Professor Glenda Halliday has been recognised with a Companion of the Order of Australia

Professor Glenda Halliday has been acknowledged for her medical research in the field of neurodegenerative disorders, including the development of revised diagnostic criteria for Parkinson's disease.

She spent her formative years in Glen Innes where she attended primary and high school before moving on to the University of NSW in 1982.

Ms Halliday is the founder of the Sydney Brain Bank and was named NSW Scientist of the Year in 2022.

She was also awarded the Robert A Pritzker Prize for Leadership in Parkinson's Research by the Michael J Fox Foundation in 2021, and the Nina Kondelos Prize by the Australian Neuroscience Society in 2011.

With a long list of awards and achievements, Ms Halliday said it was an honour to be part of the 2023 King's Birthday Honours List.

"It was an enormous honour and a humbling surprise," Ms Halliday said.

"I only found out about a week ago and it's nice to just be considered."

Her father was an engineer who went on to run a car shop in Glen Innes.

Ms Halliday quickly became a leader in her field once she began working in 1986.

She has been a Research Fellow in the National Health and Medical Research Council and Australian Research Council systems since 1988.

She was appointed Professor of Medicine in 2003 then of Neuroscience in 2008 and the NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow in 2010 at the University of New South Wales.

Now a NHMRC Leadership Fellow at the University of Sydney, she has successfully worked with many Australian and international researchers on important scientific questions on Parkinson's disease, alcohol toxicity, dementia with Lewy bodies, frontotemporal dementias and motor neurodegenerative diseases.

"I oversee a number of research programs to try and develop good tools to diagnose patients with neurodegenerative diseases," she said.

"I try to find treatments for the actual underlying disease itself, by looking for curative treatments.

"It is important work and hopefully it makes a difference in the future."

Former Glen Innes mayor, Colin Price, who Ms Halliday knows, has been battling Parkinson's Disease since 2008.

With medication he was able to fill the role of mayor from 2012 to 2016.

"It's unfortunate and it can happen to anyone. At the moment we still don't know why," Ms Halliday said.

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