Connect: UOW

CONNECT: UOW ISSUE 2 VOLUME 2 NOVEMBER 2013

EVOLUTION IN THE SPOTLIGHT PROFESSOR BERT ROBERTS P.7

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CONVERSATION ON CLIMATE P.2

PHILANTHROPY LIVES P.3

TRIUMPH IN CHINA P.4,5

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CONNECT: OPINION

THE CONVERSATION WE NEED TO HAVE ABOUT CARBON

BY PROFESSOR LESLEY HEAD

PROFESSOR LESLEY HEAD is an Australian Laureate Fellow and Director of the Australian Centre for Cultural Environmental Research at the University of Wollongong. This Opinion article was first published in July on The Conversation (www.theconversation.com.au). ecent conversations about carbon pricing are still framed within gentle themes of continuing growth and wellbeing, where no-one has to pay more for anything without being compensated.

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The words that need to be in our conversations are transformation, rationing and shared sacrifice.

Australian political leaders dance around the hard issues of climate change. There are no prizes for national leaders who bring bad news. The diabolical difficulty of turning around a fossil-fuel economy has contributed to five of them (Howard, Nelson, Turnbull, Rudd and Gillard) losing their jobs.

But there is no easy way to do this. The evidence is mounting that we are well past the point where climate change response can be a planned, gradual transition. It is much more likely that profound and unwanted change in the next few years will make a mockery of current policies on climate change and other issues (productivity, health, education).

It is time for both leaders and citizens to stop pretending that we can make the necessary changes without pain – for businesses, for households, for the economy. Yes it will cost jobs, but there will be a need for many different kinds of labour. We will have to do things for ourselves that fossil fuels have been doing for us. Yes it will cost money – it is the price to be paid for the free ecological ride we have been getting for several centuries. The changes needed are huge, and many of them will be forced on us before we are ready.

According to a recent report from Carbon Tracker and LSE, we need to keep 60-80% of the fossil fuel reserves already listed on world stock exchanges in the ground to have a chance of avoiding global warming of two degrees Celsius. Pricing in the risk to current investments of these “stranded assets” (coal, oil and gas) would lead to a new financial crisis. The report shows Australia as one of the world’s 12 most exposed stock exchanges, mainly due to our dependence on coal.

Put another way, we need to decarbonise at the rate of 9-10% per year for at least a decade to avoid two degrees of warming, compared with

targets of a 5% lowering of 2000 levels by 2020 under Government and Opposition commitments.

There is no historical analogy for how to do this; the 2008 Global Financial Crisis led to only a 1.4% decrease, which was quickly reversed. Innovative ideas are needed.

‘Australia needs a much more honest conversation about what that pain is going to feel like …’

And if you think keeping coal in the ground is not going to happen and business as usual is more likely, remember, many scholars think it is already too late to avoid two degrees of warming, due to the lag effects of emissions already in the atmosphere. Then we are on track for 4-6 degrees of warming with an increase in extreme events and fundamental changes in underlying conditions.

(No it doesn’t sound much, but that’s the temperature difference between now and the last ice age, in the opposite direction.)

Either way, neither the economy nor society will be able to operate as they do now.

Even adaptation research, long the poor cousin in climate change research because it was seen as giving up on mitigation, is evolving rapidly from a gradualist to a transformative framing. If climate change is incremental, many of Australia’s existing mechanisms are well placed to deal with the consequences of increasingly severe fires, floods and cyclones. We have good civil institutions of emergency management and a strong volunteer culture.

But these would be impossibly stretched under scenarios of sudden transitions and more extreme change. Many researchers are now pointing to the need for more “transformational adaptation”.

In its submission to the recent Productivity Commission Inquiry into Barriers to Climate Change Adaptation, CSIRO gave examples of how it would be necessary to change governance under a four degree warmer world: • significant changes to social policy to manage changing expectations of living standards and way of life;

• alternative governance arrangements in place as local governments become increasingly unable to cope, particularly in coastal areas.

Australia needs a much more honest conversation about what that pain is going to feel like for different groups in society (including those who will seek to come to our shores), how to share the necessary sacrifices with some semblance of justice and what our society might look like as it goes through a generation or two of transition. One word we’ll need to resurrect is rationing. We’ve shown we’re good at it during drought. People accepted limited water rationing if it was fairly applied and seen to be enforced. Can we start to imagine how society might operate once electricity and petrol need to be rationed?

The leaders for this conversation will be those who can strengthen the social contract between diverse parts of society, encouraging us all to tackle problems together and strengthen networks of support during times of rapid change.

POSTSCRIPT - OCTOBER Since this piece was published in July, Australia has elected a new Government promising to repeal the carbon pricing legislation and institute a “direct action plan”. I have not been able to find any policy literature in support of such action; experts overwhelmingly support a price-based mechanism. But is it possible that this “two steps back” approach will facilitate more transformative public conversations and actions than the creeping complacency of the previous timid emissions targets, framed within an ethic of business-as-usual?

Another decade or so without a price on carbon might force us to leapfrog to much more radical solutions, driven by citizens, businesses and local governments rather than state or federal ones. The findings of the latest IPCC report, released in the last few weeks, confirm how fundamental that task is.

(For a longer discussion of the context and issues (with detailed referencing), see: Head L., Adams M., McGregor H. and Toole S. 2013 Australia and Climate Change. WIRES Climate Change doi: 10.1002/wcc.255, forthcoming.)

2 CONNECT: UOW NOVEMBER 2013

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CONNECT: NEWS CONTRIBUTIONS REACH $682,000

UOW RETAINS TOP 2% RANKING he University of Wollongong (UOW) has consolidated a top two percent spot in the hotly-contested 2013 QS World University Rankings, released in September in the UK.

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Significantly, UOW has maintained a top one per cent spot in the world for the “employer reputation” of its graduates. This one per cent achievement is reinforced by the recent release of the 2014 Good Universities Guide where UOW scored the maximum 15 out of a possible 15 stars for the key categories of: “Getting a Job”, “Positive Graduate Outcomes” and “Graduate Starting Salary”.

In the latest QS round, UOW was ranked 276 overall and 100th in the world for how the University’s graduates are rated by their employers. It is the sixth year in a row that UOW has been rated in the top one per cent for the “employer reputation” category.

This year’s rankings show a marked improvement in the ratings of faculty areas on last year. In the area of engineering and technology UOW was ranked 128; social sciences and management (213), arts and humanities (234) and natural sciences (245). These four “areas” encompass all of UOW’s five faculties.

The University currently has a revitalisation program under way in which Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings is exploring ways to move UOW’s overall rating into a top 1% spot.

“A place in the top 1% of the world’s universities will advance our capacity to attract highly qualified staff and students that will, in turn, bring the recognition, skills and partnerships to enrich further the quality and impact of our research and teaching,” Professor Wellings said.

UOW has also been ranked in the top 25 young universities in the world.

The 2013 QS Top 50 under 50, which ranks the best universities in the world under the age of 50, placed UOW 24th in the world.

The rankings include nine Australian universities that were founded in 1963 or later. UOW gained its autonomy in 1975.

Professor Wellings said UOW improved six places since last year to move into the top 25 spot.

“This is an important indicator that UOW is moving in the right direction,” he said.

“We have been judged to be performing very well in the face of strong global competition from new universities, particularly in China, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore.” BG

Philanthropist Richard Miller (second from right) pictured with (from left) Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings, medical student Mariam Chaalan and dementia researcher Professor Brett Garner.

PHILANTHROPIST AIDS DEMENTIA RESEARCH ne man’s “great act of kindness” has already led to a life-changing experience for a UOW student and is also providing invaluable aid in the fight against Australia’s dementia epidemic.

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Retired dairy farmer Richard Miller knows only too well the devastation wrought by dementia as his wife, Janet, died from Alzheimer’s Disease.

Mr Miller has a strong passion for the Illawarra region and after the sale of the family dairy farming land he turned his attention to philanthropy.

He has been giving to UOW since 2008 through the Office of Advancement after forming close ties with Senior Development Coordinator Ainslie Tweedie and Director Monique Harper-Richardson. Mr Miller established the John and Belle Miller Memorial Endowment to support his giving and the fund was established in the name of his parents.

His philanthropy has focused on scholarships for financially disadvantaged undergraduate students across all faculties and medical research. Through his strong and personal interest in dementia, Mr Miller established the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute (IHMRI) Summer Scholarship Program to fund projects on dementia.

Over the past six years, he has gifted $182,000 and at a special morning tea ceremony in August UOW Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings announced Mr Miller’s pledge of $500,000 to establish the scholarship program in perpetuity. This will bring Mr Miller’s total support to UOW to $682,000 with the possibility of extending to $750,000.

Professor Wellings said Mr Miller was not only helping students who don’t have the financial resources to gain access to university but also helping to lift the profile of the invaluable work being done by dementia researchers at UOW. “We can only hope that others follow your example,” Professor Wellings said.

Professor Brett Garner from IHMRI told guests at the gift announcement that 300,000 people now suffer from dementia in Australia and this was going to rise dramatically to one million by 2050.

He said research teams were working across a range of areas to try to combat dementia, for which there is no cure at this stage.

“We deeply appreciate the Miller family support,” Professor Garner said.

One of the beneficiaries of Mr Miller’s generosity is final year medical student Mariam Chaalan who gave a vote of thanks on behalf of all the students benefiting from the philanthropy.

“Through your selflessness I was able to fulfil my dream of spending a six weeks stint at a hospital in Zimbabwe. It was a lifechanging experience for me,” Mariam said.

Mr Miller said his visit to the University for the announcement had been an “overwhelming occasion” for both himself and his sister, Judith, who accompanied him.

Mr Miller, who has no children himself, said he simply wanted to help young people aspire to achieve their aims.

“I have been gobsmacked at the intelligence and drive of these young people,” he said.

Professor Wellings described his giving as a “great act of kindness”.

He said he really wanted to do something for an institution like UOW which is doing so much good for the region.

He said the University was founded on the contributions of the local community and Mr Miller was carrying on that tradition.

“I believe that UOW has contributed more to advancing the diversity and reputation of Wollongong than any other organisation.” BG

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CONNECT: NEWS

OUR SOLAR DECATHLON T JACK BREEN was the Marketing and Communications Manager for TEAM UOW AUSTRALIA, which won the Solar Decathlon China competition in August.

This is his personal account of the team’s success:

f by the off chance you hadn’t heard of it, the Solar Decathlon China 2013 was a high profile international competition that challenged university teams to design, build and operate solar-powered houses that are costeffective, energy-efficient and attractive.

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It was co-hosted by the US Department of Energy and the National Energy Administration of China, and a group of 50 students and staff from UOW and TAFE Illawarra were lucky enough to head to the competition final in Datong, China in July and August of this year.

This was the first time the competition had been held in Asia and follows on from the highly successful US and European Solar Decathlons that have been held biannually since 2002 and 2010 respectively.

Team UOW was the first team from Australia to gain entry to any Solar Decathlon.

We took a unique approach to our entry, the Illawarra Flame, by being the first team in the history of the competition to demonstrate how to retrofit an existing home.

Solar Decathlon competitions aim to accelerate the development and adoption of advanced building energy technology in new and existing homes – and we were the first team in any SD

Team UOW Australia members on stage in Datong after being named winners of Solar Decathlon China 2013.

competition to address that existing homes bit.

That obviously resonated with the judges of the competition because, well… we won!

Notably, Team UOW Australia achieved the highest ever overall score of any Solar Decathlon, and SD China was the biggest ever Solar Decathlon, with a purpose built village for the site and over 200,000 visitors during the display period. Over 35,000 people toured through the Illawarra Flame House alone.

This project has been extremely significant for all the stakeholders involved in the project. We have certainly raised UOW and TAFE Illawarra’s profile in the sustainable buildings industry, worldwide. The students of the group have gained an incredible experience, both professionally and personally, which will set them up for fantastic careers. The building industry and the general public have been inspired by the project, and the possibilities that it has demonstrated for building

retrofits as a viable alternative to new build housing.

We have been contacted by builders, architects and interested individuals, wanting to find out more about retrofitting, the technology of the Illawarra Flame, and of course, how they can do this to their own homes.

So where did this retrofit idea come from? For Professor Paul Cooper, Director of the University’s newly established Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC), the concept of turning existing homes into the homes of the future, reducing the wastage involved with knocking down and rebuilding from scratch, was just common sense.

With retrofitting existing buildings at the heart of the SBRC’s research focus, it was a surprise to Professor Cooper that no previous Solar Decathlon entrants had attempted to demonstrate the retrofit of an existing home. With such an opportunity wide open, he spearheaded the project from the beginning, building up a team of academics and students who would go on to lead the project through to completion.

But building the team was no small feat.

Under the leadership of undergraduate Project Manager Lloyd Niccol, students were recruited to the project in a number of ways: some were handpicked by academics, some applied through internships and scholarships, and others were just passionate about sustainability and the environment. The project ran for over two years, and it was tough. Many students put in long hours, day after day, week after week. But the hard work was worth it.

UOW Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings opens the Illawarra Flame House erected on the competition site in Datong, China.

I think it would be safe to say that being involved in the Solar Decathlon China competition has been the best thing I’ve done in my time at UOW, but also a life experience that I will hold with me forever. It was not just the opportunity to travel to China twice, and to get to know students from over 35 countries around the world . This project

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CONNECT: NEWS

TEAM MAKES HISTORY has allowed me to get real world experience in my profession, to put my university knowledge into practice, and learn so much more than I could ever get from course work and assignments.

WINNERS HAVE THEIR MOMENT IN THE SUN

SOLAR DECATHLON CHINA 2013

I’m sure that my fellow ‘decathletes’ would agree, that the things we have taken from this experience are setting very sound foundations for our impending careers.

The fantastic thing about the Solar Decathlon competition entry was that it wasn’t just about one faculty, it was about true cross-collaboration between students from most of UOW’s faculties. This is because the decathlon is made up of 10 contests, each worth 100 points, ranging from Engineering and Architecture, to Communications and Market Appeal.

We had a real world problem to solve, and we brought our various skills and knowledge together to make it happen.

It’s an amazing thing to work so hard, and to have everything and everyone pull together so well to create something real, and something that people have a true interest in – a concept that can really change the way that retrofitting is thought about in Australia and the world.

Many students are now furthering their educations and building their own unique specialties in the sustainable buildings sector at the SBRC. In fact, one in four of the Team UOW group is currently studying at or working in the SBRC. This new entity of UOW’s Engineering and Information Sciences Faculty will be the home to the Illawarra Flame House when it returns to Australia in early 2014.

The house will be rebuilt next to the SBRC at the Innovation Campus, where it will be regularly opened to the public for display, and used by SBRC students and academics as a living laboratory facility.

The students will be able to test the technologies in the house and how it operates overall with real residents living in it.

Cross-collaborative, large-scale, student-led projects like the Solar Decathlon are the way forward for taking learning and practical experience to a whole new level. This is one way in which we’re going to take UOW to the top one per cent of universities in the world. JB

UOW Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings and TAFE NSW Illawarra Director Di Murray (front row, third and fourth from left) celebrated with TEAM UOW Australia at a special function held at the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre. he University of Wollongong gave its Solar Decathlon-winning Team UOW Australia a “rock star” welcome home from China with a celebration reception at the Innovation Campus in September.

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Team members emerged individually through a fog screen to enthusiastic applause from guests at the reception, appropriately held in the new Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC) which will be the eventual home of the Team UOW Australia’s winning Illawarra Flame house.

In August, the team won the Solar Decathlon at Datong in China, in which university teams from around the world had the task of designing and constructing a sustainable and energy-efficient building. The competition has been dubbed the “Energy Olympics”, and is recognised as one of the most important sustainability competitions in the world.

Team UOW Australia, made up of students from UOW and TAFE Illawarra, was the first ever Australian team to be invited to compete in the prestigious event.

Speakers at the celebration included UOW ViceChancellor Professor Paul Wellings, TAFE NSW Illawarra Institute Director Di Murray and SBRC Director Professor Paul Cooper, while Team UOW Project Manager Lloyd Niccol spoke about the team’s experience in China.

Mr Niccol spoke of the emotional roller-coaster ride as the final section votes were tallied. “We went from first place to eighth, then clawed our way back to the top,” he said.

Mr Niccol said more than 35,000 people had visited the Illawarra Flame house at the Solar Decathlon exhibition grounds at Datong, making it one of the most popular exhibits.

The team’s marketing manager Jack Breen also produced a video about the project which was shown at the celebration, giving guests an insight into the scale of the project and the size of the event in China.

Ms Murray said the partnership between TAFE Illawarra and UOW had been an extremely fruitful one, which opened up all kinds of possibilities for future collaboration.

Professor Wellings praised the team’s attention to detail, saying its ability to deal with the complexity of the project had given it a winning edge, and said it had been a exemplary representative for Australia at the competition.

“The team members were wonderful ambassadors, not just for their institutions, but for the Illawarra and for Australia,” he said.

Professor Wellings and Ms Murray combined to present Mr Niccol with the Solar Decathlon trophy as the team looked on.

The team took first place with 957.6 of a possible 1000 points (the highest score awarded in any Solar Decathlon competition).

While many teams took a futuristic approach, Team UOW devised an extremely practical concept for its entry – demonstrating how to transform a traditional Australian fibro cottage into a highly energy-efficient home through an innovative retrofit. Having constructed the Illawarra Flame house in Wollongong, the team took it apart and shipped it to China for the contest.

It is now on its way home from China and will be re-erected next to the SBRC early in 2014.

The house produces more energy than it uses, with features such as solar energy generation, phase change material integrated air heating system, thermal store, and grey-water recycling that uses an artificial wetland built into the garden to filter the water.

The victory has generated extensive global media coverage.

Emerging rock band The Vanns performed at the celebration, entertaining guests who included sponsors, civic leaders, UOW and TAFE staff and friends and family of the team members. NH

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CONNECT: APPOINTMENTS

MELVA ENJOYING THE VIEW OF UOW UOW’s Chief Administrative Officer Melva Crouch, who took up her role at UOW after a decade with the United Nations in Africa and New York. Prior to that she had spent 23 years in the Australian Defence Forces, rising to the rank of Colonel.

elva Crouch enjoys the view from her office window at the University of Wollongong. But it’s not just the vista through towering eucalypt trees west across the campus to Mt Keira that catches her eye.

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After the first few months in her job, UOW’s new Chief Administrative Officer says she also likes the look of the people who have helped shape the University.

“I have met so many people who are passionate about this University,” Ms Crouch said. “UOW is certainly a beautiful campus, but I see its strength in having so many passionate people who want to keep it a beautiful place … both physically and (as a good place) for its students.

“You certainly don’t see this level of engagement in every workplace. I see an important part of my role to hold and grow that passion … keeping people motivated to continue to love the place.”

Ms Crouch joined UOW after a distinguished career of 23 years in the Australian Army and 10 years at the United Nations. Her last role in the Australian Defence Force was as a Colonel based in Sydney, however she gained her enthusiasm for corporate support in Townsville in 1999-2000, where she was in charge of garrison logistical support for the Army and Air Force bases in Townsville and the Navy patrol boat base in Cairns.

For the past 10 years she has worked for the United Nations, serving in UN Peace Keeping Missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Western Sahara. Immediately prior to joining UOW she was Director of the UN’s Facilities and Commercial Services Division, based in New York. She believes her background in logistical support will help her in her new role looking after UOW’s administration operations.

“Coming into a university environment is obviously different from working at the United Nations, but at the end of the day

corporate support is all about getting to know what your clients need and responding to that,” she said.

She is excited to have joined UOW when it is on the cusp of a major transformational change, with a University-wide restructure of its nine faculties and two graduate schools into five larger faculties currently underway.

“This strategic change is providing the impetus for an organisation-wide adjustment to prepare the University for the future,” she said. “(Chief Finance Officer) Damien Israel and I are currently reviewing the University’s administrative systems to see what we can improve to make things better, faster and easier.”

However, she stressed she wasn’t interested in ill-considered change simply for the sake of change, and was taking a consultative approach seeking input from people with knowledge and experience of the University.

“We are taking a measured appraisal to improve the operation, to refresh it and revitalise it,” she said.

Ms Crouch, who was born in South Australia, said she was delighted to be back in Australia after a decade working for the UN in Africa and in New York.

“I’m very happy to be home in Australia,” she said. “It was definitely a lifestyle choice. I missed Australia … the weather, the sense of humour, the work ethic …

“My first impressions of Wollongong as a city have been very positive. And there is a lot of vibrancy here at the University, which is obviously playing an important part in shaping the city’s future.”

In her spare time Ms Crouch enjoys travel, reading, opera, visiting art galleries and museums and keeping fit. She is looking forward to making full use of Wollongong’s coastal cycling track and the pool and fitness facilities at the University Recreation and Aquatic Centre. NH

THREE NEW PRO V-CS APPOINTED The University of Wollongong has appointed three new Pro ViceChancellors during 2013 to help develop its strategic objectives.

PROFESSOR BARRY HARPER

Professor Mike Calford joined UOW in July as Pro Vice-Chancellor (Health and Medical Research) while in August two of UOW’s overseas-based academics Professor Trevor Spedding and Professor Barry Harper were given additional international roles.

Professor Spedding, who is President of the University of Wollongong in Dubai, now has an expanded role as Pro Vice-Chancellor Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Professor Harper, who was formerly Dean of Education and is currently based in Malaysia as Dean of Academic Programs for UOW’s partnership with INTI International University, has been appointed Pro Vice-Chancellor South East Asia (SEA).

UOW Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings said the expanded roles for Professor Spedding and Professor Harper focused on two world areas of significance to UOW’s future.

PROFESSOR MIKE CALFORD

PROFESSOR TREVOR SPEDDING

“While UOW already has some strong offshore linkages, it needs to expand its profile across countries in these regions, and fields of study and research where it is strong. This will require nurturing new partners, as well as extending existing relationships,” Professor Wellings said.

Professor Calford’s appointment fulfills a key priority for the University to further drive its health and medical research. An outstanding neuroscientist, Professor Calford was formerly Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Newcastle. He has been the recipient of a range of awards and fellowships including an NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship, a Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship and a Royal Society Anglo-Australasian Fellowship.

Professor Calford has extensive experience in research management as well as his academic credentials in clinical medical research. This will be crucial in his dual role as Executive Director of the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute (IHRMI), a joint initiative of the University and the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District (ISLHD).

He replaces Professor Don Iverson, who was Pro ViceChancellor (Health) before being appointed Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health, while the Pro Vice-Chancellor’s portfolio has been redefined from Health to Health and Medical Research.

UOW’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Judy Raper said Professor Calford had an excellent record working with academics and clinicians. “His appointment not only directly benefits UOW but the wider community in general,” she said. NH

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CONNECT: RESEARCH

BOOST FOR ARCHAEOLOGY LAUREATE FELLOWSHIP PAVES WAY FOR NATIONAL CENTRE Geochronologist Professor Richard (Bert) Roberts has been named an Australian Laureate Fellow.

OW is set to become the centrepiece of a national centre for archaeological science after internationally renowned geochronologist Professor Richard (Bert) Roberts was named as an Australian Laureate Fellow.

from UOW, will allow Professor Roberts to develop CAS as the central hub of Australia’s first national centre for archaeological science. The new centre will be called the Australian Centre for Archaeological Science.

The Australian Research Council (ARC) named Professor Roberts as one of the 2013 recipients of the Australian Laureate Fellowships, a program designed to attract and retain world-class researchers in Australia.

Professor Roberts played a key role in the 2003 discovery and dating of the “Hobbit” – a previously unknown species of small human who lived on the Indonesian island of Flores until relatively recent times (in palaeoanthropological terms). Professor Roberts led the team of dating experts who used the latest luminescence technology to determine that the first “Hobbits” may have survived long enough to encounter early members of our species as they spread through Southeast Asia to Australia.

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Professor Roberts is UOW’s third Laureate Fellow, joining human geographer Professor Lesley Head (2009) and materials scientist Professor Gordon Wallace (2011) as recipients of the prestigious Fellowship.

Professor Roberts is Director of UOW’s Centre for Archaeological Science (CAS), which is dedicated to the development and application of modern scientific techniques to answer fundamental questions about human evolution through the analysis of past human life and activities.

The five-year Laureate Fellowship funding, together with financial and infrastructure support

The “Hobbit” discovery will continue to play a key role in the work of the new project, called OUT OF ASIA: unique insights into human evolution and interactions using frontier technologies in archaeological science.

“We will develop science-based techniques in archaeological dating and chemistry and apply

them to key sites along an 8000 km-long transect from Central Asia to northern Australia, which is a great mixing line of modern and ancient humans,” Professor Roberts said. “We are confident we can throw fresh light on human evolution and the history, lifeways and cognitive capabilities of early modern humans and our ancient cousins including Neanderthals, the ‘Hobbits’ and the (recently discovered) Denisovans who co-existed with them.

“We will investigate which species was living where and when, and what actually happened – learning about how people lived their lives, looking principally at the period between 130,000 and 50,000 years ago.”

He said the scientists involved in this project will apply their new techniques to artefacts obtained from known archaeological sites along the transect, a line that runs from Siberia through Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, the Indonesian islands of Southern Sulawesi and Flores to tropical northern Australia.

“This centre will provide a quantum leap in the application of archaeological chemistry to residues on stone tools, combined with new approaches to archaeological dating, using techniques that would have been impossible even 10 years ago,” he said.

Professor Roberts said the Laureate Fellowship funding would allow UOW to greatly expand CAS and create a national hub linked with other archaeological scientists at universities around Australia.

“These new collaborations are definitely part of the excitement of receiving the Laureate Fellowship,” he said.

The ARC funding and additional support from UOW will allow the centre to attract leading researchers, including archaeological residue expert Dr Richard Fullagar (currently an Honorary Principal Fellow at CAS) and geo-archaeologist Professor Paul Goldberg from Boston University.

The ARC and UOW funding will cover the recruitment and employment of four postdoctoral and six doctoral students to work for the new centre, and UOW is also providing infrastructure support including sophisticated new laboratory equipment. NH

AWARD FOR YOUNG SCIENTIST r Zenobia Jacobs’ insatiable curiosity about where we came from and what makes us human has earned her a 2013 Scopus Young Researcher Award.

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An ARC QEII Research Fellow in UOW’s Centre for Archaeological Science, Dr Jacobs was announced in September as the Scopus Young Researcher of the Year in the Humanities and Social Sciences category.

The Scopus Young Researcher

Awards are part of an Elsevier global initiative to support early career researchers. The scheme has been designed to recognise outstanding young researchers and scientists in Australia who have made significant contributions in their areas of research.

During her PhD and since completing it in 2004, the South African-born geochronologist has been pioneering the development of single-grain optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating for use

in archaeology, to determine the age of buried artefacts and fossils.

Her efforts have already made major contributions to what we know about early human evolution.

Another up-and-coming UOW researcher, nanoengineer Professor Zaiping Guo, was second runner up in the Engineering and Technology category of the Scopus awards for her significant contributions to the field of materials science and chemical engineering. EP

DR ZENOBIA JACOBS

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CONNECT: RESEARCH

STUDY TO INVESTIGATE MOBILE PHONE RISKS esearchers from the University of Wollongong and Monash University are undertaking a multi-million dollar study to investigate the long-term health effects of mobile phone use.

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Professor Rodney Croft, from the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute (IHMRI), will work in conjunction with Monash University to establish a Centre of Research Excellence for Population Health Research on Electromagnetic Energy after the National Health and Medical Research Council announced a $2.5 million grant in August.

“While there is currently no clear evidence that low-level electromagnetic energy is impacting our health, there is not enough information, particularly relating to children, to be sure that it doesn’t,” Professor Croft said.

“The ubiquity of mobile phones coupled with the fact that digital technology will play a huge role in our future means this research is critical, with risk assessment agencies such as the World Health Organisation consistently calling for further research to ensure that we identify any potential risks.”

Through his affiliation with IHMRI, Professor Croft will be able to draw upon the skills of multidisciplinary teams of academic researchers at UOW and clinician researchers around the region to solve problems and challenges along the way.

disparate areas and viewpoints, which ultimately leads to new insights and solutions.”

“You can only address these big health issues through a multi-disciplinary approach,” Professor Croft said. “In practice, it means bringing cancer researchers together with psychologists, epidemiologist and technical experts from

Professor Croft will also be working with international standards bodies to develop electromagnetic energy guidelines and with policy makers on better communicating potential risks to the public. EP

Professor Rodney Croft

MEETING GLOBAL CHALLENGES A

s we move further into the 21st century, we will continue to face challenges that transform the way we live and how we interact with each other.

The University of Wollongong’s (UOW) Global Challenges Program, under the unifying theme of Transforming Lives and Regions, recognises the way in which these issues inform the world around us.

Global Challenges has a strong leadership team who are passionate about exploring and addressing these major challenges.

As program director, Professor Chris Gibson oversees the Global Challenges Program.

Professor Gibson is a Professor of Human Geography, who has an extensive record in cultural environmental research and regional economic development.

With three major challenges, encompassing Manufacturing Innovation, Sustaining Coastal and Marine Zones, and Living Well, Longer, the program drives social, economic and cultural change in our region and around the world by bringing researchers together with partners from government and business.

Leading these themes are Professor Lorna Moxham (Living Well, Longer); Professor Stuart Kaye (Sustaining Coastal and Marine Zones) and Professor Geoff Spinks (Manufacturing Innovation).

Professor Spinks is an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow with extensive experience in manufacturing-related research and industry collaboration. His research interests focus on new materials and nanotechnology, including the development of innovative materials processing methods such as 3D printing.

Professor Chris Gibson

He said the Global Challenges Program enabled researchers to address the “big picture problems”.

“For most, if not all, cities and regions, their physical infrastructure, their local population, their skills base, their local culture, is an inheritance. It’s inherited from the past. And yet we live in an uncertain world, a world of climate change, of rapid economic change. Cities and regions will have to adapt,” Professor Gibson said.

Joining Professor Gibson as the Global Challenges Program’s Research Strategy Leader is Dr Tamantha Stutchbury, who has extensive experience in launching and running programs in the higher education sector. Dr Stutchbury said the program represented an exciting opportunity for researchers to engage with each other and the community as a whole and to realise research outcomes in addressing real-world problems.

Professor Spinks said it was essential to maintain a vibrant, active and diverse manufacturing industry in the Illawarra and around the world. “The challenges facing manufacturers are multi-faceted including technological, environmental, political, social, legal and business issues,” he said.

“Understanding the interconnectedness of all of these issues is at the core of this Global Challenge. I believe real breakthroughs will come by combining the expertise from across campus and beyond.”

Professor Moxham brings a passion for health research to her role as challenge leader of Living Well, Longer.

She is a Professor of Mental Health Nursing in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Indigenous Health at UOW and has held numerous academic and senior governance roles.

“Health research in its broadest sense contributes enormously to Living Well, Longer,” Professor Moxham said. “Health research can and does

make a difference and applying what is found as part of primary prevention, secondary and tertiary intervention, in a multitude of locations including metropolitan, rural, regional and remote and across a person’s entire lifespan, is the holistic approach that must be taken. A Global Challenge indeed, but one that has immense opportunity to contribute to wellbeing.”

Professor Kaye has recently returned to UOW as Director of the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security, after serving as Dean of Law at the University of Western Australia.

An author and barrister who holds degrees in arts and law, Professor Kaye excels in the fields of international law and the law of the sea. He said the challenge of Sustaining Coastal and Marine Zones has an immense impact upon our local and global communities.

“Seventy per cent of the world’s surface is covered by sea and the human population is having a greater impact upon these areas,” Professor Kaye said. “What happens to the world’s oceans, what happens to the coastal zones is of tremendous significance to all of us. It truly is a Global Challenge.”

Global Challenges Program workshops and public events have already started the conversation about how we transform lives and regions. Seed funding grants will provide opportunities for projects that align with Global Challenges. The successful applicants of the $100,000 in funding will be announced in November.

The Global Challenges PhD scholars program will help both existing and future PhD students to achieve their research goals. There are 10 scholarships available for candidates whose work addresses one of the Global Challenges, including a tax-free top up of $10,000 per annum and an additional $5000 for project costs, such as travel. IL

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CONNECT: RESEARCH

SAFER CANCER TREATMENT TECHNOLOGY TESTS RADIATION EXPOSURE niversity of Wollongong researchers have invented a new technology that allows for a safer and more effective way of treating cancer, especially in children.

Professor Rozenfeld, who is the Director of the Centre for Medical Radiation Physics at UOW, said radiation overdoses could also increase the probability of secondary cancer.

The new technology comes at a time when the latest figures from the World Health Organisation show that Australia has the highest rate of cancer cases per capita in the world, ahead of New Zealand, North America and Western Europe, and nearly double the global average.

By monitoring skin dose measurements in real time, Professor Rozenfeld said it would help improve techniques to minimise out-of-field doses, which are of particular concern in children.

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The novel device, known as ‘MOSkin’, detects how much radiation patients are exposed to during radiotherapy, in real time.

With nearly two-thirds of cancer patients receiving radiotherapy treatment, Professor Anatoly Rozenfeld, who led the development of the technology, said it was imperative to ensure the safety and success of radiotherapy.

“While contemporary radiation therapy is very accurate, quality assurance during the treatment delivery is paramount because overdoses of radiation can induce chronic or acute side-effects, such as skin erythema,” Professor Rozenfeld said.

“MOSkin monitors the amount of radiation the skin receives and hence these side-effects can be more closely controlled.”

RETHINK ON BUSHFIRE STRATEGY UOW study into the 2009 Victorian bushfires, which were the worst in Australian history, claiming 173 lives and incurring damages in excess of $4 billion, has revealed the need to rethink bushfire risk strategies.

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Using statistical modelling, UOW researchers studied a sample of 3500 houses affected by the Black Saturday bushfires of February, 2009 to explore how the extent of forest and crown fire around houses affected the likelihood that they would be destroyed.

They found that houses with a large proportion of forest within one kilometre were at risk even if the trees were not near the house during

Due to the novel design allowing non-invasive skin dose measurements, ‘MOSkin’ recently won a highly competitive Commercialisation Australia Skills and Knowledge Grant to help commercialise the technology. It has already been developed into prototypes for a range of radiotherapy treatments, and has been trialled by over 20 international cancer centres, hospitals and research institutions around Australia and internationally.

“This technology has been developed over 10 years of research, and we have received very positive scientific and clinical testing results,” Professor Rozenfeld said.

“We are pleased that both its technological value and commercial value have been acknowledged by a Chinese patent and the commercialisation grant.” EP

crown fires, which occur when strong winds and large amounts of dry fuel allow the fire to jump from one tree top to the next at great speed and intensity.

DR OWEN PRICE

“This means that embers coming out of the forest were more important than radiant heat from nearby patches of trees,” co-author of the study (published in PLOS ONE), Dr Owen Price, said.

This one kilometre risk zone is in stark contrast to the current zones stipulated by Australian fire management authorities, which vary according to jurisdiction from 25-500m.

“The zone of one kilometre around houses is very large and requires a rethink of bushfire risk strategies,” Dr Price said.

“This might include increasing the setbacks between houses and forest in new developments.”

Dr Price, a senior research fellow at the UOW

Professor Anatoly Rozenfeld has led the development of technology that will lead to safer cancer treatment.

Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, said the study also found that houses were more likely to burn if there were other houses nearby (meaning house to house transmission of fire was occurring).

“Houses were more likely to be destroyed if there were other houses within 50m and if they were on a slope,” he said.

Dr Price said that since the centre’s previous work showed that hazard reduction burning had little effect during catastrophic fire conditions, residents who live surrounded by forest should look to fireproof their houses.

“Since our previous work has found that time-since-fire did not reduce the likelihood of crown fire in catastrophic fire weather conditions, prescribed burning would provide only minor risk reduction in these fires. Under more benign weather, prescribed burning is more effective and the risk zone is probably less than one kilometre.

“Because the main threats seem to be from embers and house to house transmission, hardening houses to fire is another obvious way that risk could be reduced.” EP

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CONNECT: EVENTS Professor Pascal Perez pictured during his presentation on Liveability to TEDxUWollongong.

Director led the TEDx line-up with his case for urban planning models that support complex and adaptive city design.

TEDx LOOKS AT LIVEABILITY

“With our research team, we took a simple layperson definition of liveability. It’s very simple: Live – in a place I like; and Ability – to perform my tasks.

Whoever we are, wherever we live, at whichever stage of our life we are, we tend to rank six factors in order to assess whether we’re satisfied with our life and living environment.

ith the world’s growing population, planning and designing more liveable cities is one of the most important challenges of the 21st Century.

population. “Liveability” relies on a number of factors that affect the overall quality of life and relates to the physical environment, as well as cultural and social possibilities of a community.

This year’s TEDxUWollongong in September looked at liveability through a local and global lens, with the voices of architects, scholars and designers – each one innovators in their field.

“I would argue that some of the tools and methods and models that urban planners are using to develop these new cities are lagging behind. This is particularly true for socioeconomic and demographic forecasts,” Professor Perez said.

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As part of the independently organised TEDx program, the University of Wollongong invited a mix of engaging speakers to construct their vision for the future and discuss what it takes to build a sustainable, happy future.

According to Program Director Professor Pascal Perez, “liveable” communities, like his place of residence Gerringong – with its small community, rolling hills and coastal landscape – may soon be a thing of the past as the number of citydwellers pushes beyond 50% of the world’s total

“These forecasts haven’t changed very much for a very long time and they use simple assumptions: you take an employment target that will drive a population growth, which will trigger a specific demand for housing mix and associated urban amenities – this is how traditional strategic urban planning works. But the reality is far more complicated than that.”

The SMART Infrastructure Facility Research

“We tend to play with these factors again and again depending on where we live and which stage in our life we are at, we’re going to change the ranking. What we are saying in our framework is ‘this is your problem, not mine. I won’t impose on you my criteria’. So each of us, with this framework, should be able to tell why we’re happy or not.”

The six factors included home, neighbourhood, transport options, opportunities for entertainment, available services and access to places of work and education.

The other speakers were Danish architect Rasmus Frisk, Solar Decathlon China UOW team leader Lloyd Niccol, UOW human geographer Professor Gordon Waitt, British infrastructure engineering expert Professor Brian Collins (who was visiting UOW for the International Symposium on Next Generation Infrastructure) and Paris-based urban designer Dr Sara Adhitya. MC

UOW HOSTS INTERNATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE SYMPOSIUM xperts in the infrastructure field from around the world gathered at the University of Wollongong in October for the inaugural International Symposium on Next Generation Infrastructure (ISNGI).

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The symposium, hosted by UOW’s SMART Infrastructure Facility over three days, considered some of the big issues in providing future infrastructure in the face of challenges posed by cost, social expectations and the population pressures of the modern world.

Delegates from around the world praised the symposium organisers for the strength of the program and the quality of the speakers in what will become an annual event. Next year ISNGI will move to Vienna, then the US in 2015 and South-east Asia in 2016.

In his welcome address to delegates, SMART CEO Garry Bowditch said he hoped the symposium would help demonstrate the value of state-of-the-art science and policy development for infrastructure,

providing tools to government through evidence and evidencebased research to help them make better decisions about future infrastructure.

One of the opening day’s keynote speakers, Professor Margot Weijnen from Delft University in The Netherlands, explained that humans’ infrastructure needs had not changed over the centuries.

She pointed to the Great Wall of China as an example of protection infrastructure that was thousands of years old, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (created around 600 years BC) as an example of an irrigation scheme designed to provide comfort and liveability for the citizens, while the sophisticated road networks of the Roman Empire and the roads and canals of ancient China greatly enhanced trade and the movement of people in the ancient world.

“The basic foundations of infrastructure have remained the same through the ages,” Professor Weijnen said. “(What has

ISNGI steering committee members pictured with UOW Deputy ViceChancellor (Research) Professor Judy Raper (centre). They are (from left): Professor Jim Hall (University of Oxford), Garry Bowditch (SMART, UOW), Professor Brian Collins (University College London), Professor Pascal Perez (SMART, UOW), Professor Margot Weijnen (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands) and Professor Ram Pendyala (Arizona State University).

changed) is the tension between that remarkable stability and the volatility of our world.”

Ecologist Professor Graham Harris, who is Honorary Professor of Infrastructure Systems at SMART, was the first presenter on the symposium’s opening day and set the delegates a philosophical question. “We in the human world have exploited the natural world for

so long. Now there are seven billion of us huddled in mega-cities around the world … introducing the very interesting question of sustainability …” he said.

SMART Infrastructure Facility Advisory Board Chairman Dr Ken Henry was the keynote speaker at the Symposium Dinner, talking about the challenges Australia faces in the infrastructure sphere. NH

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CONNECT: BOOKS Professor Tapsell said Food, Nutrition and Health takes students of nutrition through the basic science of nutrition, its applications in the human lifecycle and pathways for practice.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

“Knowledge in food and nutrition has been rapidly expanding, driven in particular by rapid scientific advances,” Professor Tapsell said.

“Health practitioners need to bring this knowledge together in a way that is meaningful, and can be shown to have an impact on health. It is particularly critical in nutrition, because eating food is so fundamental to survival.”

Professor Linda Tapsell at the launch of Food, Nutrition and Health.

hich foods help prevent chronic disease? Why does malnutrition emerge as a problem in old age? How does eating protein, fat or carbohydrate influence weight? Why is water an important part of nutrition?

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These questions are answered in a new comprehensive nutrition textbook, Food, Nutrition and Health, designed and edited by University of Wollongong nutrition expert Professor Linda Tapsell and published by the prestigious Oxford University Press.

Professor Tapsell is one of the most important figures in Australian nutrition research,

having pioneered a scientific approach to the improvements in personal and population health that can be achieved with the provision of good dietary information.

In addition, through her contributions to curriculum development she has influenced a generation of professional dietitians, including many trained at UOW. Pro Vice-Chancellor (Health and Medical Research) and Director of the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute Professor Mike Calford launched Food, Nutrition and Health in October.

One of Australia’s best-known nutritionists, Dr Rosemary Stanton, attended the launch.

The effort was clearly worth it. What the Ground Can’t Hold is a gripping novel that explores the ways the past intersects with the present, and can destroy the foundations upon which we build our lives.

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What the Ground Can’t Hold follows Dr Cosgrove’s memoir She Played Elvis, which was published by Allen & Unwin in 2007, when it was short-listed for The Australian/ Vogel Literary Award.

Professor Tapsell said 17 other UOW academics contributed to the book, mostly from UOW’s Food and Health Strategic Research Initiative, including Eleanor Beck, Karen Charlton, Deanne CondonPaoloni, Vicki Flood, Sara Grafenauer, Jimmy Louie, Barbara Meyer, Jane O’Shea, Yasmine Probst, Joanne Russell, Rebecca Thorne, Karen Walton, Peter Williams and Heather Yeatman. EP

She said support from her partner Scott Bazley and Creative Arts colleagues and feedback from her Creative Writing students helped her push through by “forcing me to take myself seriously”.

OW Creative Writing lecturer and Sub-Dean in the School of Creative Arts Dr Shady Cosgrove is celebrating the release of her second book and first novel, What The Ground Can’t Hold.

The novel tells the story of five main characters, who are trapped in a cabin in the remote Andes after an avalanche. Each has a secret which links him or her to the Dirty War.

The book is also complemented by a range of online learning tools, including PowerPoint slides organised by chapter, with tables, images, figures, and diagrams from the text, as well as access to the Oxford Health Hub, a wealth of activities, additional material, and interactive revision devices for students throughout their health science or nursing degree.

She estimated that she probably had written a million words as she worked on the novel, eventually distilling it into its 90,000-word final state.

NOVEL SET AGAINST ‘DIRTY WAR’ Picador has published What The Ground Can’t Hold, which is set in Argentina against a backdrop of that country’s “Dirty War” of the 1970s and 1980s when up to 30,000 Argentinians who opposed the military government simply disappeared in what is described as state-sponsored terrorism.

The book serves as an introductory text for nutrition, health science, nursing and medical students across Australia, with a pedagogical approach that develops knowledge, fosters research skills, and encourages critical thinking.

Speaking at the launch, Creative Writing lecturer Dr Joshua Lobb praised the novel for its “superb construction of character” and “Shady’s outstanding ability to present setting”.

Dr Shady Cosgrove with her first novel, What The Ground Can’t Hold. (Image courtesy of Sylvia Liber/Illawarra Mercury).

She said she had been working on the novel since 2007, when she received a research scholarship to travel to South America to research settings and potential plots for a novel. She had made many revisions and changes over the past six years “so that at times I felt that I was not a writer but a re-writer”.

The story is told by five key characters, who each provide a different perspective and different insights as the plot unfolds. Dr Lobb said: “Each voice has a distinct tone. Shady has been able to build these characters into believable people with care and empathy, (so that) each is engaging and endearing … and a plausible character. And the background characters who support the main characters really enhance the book.”

He said Dr Cosgrove had done a great job establishing the setting in Argentina through “great details and great characters.” NH

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POSTCARD FROM DUBAI The University of Wollongong in Dubai (UOWD) has been operating since 1993 and is now one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the United Arab Emirates. UOWD currently has an enrolment of close to 4000 students undertaking undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Business, Finance, Computer Science, Engineering, International Studies and Media & Communications at its campus in Dubai’s Knowledge Village.

UOWD CELEBRATES 20 YEARS OF GROWTH U

UOWD academic Dr Catherine Todd after her success in the Badwater Ultramarathon, considered the world’s toughest footrace.

CATHERINE WINS ULTRAMARATHON OWD Electrical Engineering Assistant Professor Dr Catherine Todd has triumphed in this year’s Badwater Ultramarathon in the US, finishing as the highest placed female in a field of elite athletes from across the globe.

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Renowned as “the world’s toughest footrace”, the Badwater Ultramarathon takes competitors over a gruelling 217 km course, from Death Valley, the hottest, driest place in North America, to Mount Whitney, the highest summit of the continental US.

OWD celebrated its 20th anniversary with a VIP dinner in Dubai on October 30.

Australian Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Pablo Kang welcomed guests, while UOW Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings CBE gave the keynote address and UOWD President Professor Trevor Spedding reflected on the 20-year history of the institution.

UOW’s gift to UOWD to mark the anniversary was a sculpture of a Peregrine Falcon by Wombarra artist Gaby Porter. The bird is found in both the UAE and Australia.

Guests at the dinner included Dr James Langridge, who in 1993 established the college that became UOWD. In his role as UOW’s Vice-Principal (International) Dr Langridge was instrumental in guiding UOWD’s growth and success over the next decade and a half until his retirement in 2009.

UOWD began life as the Institute of Australian Studies, a tiny branch of UOW delivering English language courses in a leased apartment in Dubai. In that first year it had five staff members and just eight students.

UOWD now has around 4000 students and 287 staff at its campus in Knowledge Village, while more than 6000 people have graduated from its courses over 20 years.

Meanwhile, NSW Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner congratulated UOWD on i ts 20th anniversary when he visited the Dubai campus in April to open a new Science Block.

Mr Stoner expressed his pride in the University’s achievement in providing Australian-based education in Dubai to students representing more than 100 different nationalities.

“The University of Wollongong in Dubai is a great example of how our education sector is continually enhancing its programs and facilities to better meet the needs of both domestic and international students,” Mr Stoner said. “International education is an important contributor to the NSW economy and to the cultural diversity of our educational institutions and our State.” NH

Taking part in the race for the second consecutive year, Dr Todd completed this ultimate test of endurance in 29 hours, 55 minutes and 29 seconds, to finish first among the race’s female competitors. She beat her previous time by more than six hours.

“It feels fantastic,” she said. “I am so happy and could not have got a better result. It all went to plan and all the hard work paid off.”

As one of Dr Todd’s sponsors, UOWD contributed to the costs of her support crew and vehicle, which were vital resources throughout the event, providing assistance with nutrition, hydration and pacing.

She trained for the event with members of her support team in the UAE. Her regime involved road, desert and mountain runs, including backto-back ascents of Jebel Hafeet, starting at 3am.

She now plans to compete in the Transomania, a 241km race across Oman’s desert.

NSW Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner (right) and UOWD President Professor Trevor Spedding unveil the official inauguration plaque at UOWD’s new Science Block.

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CONNECT: RECOGNITION

AWARDS RECOGNISE TEACHING PASSION

INFLUENTIAL ENGINEERS UOW’S Deputy-Vice Chancellor (Research) Professor Judy Raper and two distinguished UOW alumni have been named in the annual list of Australia’s top 100 engineers, published

by Engineers Australia.

Professor Raper is a chemical engineer. Since her appointment as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at UOW in 2008, she has been instrumental in boosting the University’s research rankings, overseen around 1200 higher degree research students and spearheaded three successful bids for Australian Government grants, including $60 million for the SMART Infrastructure Facility, $50 million for the Australian Institute for Innovative Materials and $25 million for the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre.

Pictured clockwise from top left: Associate Professor Lindsay Oades, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) Professor Eeva Leinonen, Shawn Burns, Dr Michelle Eady, Dr Theresa Larkin, Dr Caz Sandison and Dr Tracey Kuit. Dr Kylie Mansfield was not available for the photograph.

campus-based newsroom to train Australia’s next crop of multi-media reporters earned UOW Journalism lecturer Shawn Burns a prestigious accolade from the Australian Government.

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Mr Burns was one of seven talented and passionate UOW academics awarded National Office for Learning and Teaching Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in 2013.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) Professor Eeva Leinonen said UOW was proud to have so many staff members acknowledged for their good work.

“The citation awards this year are distributed across many different faculties and that really shows it’s not pockets of excellence, but that we have a lot of good practice across the University,” Professor Leinonen said.

After 20 years of industry practice as a journalist, TV news director and media adviser, journalism lecturer Shawn Burns strongly believes in the ‘learn by doing’ approach. His practice-based journalism curriculum – which sees students creating a weekly, online multimedia magazine of local and university news under real deadline pressures and providing media coverage for community events, such as the 2010 Special Olympics in Adelaide – has won Mr Burns this prestigious award.

“In the currently tight journalism job market, the success of our program can be measured by the number of graduates who have gained entry-level jobs in mainstream media organisations. Sixtythree per cent of the students who responded to a recent UOW Journalism alumni survey had secured jobs in mainstream media organisations, with a further 25 per cent in a related marketing or communications position,” Mr Burns said. EP

UOW’S OLT RECIPIENTS: Shawn Burns Lecturer - Journalism Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts For innovative approaches to curriculum

development that model industry best practice in journalism and foster community engagement and understanding.

Dr Tracey Kuit Lecturer – Biological Sciences Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health Enhancing student learning in biology for large diverse student cohorts through strong curriculum leadership.

Dr Theresa Larkin Lecturer – Graduate School of Medicine Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health An evidence-based, inclusive and engaging approach to teaching anatomy in an integrated medical curriculum.

Dr Lindsay Oades Associate Professor – Sydney Business School Faculty of Business For a unique integration of research and teaching using experiential learning cycles to develop multidisciplinary coaching curricula and resources for personal and professional wellbeing.

Dr Caz Sandison Senior Lecturer – Mathematics & Applied Statistics (SMAS) Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences For outstanding dedication to developing and implementing innovative curriculum that influences and motivates students of all levels and backgrounds to learn mathematics.

Dr Michelle Eady Lecturer – Education Faculty of Social Sciences Enhancing quality teacher education linking theory and practice through innovative work experience and integrated learning opportunities in community school partnerships.

Dr Kylie Mansfield Lecturer – Graduate School of Medicine Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health Extraordinary attention to student and staff diversity that shapes leadership of the integrated Phase 1 medical curriculum at UOW.

UOW Council member and former UOW academic and graduate, Dr Alex Zelinsky, who is now Australia’s Chief Defence Scientist, and UOW alumnus Mark Cutifani, were also included in the Top 100. Mr Cutifani is a mining engineer and Chief Executive Officer of Anglo American, one of the world’s largest mining and natural resource groups.

TOXICOLOGIST HONOURED UOW Graduate School of Medicine Dean Professor Alison Jones has been awarded a prestigious fellowship by the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology (AACT), cementing her reputation as one of the world’s leading clinical toxicologists.

Professor Jones was inducted at the Annual Meeting of the North American Congress of Clinical Toxicology in September.

Before moving to Australia in 2006, Professor Jones was Head of Medicine at London’s Guy’s and St Thomas Hospital and Director of Britain’s National Poisons Service where she advised the British Government on a range of toxicology issues, including the potential dangers of terrorist attacks using chemicals.

She now serves as a high-level toxicology adviser to the NSW Ministry of Health.

INDIGENOUS AWARD INDIGENOUS academic Dr Bronwyn Carlson’s manuscript on the way Aboriginal people understand and live out their Aboriginality has been named as the winner of the 2013 Stanner Award.

Dr Carlson is a senior lecturer in the Indigenous Studies Unit in the Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts at UOW. Her manuscript, The politics of identity: Who counts as Aboriginal today? uses a range of historical and research literature as well as interviews, surveys and a range of social networking sites to explore this complex and timely subject.

The Stanner Award is open to all aspiring Indigenous authors of academic works and includes a $5000 prize, mentoring and editorial support to turn their manuscript into a publication. BG

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CONNECT: IN MEMORIAM ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR ROBERT MACGREGOR

HOBBIT DISCOVERY DEFINED MIKE MORWOOD’S CAREER

Long-serving UOW academic Associate Professor Robert MacGregor died in August after a long illness.

In 1984 Rob joined the School of Industrial and Admin Studies which became part of the then Faculty of Commerce, having previously worked as a Systems Analyst in the Port Kembla Steelworks.

Professor Mike Morwood, who died in July, was a towering figure in international archaeology.

MICHAEL JOHN MORWOOD 1950 - 2013 UOW archaeologist Professor Mike Morwood’s contribution to the international understanding of human evolution is immense.

Professor Morwood died in July after battling serious illness. His standing in international science was reflected in the number of obituaries published in leading newspapers and magazines around the world, including the authoritative British scientific journal NATURE. Professor Morwood was an international expert in human habitation of the Australian continent including ancient Indigenous rock art, but his name will always be associated with one of the greatest palaeoanthropological finds of modern times – the discovery in 2003 of the “Hobbit”.

When the “Hobbit” discovery was announced in NATURE in 2004, it created a sensation around the world as it challenged all that had previously been thought about the development of humans and about Asia’s role in human evolution.

This previously unknown species of small humans lived on the Indonesian island of Flores until relatively recent times (in palaeoanthropological terms) – recently enough to have possibly encountered early humans as they spread through Southeast Asia to Australia.

Professor Morwood (then with the University of New England) and Professor R.P Soejano from Indonesia’s National Centre for Archaeology (ARKENAS) led the excavation team that discovered the first “Hobbit” skeletal remains in the Liang Bua limestone caves on Flores.

UOW geochronologist Professor Richard (Bert) Roberts led the team of dating experts who used luminescence technology to establish that the skeleton was around 18,000 years old.

Professor Morwood joined Professor Roberts at UOW in 2007, the same year that he released his book: The Discovery of the Hobbit – the Scientific Discovery that Changed the Face of Human History (co-authored with science writer Penny Van Oosterzee).

He became an integral member of the Centre for Archaeological Science(CAS) at UOW, and instituted a training program for young Indonesian archaeologists to come to UOW for post-graduate study.

Just two weeks before his death he was thrilled

when his friend and colleague (CAS Director) Professor Roberts received an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship that will enable the centre to become a national hub for archaeological science and further explore Asia’s role in human evolution.

“It has been one crowded decade since the “Hobbit” was excavated in 2003, and the Laureate project is a fitting tribute to Mike’s spirit of adventure and a legacy of his remarkable contributions to enlarging our knowledge of human evolution on the world stage,” Professor Roberts said.

“Mike was an inspiration to many of the earlycareer researchers now working in CAS and to a generation of young Indonesian researchers, some of whom now hold high office in Indonesian agencies and others are enrolled here at UOW.” Michael John Morwood was born in Auckland, New Zealand on 27 October 1950. He was educated at the University of Auckland before migrating to Australia in 1974. He continued his studies and completed a PhD on the Indigenous rock art and archaeology of Queensland at the Australian National University (ANU) in 1980.

His work in Queensland and the Kimberley region of Western Australia established his reputation as an international authority on Indigenous rock art, while his findings contributed greatly to our understanding of Australia’s ancient history. His book Visions from the Past: The Archaeology of Australian Aboriginal Art, was published in 2002.

His work in the Kimberley included research into the interaction between Indigenous Australians and Asian communities, particularly people who travelled from Sulawesi to harvest Trepang, or sea cucumbers, along the Kimberley coast for hundreds of years before European settlement of Australia.

Mike’s other interests included the Japanese martial art of Aikido which he practised for many years. He also collected swords from Japan, China, the United States and the Makasar region.

He is survived by his wife, Francelina, his former wife, Kathryn, a daughter and two grandchildren.

UOW hosted a memorial service for Professor Morwood in September. Speakers included the man dubbed the ‘Father of Australian Archaeology’, Emeritus Professor John Mulvaney, AO, CMG. CAS has established a special Mike Morwood memorial on its website www.cas.uow.edu.au EP/NH

The first half of his academic career was spent in the Faculty of Commerce, where Rob helped set up the first computer labs and Information Systems (IS) courses in the faculty which grew into the discipline of Business Information Systems. Rob then transferred to the then Faculty of Informatics, when the School of Information Systems moved.

Rob was a strong researcher and a prolific writer, mainly in the area of adoption of e-commerce. In 2003 he completed a PhD and soon after became an associate professor. He finished his career in the School of Information Systems and Technology, where he contributed greatly to the redesign of 18 degree programs.

DR DONNA SPEARS Honorary Fellow and former Law Lecturer Dr Donna Spears died in August after battling cancer for many years. She retired from UOW in July 2012 after joining the University in January 2008.

Dr Spears had a PhD in Law and was admitted as a Barrister of the Supreme Court of NSW in 1998.

She brought a wonderful breadth of professional practice experience to the teaching of law at UOW, especially in the first year Criminal Law subjects and the specialist elective subject Advanced Criminal Law. Her publications include the 2011 book Criminal Law for Common Law States (with UOW colleagues Dr Julia Quilter and Associate Professor Clive Harfield). She was always collegial and supportive to her colleagues and a wonderful teacher, inspiring many undergraduate students to careers in the criminal justice field.

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CONNECT: IN MEMORIAM

MEDICAL SCHOOL’S FIRST MAJOR DONOR Flashback to 2006, and the announcement of the Roberta Williams Chair of Medicine (General Practice): Donor Marsden (Mick) Williams (centre) pictured with (from left) Professor John Bushnell, Professor Don Iverson, former University Council member George Edgar, former Vice-Chancellor Emeritus Professor Gerard Sutton, the late Professor John Hogg and current University Council member Geoff O’Donnell.

When Illawarra businessman Marsden (Mick) Williams donated $3 million to the UOW’s Graduate School of Medicine in 2006, it was one of the few times this very private man’s lifetime of generosity and community support had been publicly acknowledged.

Mr Williams died in early September, aged 97, marking the end of a remarkable era in the Illawarra. Mr Williams established the Allied and B&W Steel Group of Companies, a highly successful diversified group providing industrial and contracting services and equipment to Australia’s mining, manufacturing and construction sectors. He was also a co-founder of Transfield Services.

But fittingly, Mr Williams wanted the donation to honour his late wife, Roberta, not himself. He asked that the $3 million be used to establish the Roberta Williams Chair of Medicine (General Practice), now filled by Professor Andrew Bonney.

UOW University Council member Geoff O’Donnell, who runs Mr Williams’ parent company Shin Investments, said Mr Williams spent his lifetime helping others, but generally did so privately.

At the time, it was easily the largest single private monetary contribution to UOW, and was an important milestone for the Graduate School of Medicine which was in its establishment phase at the time (with the first students starting the following year, 2007).

“The unseen hand of Mick Williams helped a lot of people and projects throughout his lifetime – employees, former employees, people who had struck hard times, community projects, children and community infrastructure … all experienced his generosity over his lifetime,” Mr O’Donnell said.

MARSDEN (MICK) WILLIAMS 1916-2013

PROFESSOR ALEX CLARKE

University through its “formative years”.

1925-2013

UOW honoured Professor Clarke with an Emeritus Professorship in 2001.

One of the key figures in the University of Wollongong’s transition from a college of the University of NSW to an autonomous institution, Emeritus Professor Alex Clarke, died on 17 June.

Professor Clarke was appointed Foundation Professor of Psychology at Wollongong University College in 1973, and played a key role in UOW’s emergence as an independent university after it gained its autonomy from UNSW in 1975.

In 1977 Professor Clarke was appointed UOW’s first full-time Deputy Vice-Chancellor, responsible for academic affairs. He continued in that role until his retirement in 1985, chairing key committees and making a major contribution to the development of the

“The donation to the medical school was really the first time that he agreed to be acknowledged publicly. It was a chance to honour his late wife Roberta, and he also had enormous regard for John Hogg (UOW’s Foundation Dean of Medicine who died earlier this year) and wanted to support him and do some good for the community.”

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health Executive Dean Professor Don Iverson said Mr Williams’ $3 million contribution in 2006 had had a profound impact on the fledgling medical school.

“Here we were, a new medical school just getting started, and someone had the faith in us to donate $3 million so that we could set up a professorial chair. It was a wonderful boost for our resources as well as for our confidence,” Professor Iverson said. “Mick Williams made a magnificent contribution that really helped set us on our way.” NH

Professor Clarke had an international reputation as a psychologist and an impressive publications record in physiological psychology.

He was a foundation member and later President of the Australian Psychological Society. The strong foundations that he laid in UOW’s School of Psychology can be seen in its on-going strength today.

In expressing the University’s condolences to Professor Clarke’s family, Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings said UOW had lost one of its pioneers.

Professor Clarke was well regarded as a true gentleman. After his retirement he continued living in the Illawarra, and took a great interest in UOW’s growth and development. NH

Professor Alex Clarke pictured with Dame Joan Sutherland when the opera star visited the UOW campus in 1978.

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CONNECT: NEWS

KOOLOOBONG POSITIVE STUDENT RESIDENCE A WORLD-FIRST

organisations become as successful as possible by focusing on positives rather than on more negative aspects of business such as cost reduction or risk aversion.

Ms Hemsley has recruited a team of student leaders who had demonstrated qualities such as community contribution, cultural sensitivity, concern for others and diverse interests. The student leaders were inducted by AIBWB into the positive residence concept so they could provide appropriate leadership “on the ground” to implement the program.

“Our student leaders have really embraced the wellbeing concept and are now helping us develop it further,” Dr Oades said. “This is a transition year for what is a new concept and so we really want the student leaders’ input as we develop it further over the next two years.”

Psychologists Alison Hemsley and Dr Lindsay Oades at Kooloobong Village – the world’s first positive residence.

niversity of Wollongong students living at the new Kooloobong Village don’t have to look far to be reminded that they are part of the world’s first positive residence.

U

From the motifs on the fabric on the easy chairs that proclaim I Feel Good, to the names of the study rooms on each floor - like Thrive, Happy, Vitality and Flourish – Kooloobong exudes positivity.

system and a greywater collection system that irrigates the garden), it is Kooloobong Village’s approach to looking after its residents that is breaking new ground.

The concept has been developed as a collaborative effort between Student Residence Manager Alison Hemsley and Associate Professor Lindsay Oades, who is Director of

that to enhance the experience of the students who would be moving into Kooloobong Village,” she said.

“Student years should be among the best times of your life, with the opportunity to meet so many people from diverse backgrounds and nationalities in a safe and nurturing environment.”

‘Kooloobong Village is the world’s first residence planned and run entirely on the science of positive psychology’

Having gained the support of UOW management and the University Council to implement the idea, the AIBWB was engaged as consultants to construct the program on scientific principles. The result is a world-first that is already attracting international attention after Ms Hemsley and Professor Oades presented their concept at an International Positive Psychology Association Congress in Los Angeles in June.

Kooloobong Village is a seven-level tower complex on the western boundary of UOW’s main campus, with self-catered accommodation for 360 students in single studios, double studios for couples and fourbedroom apartments.

the Australian Institute for Business Wellbeing (AIBWB) at UOW’s Sydney Business School. Both are experienced psychologists, and applied the principles of positive psychology to the concept for UOW’s newest residence.

The concept combines the themes of positive psychology, positive education and positive organisational scholarship to create an atmosphere where students can flourish in a nurturing environment of wellbeing and education.

The complex also has communal indoor and outdoor recreational areas for students to meet, as well as the study rooms, laundries and other communal facilities such as outdoor barbecues, a soundproof music room and volleyball and basketball courts.

“I had worked at (UOW student residence) International House for 10 years, and when I was offered the opportunity to steward the Kooloobong Village project we thought it was a great opportunity to do something really innovative,” Ms Hemsley said.

Dr Oades said positive psychology looks at what is working well for an individual rather than focusing on the possible causes for anxiety and depression while positive education combines the concept of wellbeing with the standard curriculum. Positive organisational scholarship is a concept developed through scholarly research at the Ross School of Business in Michigan and focuses on helping people and

And the positive messages are definitely much more than skindeep. Kooloobong Village is the world’s first residence planned and run entirely on the science of positive psychology and positive organisations – designed to enhance the students’ academic and social experiences during their time at UOW.

And while it has been designed with the latest environmental features (like a 200,000 litre rainwater tank that services the entire toilet

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“Lindsay and I are both psychologists and we have had a lot to do with positive psychology in our careers, so we looked at ways we could use

Ms Hemsley said the students who have progressively moved in to Kooloobong Village since the first rooms were completed in March have really embraced the new approach.

“They are really grabbing hold of the concept of wellbeing. And it is not just about knowing how to feel good and function well themselves, they are thinking about the wellbeing of others around them, and how they can contribute to that,” she said.

Dr Oades said Kooloobong Village had appointed an international program advisory board, and he was confident the village would become an international demonstration site for positive residences and a sector-leader for university student accommodation around the world. NH

CONNECT: UOW is produced by the Strategic Marketing and Communications Unit.

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