Speakers at CONASTA 54 include:
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Professor Peter Doherty
AC FAA FRS
Stanhope Orator
BVSc MVSc (University of Queensland), PhD (University of Edinburgh)
Nobel Laureate, Physiology or Medicine (1996)
Laureate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne. more.. |
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Dr Lloyd Hollenberg
BSc(Hons), PhD (University of Melbourne)
Associate Professor, School of Physics, University of Melbourne.
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Dr Elizabeth Truswell
BSc (UWA), PhD (Cambridge)
Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science
Board Member: Cooperative Research Centre on Coastal Zone Estuaries and Waterways
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Professor Cliff Malcolm
BSc (Hons), BEd (Melbourne Univ.) & PhD (Univ. of Saskatchewan).
Professor of Science Education, Director of the Centre for Education Research, Evaluation, and Policy, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
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Dr Lawrence Ingvarson
BSc DipEd UWA, DipEd MA London, PhD Monash
Research Director (Teaching and Learning) at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)
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Mr Tom Evison
BA DipEd MA (Macquarie University)
Senior Lecturer, Coordinator of the Central Australian Campus, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education.
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Special Event Speakers
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Group Leader
Genetics Education
Murdoch Childrens Research Institute
Royal Children's Hospital
Parkville, Victoria, Australia
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Celebrating the International Year of Physics
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Dr MaryAnne Aitken
After completing a BSc in 1984 at Melbourne University, MaryAnne went on to train as a general nurse at the Mercy Private Hospital. In 1988 she returned to the Genetics Department of Melbourne University to do her honours year in molecular biology. Following this saw nearly 5 years at Monash University researching genes involved in human labour and birth culminating in the awarding of a PhD in 1994. After spending some time researching gene therapy and HIV at the Macfarlane Burnet Centre, MaryAnne completed the Graduate Diploma of Genetic Counselling in 1996 and has been working in genetics education ever since. MaryAnne has a keen interest in community education, public awareness and genetic screening programs. MaryAnne is married with four children.
Click here for Dr Aitken's abstract: Genetics 54 –The Human Genome Unplugged
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Professor Peter Doherty AC
On gaining his BVSc Peter Doherty worked as veterinary officer for the Queensland Department of Primary Industries before embarking on postgraduate studies and a career in biomedical research.
After gaining his PhD Peter Doherty returned to Australia in 1972 to join the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra, where he switched from animal to human-pathogen studies and carried out research on histocompatibility antigens with Rolf Zinkernagel. The importance of this work was recognised through a number of awards including West Germany's Paul Ehrlich Prize (1983); the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award USA (1995); and the 1986 Gairdner International Award for Medical Science, Canada. It was for this work that Peter Doherty and Rolf Zinkernagel were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1996.
Peter Doherty's career has since been divided between this country and the USA. After taking up the offer of an Associate Professorship at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, he has subsequently been Head of the Department of Experimental Pathology at John Curtin School of Medical Research, then led research in viral immunology at St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis before taking up his current position at the University of Melbourne in 2002.
Peter Doherty holds honorary doctorates from 15 other universities including the ANU; Edinburgh; London (Imperial); Berne; and Pennsylvania, and is the recipient of numerous other awards including include election to the Royal Society of London, the Australian Academy of Science and the US National Academy of Sciences
Peter Doherty says of himself:
“My characteristics as a scientist stem from a non-conformist upbringing, a sense of being something of an outsider, and looking for different perceptions in everything from novels, to art to experimental results. I like complexity, and am delighted by the unexpected. Ideas interest me.”
While maintaining an active research program, he is also an advocate for innovation, liberal education and the role of science in society
Professor Peter Doherty is the Patron of the Australian Science Teachers' Association.
Click here for Prof Doherty's abstract: Science in society, the retreat from reason into fantasy
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Mr Tom Evison
Until 1997 Tom Evison taught Science in secondary classrooms for 17 years: in Sydney's west, Sydney central, rural NSW and the South Pacific. The schools were government and private, conservative to ‘alternative', and elite to seriously disadvantaged. The periods in the classroom were interspersed with youth work in Western Sydney, biological research in Sabah, Malaysia, postgraduate studies in science education and teacher education, and five years training Science teachers at Macquarie University and in Zimbabwe.
Tom began with (the then) Batchelor College in 1997 as a community-based Teacher Education lecturer in Maningrida, Arnhemland then moved to Batchelor's Central Australian campus in Alice Springs. Since then he has been teaching Indigenous students studying VET and higher education courses in Adult Education and Primary and Early Childhood Teaching, with extensive travel to Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, northern South Australia and to a lesser extent other States.
For the past five years he has been a Senior Lecturer in Education, coordinating Education studies courses and developing higher education curricula. In 2003 he was a member of the Reference Group for the Review of Secondary Education in the Northern Territory and in 2004 was elected to the Batchelor Institute Council.
Tom's current role includes the coordination of Batchelor's Central Australian campus and final work on the development and construction of the Desert Peoples Centre, a consortium between Batchelor Institute and the Centre for Appropriate Technology – promising an innovative way of approaching Indigenous tertiary educational and enterprise pathways for desert peoples.
Tom has an abiding interest in working in intercultural contexts around the world and is a member of the Council of Australian Volunteers International. A particular focus in his work is the role of culture in the learning and teaching of science. His other interests include making music, walking, climbing and marathon kayaking.
Click here for Mr Tom Evison's abstract: Responding to Indigenous Cultures in Science Education
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Dr Lloyd Hollenberg
Lloyd Hollenberg is a member of the Theoretical Particle Physics research group within the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne. He is also the manager for ‘Device Modelling & Algorithms' within the inter-university Centre for Quantum Computing.
Lloyd Hollenberg has diverse interests, one is music. Hollenberg the pianist was looking for a more portable instrument and became interested in the didgeridoo. Learning to play the ‘didge' led him to wonder about its acoustics - and to another strand of research. Contact with Professor Neville Fletcher (ANU) who had carried out initial research into the didgeridoo led Lloyd to extensive work with Fletcher and others to investigate the physics of the instrument.
Learning to play the instrument involved mastering the technique of ‘circular breathing' and Lloyd's subsequent investigations have included having an MRI scan made of his vocal tract while playing a specially constructed ‘didge' within the constricted space of the scanner. Computing and didge acoustics have come together in work to produce an automated system for the transcription of didgeridoo music.
Lloyd Hollenberg has lectured widely within Australia and overseas on ‘acoustics of the didgeridoo', but the route to physics which has enabled this was rather fortuitous: as a teenager an interest in tinkering with gadgets suggested a career in engineering until a TV program on relativity seen while in year 12 excited an interest in physics. This competed with the attractions of gymnastics (which do assist with classical mechanics), but physics won out when Lloyd declined an offer from the Australian Institute of Sport to accept a place at the University of Melbourne.
Click here for Dr Hollenberg's abstract: The Yidaki (Didjeridu): a triumph of mind over matter
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Dr Lawrence Ingvarson
Lawrence Ingvarson is known to Australian science teachers through his work in connection with Professional Standards for teachers of science. This work, and that in related areas such as teacher professional learning, teaching and leadership standards, and methods for assessing teacher performance have brought international recognition of his expertise. This is built upon a long and broad career which began with his work as a science and mathematics teacher in WA. Lawrence then taught in the UK, before undertaking further studies at the University of London and lecturing at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Prior to taking up his current position at ACER early in 2001, he was an Associate Professor at Monash University in Melbourne.
As well as working extensively in Australia, the UK and the USA on reforms related to professional development, the quality of teaching and teacher career structures he has been a consultant to the Ministries of Education in Chile and China on standards-based teacher education reforms. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of East Anglia (1978), Stanford University (1988) and Michigan State University (1998). Lawrence received a Distinguished Service Award from the Australian Science Teachers Association in 2001.
Lawrence Ingvarson's recent work has included a review of standards of practice for beginning teaching for the Victorian Institute of Teaching and a study of initiatives to address teacher shortage for the Victorian Department of Education and Training. He has worked extensively in these fields of research in Australia and overseas.
Click here for Dr Ingvarson's abstract:
Releasing professional power: Leading from
the classroom
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Professor David Jamieson
Based at the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne, Professor David Jamieson is the director of the Melbourne node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computer Technology. This Centre, which comprises more than 90 staff along the east coast of Australia, is working on new ways of storing and processing information using the strange laws of quantum mechanics.
Specifically, the Centre addresses the key requirements for a solid-state quantum computer which involve the fabrication of silicon devices doped with just two phosphorus atoms separated by a distance of only 60 nanometers. By using metal gates on the device surface, it is possible to control the single electron transfer between two phosphorus atoms: this forms the basis of a new generation type “logic gate” - a fundamental construct common to modern computers. For his research, David and his team rely on instrumentation such as a 5 million volt Pelletron particle accelerator, a clean room facility that houses lasers for Raman spectroscopy and a new focused ion beam microscope which is capable of high-resolution imaging and etching of materials.
He completed his doctoral thesis in physics at the University of Melbourne in 1985 and then spent a number of years working at Caltech (USA) and the University of Oxford (UK) as a postdoctoral research fellow. He has been a finalist in the Australian Awards for University Teaching and has published over 160 papers in scientific journals including one book. In the Einstein International Year of Physics 2005 he became President of the Australian Institute of Physics.
Click here for Prof Jamieson's abstract: Einstein’s theory of relativity: outrageous but true
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Erin Landells
Erin is responsible for schools programs across the three Zoos Victoria properties, as well as managing the Melbourne Zoo Discovery & Learning team to deliver authentic learning experiences to our visitors. Erin draws on a broad range of experience in cultural and scientific organisations including Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne Aquarium and Werribee Open Range Zoo.
The Discovery and Learning team welcomes some 75000 face to face school visitors and 45000 non lesson visitors per year via a range of interactive and active learning programs. DISCOVER and LEARN on a journey through many exciting programs and projects. Experience hands-on MAGIC MOMENTS that so many school children and visitors take away with them after a visit to the zoo.
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Professor Cliff Malcolm
Cliff Malcolm is familiar to Australian science teachers for his innovative work in science curriculum policy and as author and editor of science texts. Before moving to South Africa in 1997 Cliff Malcolm had a long career in Australia, as a teacher, policy developer, writer and researcher. He has taught at all levels of education from Kindergarten to PhD.
After completing his PhD in nuclear physics in Canada in the early 70s Cliff Malcolm taught in Primary and Secondary teacher education programmes at Melbourne State College. From the mid 1980s he led major science curriculum projects including the Curriculum Frameworks (K-10) for the Victorian Ministry of Education and study designs in the sciences for the Victorian Certificate of Education (11-12). In the early 1990s he became Coordinator of the National Science Curriculum and Teaching Program and was a leading author of the Australian Science Profile.
In 1997 he moved to South Africa as visiting professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, then in 2000 to the University of Durban Westville (now the University of KwaZulu Natal), as Professor of Science Education and Director of the Centre for Education Research, Evaluation, and Policy. He has been active in science education policy development in South Africa, and as a member of the Executive of the Southern African Association of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education. His central research interests are learner-centred education, equity and social justice, especially in rural areas and townships in South Africa.
He took a leading role in framing the Nelson Mandela Foundation study of rural education.
Click here for Prof Malcolm's abstract: Unplugged in South Africa
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Col Pamela Melroy
Pamela Melroy joined the United States Air Force while a student and after completing her Masters degree undertook Pilot Training, graduating in 1985. Following work as copilot, aircraft commander and instructor pilot, she took part in Just Cause and Desert Shield/Desert Storm , with over 200 combat and combat support hours. In June 1991 she began training as a test pilot and worked in this role until her selection for the astronaut program. She has logged over 5 000 hours flight time in over 45 different aircraft.
Pamela Melroy was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in December 1994 and after a year of training qualified for flight assignment as a shuttle pilot. She has served as pilot on two flights, performed four space walks and prepared the International Space Station for its first resident crew.
Pam is a Member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the Order of Daedalians, and the 99s. She is Recipient of the Air Force Meritorious Service Medal, First Oak Leaf Cluster; Air Medal, First Oak Leaf Cluster; Aerial Achievement Medal, First Oak Leaf Cluster; and Expeditionary Medal, First Oak Leaf Cluster.
She has been visiting speaker to the South Australian Space School.
Her hobbies include theatre, tap and jazz dancing, reading, cooking, and flying.
Click here for Col Melroy's abstract: Human Space Exploration - Space Shuttle, Space Station, and Beyond
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Professor Richard (Dick) Strugnell
Dick Strugnell has been at The University of Melbourne since 1991 and a Professor since October 2001. Before 1991 he was an NHMRC CJ Martin Fellow at Monash University, The University of Birmingham (UK) and the Wellcome Research Laboratories, Beckenham (UK). Prof Strugnell has expertise in studying infection and infection immunity, and in the identification of bacterial gene products which might be targeted by an effective immune response, e.g. in vaccines. His recent research focus has been on the role of mucosal antibody responses in primary and reinfection immunity. He teaches in Year 3 of the BSc in medical microbiology, runs an active, NHMRC-funded research group of Honours and PhD students, and is an Associate Dean of the School of Graduate Studies at The University of Melbourne. Dick is currently Deputy Director of the CRC for Vaccine Technology, an Australian government funded collaboration supporting the development of new and improved human and veterinary vaccines. He is a Regional Editor for the journal VACCINE, sits on the Melbourne University Private Senate, and is a member of the Management Committee of GTAC (the Gene Technology Access Centre). He serves on National (NHMRC) and international (IAVI, GAVI) project evaluation committees. He is 48 and has two children who have shown a keen interest in the sciences.
Topic – Molecular Biology can't be ignored
Dick will discuss the penetration of molecular biology into all disciplines of biological research, the raising of consciousness in molecular biology brought on by the GMO/GM food debates, and the challenge to provide a secondary curriculum that yields a simplified explanation of often very complex phenomena, while retaining the excitement and intrinsic beauty of many recent biological discoveries.
Click here for Prof Strugnell's abstract: Molecular Biology can't be ignored
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Dr Elizabeth Truswell
Elizabeth Marchant Truswell was born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. During her undergraduate studies she discovered the field of palynology (the study of fossil and living pollen grains and plant spores), which allowed her to combine a love of botany with geology. After completing her BSc in 1962 at the University of Western Australia, she worked as a time for a consultant to Western Australian Petroleum.
Elizabeth Truswell received a British Commonwealth Scholarship in 1963 and went to Cambridge University, where she was awarded a PhD in 1966. On her return to Australia she again worked for Western Australian Petroleum (1969-1971).
In 1971-73 Dr Truswell was a postdoctoral research scientist at Florida State University, USA, where she became interested in deep-sea drilling and how it relates to Antarctic floral history.
In 1973 Truswell moved to Canberra to take up a position with the Bureau of Mineral Resources, now the Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO). She remained with AGSO until 1996.
Since leaving AGSO, Elizabeth has returned to an earlier interest in art and in particular to an exploration of the interaction between art and science. She has exhibited works at the Canberra School of Arts.
Dr Truswell is currently a member of the board of the Cooperative Research Centre on Coastal Zone Estuaries and Waterways. She has also served on the board of the UNESCO International Geological Correlation Program, has been chair of the UNESCO Science and Technology Network for Australia and served on the Antarctic Science Advisory Committee.
Dr Truswell was elected to Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science in 1985.
Click here for Dr Truswell's abstract: Celebrating the Past in Art and Science
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Professor Rachel Webster
Professor Rachel Webster has had a stellar career teaching and researching astronomy for over 20 years. Originally gaining her doctorate thesis at Cambridge University, she has spent productive years honing her skills in Canada at the University of Toronto, both teaching and doing research. Her work has been internationally recognized with internationally prestigious scholarships. She was also the inaugural AIP Woman in Physics Lecturer. In 1992, she decided to return to The University of Melbourne to take up a position as a teaching and research academic within the School of Physics where she currently leads the Astrophysics research group comprising 18 research students and staff.
Her group is varied and diverse and covers both observational and theoretical research areas. Her observational program utilises world class equipment such as the Australia Telescope Compact Array, the Gemini Telescopes, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory amongst other instruments. She is a key member of an international consortium involving Australian and American astrophysicists to help design and build a new low frequency radio telescope (Widefield Array) at Mileura in Western Australia. This major project aims to detect the first sources in the universe. Such information is gleaned from her theoretical studies and detection of reionised hydrogen atoms and the structural analysis of neutral hydrogen clouds.
Professor Webster's other interests include quasar emission regions, gravitational lensing and cosmology.
Click here for Prof Webster's abstract: Einstein’s theory of relativity: outrageous but true
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