his spare time, Duncan is a professional guitarist and singer and recently toured Australia in the Class of 59 Rock Around Australia Tour, performing as “Eddie Cochran”.
TABITHA BIRD
Class of 1993
Author
Tabitha had been working on her first novel for five years before she, her husband and three sons moved to country Boonah from suburban Brisbane six years ago.
She immediately recognised the majestic 80-year-old Queenslander that had become the family home was an ideal setting for the partly-finished A Lifetime of Impossible Days, which was named the Women’s Weekly’s book of the month for August 2019.
A Lifetime of Impossible Days has won critical acclaim and been described as “a novel of childlike wonder and optimism, run through with a dark seam of secrets”.
Tabitha says she did not realise she had the ability to write until she started attending sessions with counsellor Esther Diplock, who encouraged her to write about her “chaotic’’ childhood with a violent father.
“As a child I did tell stories to my sister, I would tell stories to whoever would listen. I was always a storyteller but it never occurred to me I could be a writer,’’ she said in a recent interview.
SAMUEL OSOSKI
Class of 2010
Movie costume and wardrobe designer
Since leaving Redlands College, Samuel has worked on major productions such as Pokeoman Detective Pikachu, Dumbo, Holmes and Watson, The Mummy and Mission: Impossible - Fallout.
But maybe his greatest coupe has been going from being a fan of outrageous singer Lady Gaga to designing some of her outfits.
After wearing one of Samuel’s bespoke creations at a 2017 Christmas party, the star rang in 2019 at a Las Vegas party wearing a full outfit and accessories designed by him, with online reports describing him as an “up-and-coming costume designer”.
MATTHEW HUDSON
Class of 2009
Supreme Court lawyer
A lawyer of the Supreme Court of Queensland since March 2015, Matthew is also a forensic accountant and senior manager with Brisbane firm SV Partners.
He is a founding member and current leader of SV Voidables and the voidable recovery team.
His specialties include preparing expert solvency or insolvency reports for court and dealing with complex insolvency disputes.
JENNY TAIT
Class of 2012
National volleyball player
Jenny was introduced to volleyball by her Year 8 physics teacher at Redlands College, who suggested she try out for the school team because of her height.
At 186cm, she excelled at the sport and represented Queensland at Under-15, Under-17 and Under-19 National Championships as well as playing for Australia in junior teams.
After leaving school in 2012, Jenny headed to Campbell University in North Carolina on a volleyball scholarship and has now graduated and returned to Australia to train with the AIS Centre of Excellence Team.
She was named in the Australian Volleyroos women’s squad and has participated in the 2017 FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix and 2018 FIVB Volleyball Women’s Challenger Cup.
She is currently in Austria, playing with the Volleyball Club Tirol.
MATT KELLY
Class of 2005
Managing director Just Media Design
Matthew is co-founder and managing director of Just Media Design, a social media advisory agency, which has millions of people actively engaged.
He also co-founded the Living Outrageously Podcast, which has a following of 70,000 global viewers and wrote Outsource Your MVP, a No.1 ranked book which is now in its fourth edition.
In 2016 he was named the Queensland Young Achiever of the Year in the online category.
GREG SULLAVAN
Class of 1994
Award winning photographer
Greg is a professional photographer and an ambassador with Canon Collective - a national photography community led by some of Canon’s best photographers who host workshops and events across Australia to help improve peoples’ photography skills.
After graduating from the Queensland College of Art with a Bachelor of Visual Arts degree, Greg worked as a professional portrait photographer and founded his own wedding and portrait photography studio in 2005.
He is Master Photographer with the Australian Institute of Professional Photography and has won numerous awards at state, national and international level.
DR ALEX DEAGON
Class of 2006
QUT senior lecturer
Dr Alex Deagon is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at Queensland University of Technology, where his research focuses on jurisprudence, law and theology, and freedom of religion.
His PhD, which argued for a theological foundation of law through John Milbank, was awarded without alteration and received the Chancellor’s Medal. The PhD was subsequently published as a book From Violence to Peace: Theology, Law and Community.
Dr Deagon has also been published in prestigious national and international journals, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Law, Culture and the Humanities, the Griffith Law Review and the Federal Law Review. He teaches in Theories of Law, Constitutional Law, and Evidence.
DR JOSHUA FRANCIS
Class of 1999
Paediatrician and infectious disease specialist
Dr Francis is a paediatric infectious diseases specialist at Royal Darwin Hospital whose work is largely focused on Indigenous and global child health, with involvement across the Top End and in Timor-Leste.
He has established strong links between health services in Timor-Leste and the Northern Territory for the provision of clinical services, training opportunities for Timorese and Australian clinicians and collaboration in clinical research with a focus on rheumatic heart disease, tuberculosis and clinical microbiology.
A senior lecturer at James Cook University, Dr Franics is also an honorary clinical fellow at Menzies School of Health Research.
He helped develop antibiotic guidelines which are an important resource for health workers in Timor-Leste treating and preventing infections such as tuberculosis, rheumatic heart disease and pneumonia, especially in young children.
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