Research & Innovation News - April-June 2014

CONNECT: RESEARCH & INNOVATION NEWS APRIL - JUNE 2014 issue BUDDING IDEAS GOES off WITH a bang UOW celebrates the budding ideas of five of our emerging researchers at the premier research showcase event of the year

BEAUTIFUL DISCOVERIES OF THE DEEP Breath-taking photographs of the Great Barrier Reef have been captured following a Wollongong-led expedition to conduct remote sensing surveys of the Capricorn Bunker Group

successful launch for nasa satellite Lift-off for the second reincarnation of NASA’s carbon-counting satellite OCO-2 in a global project involving UOW

The University of Wollongong ranks in the top 2% of research universities worldwide Source: QS World University & Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013/14

Research & Innovation News is the research magazine of the University of Wollongong.

Contact: Research Services Office Building 20, Level 1 University of Wollongong Northfields Ave, Wollongong NSW, Australia, 2522 Subscriptions: Visit www.uow.edu.au/research to subscribe to electronic versions of Research & Innovation News.

This Publication is produced by: Sharon Martin Vicky Wallace Melissa Coade Email: research@uow.edu.au With thanks to our other UOW contributors.

For daily updates, follow uowresearch

Contents

10 04 message from Global

challenges director

Global Challenges projects are growing in scale.

Director Professor Chris Gibson talks about its new ideas and interdisciplinary research

05 NEWS

A UOW project that uses Twitter to collect, display, and analyse critical flooding information in Indonesia is one of a handful of initiatives to receive the social media giant’s very first data grants

10 spotlight

Dr Sarah Hamylton dives into some of the southern- most parts of the Great Barrier Reef as part of a mapping expedition and health check of the underwater zone

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13 news

The ARC Centre for Excellence in Electromaterials

Science unveils its new International Masters in 3D Biofabrication

18 FEATURE

UOW’s Budding Ideas research showcase held in May celebrates emerging academic talent

20 OPINION

Human geographer Dr Leah Gibbs reflects on her findings from an online questionnaire about ocean- users and their encounters with sharks

23 AWARD

Inaugural Anne Dunn Scholar of the Year awarded to Journalism lecturer Dr Siobhan McHugh

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Global Challenges turns research culture on its head

Global Challenges Director Professor Chris Gibson

Research funding in Australia has been riskaverse, but magic only happens when you take risks

The Global Challenges Program, a major research initiative designed to address the complex problems facing our world, was launched in July 2013 – and what a busy first year it has been.

As we move into our second year of operation, it is important to reflect on what we have achieved and what we are doing to making this program unique from other research that is taking place across UOW and the higher education sector as a whole.

Traditionally, research funding has rewarded disciplinary excellence. This focus is understandable, and has led to many outstanding discoveries that have had a huge impact on our world.

However, it has also deprived us of the kind of research that we need to change the world and solve global problems – for example, research that may need engineers, economists, social scientists and environmental scientists to come together and apply their collective expertise to look at all the issues, instead of one in isolation.

Research funding in Australia has been risk-averse, but magic only happens when you take risks. Global Challenges is redefining research strategy to help make magic happen.

We have focused on building Global Challenges from the bottom up. It is

about the people and the projects, and we pride ourselves on facilitating exciting research that will make a real difference in the world. Late in 2013, we held our first funding support, which initially encompassed 10 projects. Now, that number has doubled and our projects are continuously growing in scale. The projects we have funded are diverse, but what they share is passionate researchers who are not afraid to work across disciplines and engage with new ideas.

We are examining how mangroves can benefit the ecosystems and the livelihoods of communities along Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. We are exploring what impact deepwater anchorages have on our precious marine environments, while at the same time, recognising the vital role shipping plays in our national economy. In Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, our researchers, who were awarded an inaugural Twitter Data Grant, are using the might of social media to map the impact of flooding on the coastal mega-city. We are also investing in the next generation of musical instruments, by 3D printing microtonal flutes. Could this lead to the establishment of niche manufacturing companies? We will see. >>Learn more about Global Challenges: http://globalchallenges.uow.edu.au/

Archaeological scientists among most highly cited fellows Four members of UOW’s Centre of Archaeological Science have been named among the world’s most highly cited researchers by Thomson Reuters. ARC Australian Laureate Fellow Professor Richard (Bert) Roberts (right) and ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow Dr Zenobia Jacobs (left) have been named in the newly released list, along with the late Professor Mike Morwood (1950-2013) and current PhD scholar Thomas Sutikna from the Indonesian Centre of Archaeology, both of whom were instrumental in the discovery of Homo floresiensis (the Hobbit) on the Indonesian island of Flores.

Citation analysts generated the list to present an updated repository of highly cited researchers in the sciences and social sciences. The new list is meant to complement an existing list published in 2001 that awarded the title of ‘most highly cited researcher’ to UOW Professors Noel Cressie (Mathematics), Bruce Chappell

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(1936-2012) (Geosciences) and Charles Osmond (Plant & Animal Science).

Rather than using total citations as a measure of influence or ‘impact’ only Highly

Cited Papers, those that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year indexed in the Web of Science, were considered for the updated list.

NEWS

SMART researchers draw on Twitter to decipher big data A team of researchers are harnessing the power of social media to help residents in cities affected by flooding. PETAJakarta, developed by SMART Infrastructure Facility researchers Dr Tomas Holderness and Dr Etienne Turpin, focuses on the megacity of Jakarta, which is at constant risk of inundation from the neighbouring Ciliwung River. With a population of more than 28 million people, Jakarta has one of the fastest growing rates of urbanisation in the world.

The UOW project uses Twitter to collect, display, and analyse data relating to flooding in Jakarta, helping residents to navigate their neighbourhood in times of disaster and providing information to emergency services. Twitter has given PETAJakarta a Data Grant to aid its research, one of only six institutions in the world to gain inaugural access to historical and current data from the social media network.

According to Chief Investigator Dr Etienne Turpin, environmental risks, exacerbated by the onset of climate change, and the increasing density of city living, have created the perfect storm in Jakarta. “Land subsidence, extreme pollution, changing weather patterns, intensity of precipitation and storm systems, rising populations, the incredible trajectory of urbanisation in the region - all of these things combine to produce a single question: how do we allow the coastal megacities of South-East Asia to survive the 21st century?” Dr Turpin said.

PETAJakarta is a collaboration between SMART Infrastructure Facility and the Global Challenges Program and uses open source software CogniCity to track the information on Twitter.

Dr Holderness says the team plans to upscale PetaJakarta to other global cities including Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh and Bangkok. The project will theng o on to examine the resilience of urban centres in the face of natural disasters.

“It will radically change real-time data collection and feedback for flood monitoring in one of the most precarious delta cities of South-East Asia,” Dr Holderness said. >>Follow PETAJakarta onTwitter

https://twitter.com/PETAJakarta >>Read more about the project http://bit.ly/1rFKkRZ

Take on the world with a Global Challenges PhD scholarship Do you want your research to make a difference in the world? Do you want to help solve the major problems facing our globe? Then the Global Challenges Program wants you.

The Global Challenges PhD Scholars Program is designed to attract the best and brightest Higher Degree Research students to work on these challenges. The funding program is open to PhD candidates commencing in 2015 whose research corresponds to the three Global Challenges – Living Well, Longer; Sustaining Coastal and Marine Zones; and Manufacturing Innovation, or the overarching theme of Transforming Lives and Regions.

Successful applicants will be awarded a

$10,000 p.a. top-up to their competitive scholarship and $5,000 p.a. will also be made available for research and travel support. Up to six top-up scholarships will be awarded.

The inaugural Global Challenges PhD Scholars Program attracted a strong response with 11 students receiving scholarships. Their research captures the diversity of the Global Challenges Program, with students studying a fascinating variety of subjects, including motor neurone disease, schizophrenia, spatial audio, coastal issues on the NSW South Coast, and global shipping.

The funding has allowed a number of PhD students to attend overseas conferences,

conduct fieldwork, and even spend time studying at universities around the world.

Recipient Anand Abhijith is set to spend a year studying at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Rachael Bartlett will also head overseas with the help of her Global Challenges top-up scholarship, spending six months in Vancouver for her research into motor neurone disease. >>Check out further information and conditions on the Global Challenges website: globalchallenges.uow.edu.au

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Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Lift-off for NASA carbon-counting satellite

UOW researchers are providing key scientific expertise and data as part of a NASA satellite mission aimed at better understanding how the Earth inhales and exhales carbon dioxide and its effect on climate change.

Leading Australian statistician, Distinguished Professor Noel Cressie is a member of the Science Team behind the project. NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) mission is devoted to measuring carbon dioxide, a critical component of Earth’s carbon cycle and the leading greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth’s climate.

“The Observatory will be in a polar orbit at an altitude of 705 kilometres (km), circling the planet every 98 minutes,” Professor Cressie said. “It will collect up to 24 measurements per second from a band of Earth’s surface as it orbits, and global coverage will be obtained after the observatory completes 233 orbits every 16 days,” he said.

“These massive datasets require sophisticated modelling and carefully derived measures of uncertainty to enable us to ultimately obtain accurate and precise estimates of carbon dioxide sources and sinks.”

Professor Cressie is Director of the Centre for Environmental Informatics in the National Institute for Applied Statistics 6

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Research Australia (NIASRA) at UOW as well as serving a two-year appointment as a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the OCO-2 base, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, USA . In conjunction with NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office, Professor Cressie and JPL statistician, Dr Amy Braverman, are correlating data of this type with those from other satellites to build a more precise picture of the abundance of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is measured in parts per million (ppm), the number of molecules of carbon dioxide in every million molecules of air. The Mauna Loa Observatory currently records that number at around 400 ppm, the highest in recorded history.

The data produced by OCO-2 will be an average of the number of carbon dioxide molecules per million molecules of dry air in an atmospheric column from the satellite to Earth’s surface. The mission is designed to achieve unprecedented precision of 1.2 ppm on geographic scales of 100 km over land and 1000 km over ocean.

UOW’s Centre for Atmospheric Chemistry is also involved in the OCO-2 project and will supply data from two Australian ground sites in Wollongong and Darwin to be used with 17 other TCCON target sides worldwide to validate the measurements made in space by OCO-2.

UOW Distinguished Professor Noel Cressie is an internationally renowned statistician and part of the NASA OCO-2 Science Team

OCO-2 Science Team Leader Dr David Crisp said the team at UOW would play an important part in NASA’s data validation efforts. “As a member of OCO-2 Science Team, Professor Cressie and his colleagues will play a critical role in our efforts to assess the information content of the OCO-2 observations and the accuracy of the atmospheric carbon dioxide estimates derived from these measurements,” Dr Crisp said. >>Read more:

http://bit.ly/1uZZLqG

>>Learn more about OCO-2: http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/

NEWS

Fishing line gets superhuman in the field of artificial muscles

Ordinary, everyday fishing line has been used to produce artificial muscles with super-human strength. By twisting and coiling simple fishing line and then applying heat, an international team of researchers has created powerful artificial muscles capable of lifting one hundred times more weight and generating one hundred times higher mechanical power than human muscle.

Researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) worked on the project with collaborators across six countries. For years scientists and engineers laboured on the concept of a “twisting type” of artificial muscle, initially experimenting with more sophisticated materials like carbon nanotubes. Heading the Australian team was UOW’s Professor Geoffrey Spinks.

“Sometimes there is a great irony in research,” Professor Spinks said.

“After nearly two decades developing exotic materials as artificial muscles, we have now discovered that the best performing systems can be made from

ordinary, everyday fishing line.”

Using cheap and readily available fishing line, the process to convert to an artificial muscle is easy- just start twisting.

“We attach one end of the fishing line to

We have now discovered the best performing systems can be made from ordinary, everyday fishing line an electric drill and hang a weight off the other end to apply some tension. We then stop the weight from rotating and we use the drill to insert twist into the fibre,” Professor Spinks said.

At a critical point, a loop forms in the fibre and further twisting produces more coils.

“Before too long, the whole fibre is a spring-like coil. To set this shape we apply

a little bit of heat from a hair dryer and the coil contracts.”

The coils can be powered thermally by temperature changes, by absorption of light, or by chemical reaction of fuels, causing the dramatic contraction and expansion of the coil.

Materials experts at ACES have been working on the process of weaving the single coils to produce useable fabrics including power-fabrics that contract in response to swelling or heat, and comfortadjusting material with weave that can loosen or tighten according to temperature.

Other applications for the fishing line muscle include areas in which function is limited by the size or cost of motors and hydraulic systems, such as robots, prosthetic limbs and exoskeletons.

Prestigious international journal Science published the findings, wihch explain the behaviour of fishing line coils, in February.

Professor Ray Baughman from the University of Texas (Dallas) is credited as the paper’s corresponding author. >>Read the Science paper: http://bit.ly/1bsO3f0

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Beautiful discoveries of the deep

Dr Sarah Hamylton has just returned from 21 days sailing on a 40-foot catamaran around reef sites of the southern Great Barrier Reef. The geographer from UOW’s School of Earth and Environmental Science led the Joint Benthic Field and Remote Sensing Survey of the Capricorn Bunker Group, revisiting over 1,400 sites to verify whether any of the reef communities had changed in the last 12 years.

The ethereal underwater beauty of the Great Barrier Reef has been captured by a team of researchers who have spent three weeks on a detailed mapping expedition of the Capricorn Bunker Group. Drawing on satellite imagery of the earth’s largest living structure, the team are accurately mapping the vast expanse of the region’s southern islands and associated reef platforms.

Dr Sarah Hamylton, who led the survey expedition, develops models to better understand the functional aspects of coastlines at the landscape scale. She has been mapping coral reefs for the better part of a decade, graduating with a Masters in Environmental Sciences (Marine Resource Management) in 2003. Since that time she has carried out remote sensing projects on marine tropical ecosystems for groups all over the world, including Fiji, the Seychelles, the Red Sea and Thailand.

“The majority of information we gathered 10

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was collected from the reef flats on top of the reef platforms, where the team is happy to report that most of the shallow communities including corals, algae and sponges appeared to be thriving,” Dr Hamylton said.

“This will be used to develop research into calcification, a key process that underpins many aspects of tropical coastal environments, including fluctuations in seawater chemistry, building up the structural architecture of the reef and producing the carbonate sands that make up reef islands and beaches.

“In particular, it will enable an accurate assessment of how a range of environmental changes may influence dynamics of this key functional process in the past, present and future,” she said.

From the deck of a 40 foot mulithulled vessel, the Velella, the research team conducted ‘ground truthing’ surveys to verify the accuracy of their satellite

images. This involved information gathered by snorkelers, and footage obtained from a camera that was dropped down into the water column to access zones too deep for a swimmer.

“At each reef site, four researchers worked from smaller tender boats to the catamaran, two conducting snorkel surveys that involved taking underwater photographs close to the seafloor to get a detailed record of the benthic communities, such as live coral, calcified algae, sea grass, sand and rubble,” Dr Hamylton said.

“The other boat lowered a camera down the water column to collect similar information, but with a 50m cable it was able to survey deeper zones, as well as rapidly cover large areas of reef.”

“By combining these approaches in such a detailed mapping campaign, we have a fairly intimate perspective of the reefs, the deeper fore reef areas in particular appeared to be thriving,” she said.

Photos: Matt Smith

KEEPING AN EYE ON CALCIFICATION Scientists hope to use the digital maps generated from the trip to quantify calcification, a key process that underpins many aspects of tropical coastal environments, including fluctuations in seawater chemistry, building up the structural architecture of the reef and producing the carbonate sands that make up reef islands and beaches.

“Calcification is the process by which marine organisms such as corals, algaes and shellfish build a rigid skeleton by deriving calcium carbonate from ions that are freely available in seawater,” Dr Hamylton said.

“Without calcification, these organisms wouldn’t have the structural integrity to withstand the everyday trials of living in the ocean, such as exposure to waves and storms.

“Unfortunately that process is now threatened by several aspects of environmental change, including ocean acidification, elevated sea surface temperatures and increased frequency and intensity of cyclones. Information collected on this expedition will be used to model just how these threats will come together to influence reef community calcification across whole entire reef systems,” she said.

AN UNCONVENTIONAL OFFICE While the expedition resulted in a beautiful trove of underwater images, it was not all smooth sailing for the team who found themselves marooned for six days at Lady Musgrave Island, battling 25-knot winds and two broken engines.

“This was no sailing holiday,” Dr Hamylton said.

“Relaxation was replaced by a sort of

sixth sense, a constant alertness to our surroundings and an unrelenting voice in my head asking, ‘What are the processes at work here? Can we model them? How do they fit with what we already know and what we have set out to accomplish?’”

“The physical graft of sailing between sites each day was tiring, but it was lovely to see the sun rise and set, work to the rhythm of the tides and feel a sense of accomplishment upon completing a different site.

“Morale stayed high and we were able to complete all the major tasks that were planned, becoming fairly proficient sailors along the way” she said. >>Follow Dr Sarah Hamylton on Twitter https://twitter.com/Shamylto and >>Visit her website http://sarahhamylton.com

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NEWS

Hydrogels herald Next Generation Condom Scientists and engineers at UOW are working towards improving the lives of millions of people around the world as they strive to develop a more pleasurable and cost effective condom. Dr Robert Gorkin (pictured fourth from left) is leading a local team to craft the Next Generation Condom out of hydrogels as part of the Grand Challenges Explorations initiative backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The program aims to harness innovative ideas and research that can translate to real products in countries that lack access to birth control and the experience widespread cases of STDs. The program ethos is that “unorthodox thinking is essential to overcoming the most persistent challenges in global health.”

“The advantage of hydrogels is that they can be tailored to feel, look and act more like natural tissue and can be engineered to deliver functionality such as self-lubrication,” Dr Gorkin said.

“Hydrogels are also very safe, being found in any number of familiar applications from contact lenses to food products.”

Consisting of water held together by very small, long molecular chains called polymers, hydrogels can be tailored for different mechanical properties and even made to conduct electricity. At present they are the focus of extensive research in bionic implants

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and as scaffolds for tissue growth, including replacing damaged spinal cords. Now they’re playing a part in the everyday condom.

Polymer scientist Dr Sina Naficy (left) from the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) and molecular microbiologist Dr Jason McArthur (centre) from the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute (IHMRI) also bring their complementary expertise to the $100,000 project, to investigate aspects of biomedical engineering, materials science and drug delivery.

“It’s about challenging our own perceptions, particularly when developing new technologies to be deployed in places like

sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia,” Dr Gorkin said. “We are looking to have a dialogue with people in those areas to look at social and cultural aspects for design that could be incorporated into eventual prototypes and products,” he said.

Grand Challenges Explorations is modelled after mathematician David Hilbert’s ‘grand challenges’, a list of unsolved problems formulated over 100 years ago. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation program funds 16 major challenge areas with the aim of engaging creative minds in scientific disciplines. >>FInd out more http://bit.ly/1wnYbu6

NEWS

How technology is transforming medicine: keynote for NSW GPs Left: Australian Laureate Fellow Professor Gordon Wallace discussing technology’s influence on the development of medicine at the GPCE Conference gala dinner

Professor Gordon Wallace has delivered a special keynote address to medical professionals and GPs at a gala dinner (24 May) for the premier primary healthcare event in NSW. In his talk, the Director

of UOW’s Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) and ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) spoke about technology’s influence on the future medicine, drawing on real-life

examples and the innovative research being done in his labs. Also speaking at the dinner was Warren Lee, CEO of biotechnology company Life Letters, who discussed how the genomic revolution can improve our health and lives. Popular TV personality Dr Andrew Rochford was MC for the evening.

The Sydney General Practitioner Conference & Exhibition (GPCE) hosted over 15,000 delegates for three days of intensive professional training and is run annually in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. The conference provides a range of accredited professional seminars and hands-on workshops from healthcare experts around Australia, as well as a free exhibition for medical professionals, featuring live demonstrations and an opportunity to learn about the latest medical products and services. GPCE is organised by Reed Medical Education and targets GPs, Practice Managers, Practice Nurses, Registrars and other healthcare professionals.

ACES announces new international Masters in Biofabrication The world’s first Masters degree in medical treatments based on printing and regrowing human tissue has been launched at UOW in partnership with three leading research universities. Students graduate with the Masters degree in Biofabrication for Future Manufacturing and are awarded qualifications in both Australia and Europe.

Biofabrication – a process of regrowing human tissue using 3D printing techniques – will enable health professionals to offer patients improved, personalised treatments in the future.

The Wollongong-based ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) and partner institutions will offer the Masters degree. ACES Director Professor Gordon Wallace said the course would provide participants with highly sought after, internationally recognised skills in biofabrication.

“Graduates of the program will have an international network, a track-record of collaboration with the world’s leading bionics, fabrication and bio-ethics experts and an appreciation of all the processes

involved in taking an idea through to commercial reality,” he said.

Current research is focused on regrowing nerve and tissue damaged by disease or injury, which could offer new treatments for breast cancer patients following mastectomy.

This new field of medicine employs 3D printing techniques, which deposit and fuse materials layer-by-layer to form a pre-designed shape. These custom-made

shapes made from suitably biocompatible materials can be implanted into the body and act as a support on which new tissue can grow.

Growth factors or the patient’s own cells are seeded in the scaffold to help spur the body’s healing process. After the new tissue has formed the printed structure is designed to dissolve in the bloodstream.

World-leading biofabrication research institutes joining UOW include the Queensland University of Technology, the University Medical Centre Utrecht (Netherlands) and the University of Würzburg (Germany). Each participating university has a track record in key areas of biofabrication, including polymer chemistry, cell biology, clinical implants and the process of fabrication.

“The key strength ACES brings to the partnership is our expertise in providing end-to-end biofabrication solutions. This means we have the capability to help researchers take their idea from a concept, right through to a product that can be used to help patients,” Professor Wallace said.

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SPOTLIGHT

UOW has secured over $1.2 million in the latest round of Australian Research Council Linkage Project grants, announced in July. The funding backs

projects that aim to revitalise city centres; save endangered species; better understand the link between advertising & childhood obesity;

as well as test high-speed rail.

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SPOTLIGHT

Linkage grant major boost to high-speed rail push More than $1 million pledged to develop high-speed rail testing facility in Wollongong

High speed rail is expected to become the primary mode of transport for Australia for both freight and commuter movement but the rail industry must first tackle some engineering issues to allow this technology to proceed. Along Australia’s coast, the abundance of soft clay often hampers the design and construction of transport infrastructure including embankments. The use of vacuum pressure and prefabricated vertical drains ensure rapid drainage and consolidation of the clay, increasing shear strength and bearing capacity, while reducing long-term deformation.

FACULTY’S LARGEST ARC LINKAGE PROJECT GRANT UOW researchers and their industry partners are now on track to develop the world’s best high-speed rail testing facility following the biggest Federal Government Linkage grant ever awarded to the University’s Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences. The main aim of the Linkage project is to achieve technological advancement in sustainable and costeffective prefabricated vertical drainsvacuum systems by minimising the time to achieve the desired degree of consolidation, thereby controlling post construction settlement and lateral movement.

“Extensive laboratory and field studies supported by numerical modelling aim to result in new industry guides and standards,” Professor Buddhima Indraratna said.

NEW NATIONAL FACILITY FOR CYCLIC TESTING OF HIGH-SPEED RAIL Professor Indraratna (above), who is the Director of the Centre for Geomechanics and Railway Engineering and Program Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence in Geotechnical Sciences and Engineering, said this Linkage project will supplement R&D works to be undertaken at the National Facility for Cyclic Testing of High-Speed Rail. The Facility is to be designed and built at UOW in the near future, under the successful ARC-LIEF grant of approximately $1.7 million with support from industry and several other universities.

“It will be the first of its kind in the world and designed and built in-house in conjunction with other rail testing equipment housed in the SMART Infrastructure Facility,” Professor Indraratna said.

“Through extensive physical modelling and performance monitoring, this unique high speed rail testing facility will provide improved safety, speed and passenger comfort, as well as greater efficiency in long distance freight mobility.”

“It will revolutionise Australia’s future in track modernisation apart from ambitious plans to export the technology to India and Southeast Asia,” he said.

KEY CHALLENGES FOR HIGH SPEED RAIL Current high speed rail issues now being tackled include: • the prevention of track degradation by impact and high cyclic loads • mitigating differential settlements and failure of soft foundations in coastal terrain and • the impediments to free-draining of track caused by the contamination of ballast along coal freight corridors In the latest round of Federal Government Linkage grants Professor Indraratna’s research team received $735,000 and a further $450,000 from the industry partners with the total approaching $1.2 million. The contributing industry partners for the project are the National Jute Board of Government of India, Coffey Geotechnics Pty Ltd, Douglas Partners Pty Ltd, Menard Bachy Pty Ltd and Soilwicks Australia.

PROJECTS THAT CONNECT THE DOTS The latest Linkage grant builds on a previous 2013 Linkage project awarded to Professor Indraratna and other team members which examined the benefits of stone columns for stabilising soft soil foundations through numerical and experimental processes.

Team members for the latest Linkage grant project include Professor Indraratna (team leader, UOW), Associate Professor Cholachat Rujikiatkamjorn (UOW), Professors Scott Sloan and John Carter (Newcastle), Professor David Potts (Imperial College, Uni. of London), and industry partners Dr Richard Kelly (Coffey Geotechnics), Mr Tapobrata Sanyal (NJB, India), Mr Geoffrey McIntosh (Douglas Partners), Mr Philippe Vincent (MenardBachy) and Mr Greg Ryan (SoilWicks).

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FEATURE

Budding Ideas celebrates emerging talent Forward-thinking notions and new theories have been celebrated at UOW’s inaugural research showcase event for emerging researchers: Budding Ideas

>>Replay the talks on

YouTube http://bit.ly/1wY00yh

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Keeping the establishment on its toes, L-R, emerging and mid-career researchers: Dr Justin Yerbury, Dr Jennifer Fisher, A/Prof Long Nghiem, Dr Quentin Hanich & Dr Bridget Kelly >>WATCH THE TALKS

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FEATURE

Open night for Budding researchers From combating the fat food environment around us to finding a cure for Motor Neurone Disease, UOW showcased some of its best and brightest early career researchers on the cusp of something big at a free, community event on Monday 26th May. The event is the first of a two-part ideasfest to be held at UOW that celebrates the great work being done behind the University’s office doors and lab benches, with the second event set for Wednesday 15th Otober.

Budding Ideas features five emerging researchers giving 10 minute talks about their area of research, and conculdes with an in-depth Q&A session.

ARC Success 2014 Dr Bridget Kelly is part of a UOW team awarded over $190,000 under the ARC Linkage Projects Scheme for their work collecting evidence about the impact of unhealthy marketing on children’s attitude to food. >>Read more: http://bit.ly/1zZXewI

COMBATING THE FAT FOOD AROUND US Public health expert and dietician Dr Bridget Kelly (right) discussed the rising rate of obesity in Australia (one in four children are now classified as overweight or obese) and how we can combat the ‘fat food environment’ around us.

“The ‘junk food industry’ is a major contributor to the escalating rates of obesity and diet-related chronic diseases in Australia and worldwide,” Dr Kelly said.

“There have been major changes to children’s nutritional intake in the last few decades and the junk food industry is largely to blame.”

“Our environment is now characterised by an abundant availability of inexpensive, energy-dense, highly palatable foods, which are sold in large and convenient packages and heavily promoted. Children are highly vulnerable to food marketing, as they don’t see this as a persuasive message but believe this to be true and unbiased. Food companies also use marketing tactics that are highly appealing to children,” she said.

According to Dr Kelly, childhood is a critical period for developing lifelong food habits that can influence disease risk immediately and in the long term. In fact, studies have shown that almost 80 per cent of obese adolescents will become obese adults.

To help combat what she terms our ‘fat food environment’, Dr Kelly has developed a framework for linking reactions to food marketing exposure, which she hopes will highlight the need for governments to protect children from junk food marketing.

POLITICAL STALEMATE - TRANSPARENCY AND FAIRNESS CAN SAVE OUR OCEANS International policy consultant Dr Quentin Hanich (top right), shared the insights from his varied career experiences, first as an environmental campaigner, sailing across the sub-Antarctic and the Pacific, and later as a researcher, consulting throughout the Asia Pacific region on various marine conservation and fisheries projects.

“I have developed a fairly pragmatic understanding of the nature of conservation

TRANSFORMING WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANTS TO POWER STATIONS AND PHOSPHOROUS QUARRIES Water membrane technologist Associate Professor Long Nghiem (top left) discussed an innovative new system to capture toxic phosphorus from sewage waste and delivers clean water. “Most of our phosphorus ends up in wastewater, then goes to the ocean. We mine phosphorous form a quarry somewhere in Morocco, and then we use the phosphorus as a fertiliser for agricultural production to produce food to put on our table,” A/Prof Nghiem said.

“This one way movement of phosphorus is preventing a threat to our food security. By the middle of this century we are at risk of running out of phosphorus all together.”

FILLING IN THE GAPS - USING MODELS TO INTERPRET THE EARTH’S CHANGING ATMOSPHERE Atmospheric chemist Dr Jenny Fisher (opposite), whose efforts to develop a modelling system are helping our understanding of climate change, reflected on Australia’s past summer. In 2013 over 150 climate records were broken; ranging from heatwaves, to droughts, to the onset of early bushfires.

“There is a large global community group of scientists working together to try to understand what the causes and the impacts of climate change are. Atmopheric chemistry is one of the many sub-parts of climate science and it is the one I am a part of,” Dr Fisher said. “Climate change, air pollution,

Above L-R: A/Prof Long Nghiem, Dr Justin Yerbury and Dr Quentin Hanich Opposite: Dr Jenny Fisher talks climate change in Australia Below: Dr Bridget Kelly responds to a question from the audience

these types of environmental problems are truly global issues and we cannot think of anywhere in isolation,” she said.

SHAPE SHIFTERS - THE ROLE OF PROTEIN MISFOLDING IN PROGRESSION OF MND Neuroscientist Dr Justin Yerbury (top centre) spoke about understanding why proteins misfold in the brains of patients with Motor Neurone Disease, a devastating neurological disease that took the lives of four of his own family members. Among some of his memorable representations, he used two differently folded paper planes to demonstrate how any two proteins, with the same chemical structure, can do damage if folded the wrong way.

Photos: Mark Newsham

in the international arena. The key insight is that conservation is about people, not nature,” Dr Hanich said.

“If we destroy the integrity of a marine ecosystem, we weaken or destroy its capacity to provide food security and livelihoods.” >> Read more about Dr Hanich’s talk

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Opinion

Killing sharks

Western Australia’s shark culls are stirring strong emotions. Dr Leah Gibbs draws the policy debate into the 21st century with an academic critique of our ocean encounters.

April 30 signals the end of Western Australia’s controversial shark cull; at least for now. The state government set its first lines of baited hooks – called drumlines – on Australia Day 2014 with the aim of catching and killing sharks deemed to pose an “imminent threat” to beachgoers.

The policy was instituted in response to a number of fatalities in the state caused by human encounters with sharks. But the policy is controversial due to the lack of scientific evidence that killing sharks will reduce human fatalities. Further, the three target species – white shark (Carcharadon carcharias), tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier), and bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) – are all listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. The new policy required federal exemption from the state’s responsibilities under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to protect listed species.

With my colleague Dr Andrew Warren (University of New England) I am currently 20

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investigating the politics and cultures of the sea and of human-shark encounters.

In particular, our research targets the people most likely to come into contact with sharks: divers, surfers, swimmers, paddlers, fishers and other ocean-users.

To date we have conducted an online survey of more that 550 ocean-users.

Our key findings are firstly that people encounter sharks frequently and without negative incident, challenging the assumption that the presence of sharks equates to a threat to people.

And secondly, ocean-users oppose shark management strategies that involve killing sharks. Instead, the most strongly supported strategies are improving public education about sharks, and encouraging ocean-users to accept the risks associated with ocean-use.

Early results from our series of in-depth interviews show that: those with greatest exposure to sharks tend to be most at ease with the presence of sharks in the ocean; attitudes are not black and white, but

varied and nuanced; and people are highly supportive of further research and public education about shark behaviour, ocean use and risk.

Our research is ongoing. We are excited by the level of interest from our participants and the public, and are currently investigating possibilities for bringing our social science into conversation with biological and ecological research in order to shape policy and practice that reduces threats to both ocean-users and protected species.

We plan to bring the work back to the east coast, where similar strategies of killing and culling sharks have been in use for decades: drumlines in QLD since the 1960s and nets in NSW since the 1930s. These old strategies emerge from old thinking. It is time to re-evaluate how we relate to the sea. >>By Dr Leah Gibbs, Lecturer in UOW’s School of Geography http://bit.ly/1qM6vTH

Fat scores top marks for Three Minute Thesis champion UOW’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT) champion for 2014 is Colin Cortie.

The 29 year-old is on the home stretch of his PhD studies, having dedicated over a decade to carving out an academic path in science. Colin graduated with a Bachelor of Biology/Bachelor of Psychology (2008) from UOW before taking up a position working as a Research Assistant in the Lipid Research Centre. He is now investigating oxidative damage in fats under the supervision of Professor Paul Else, Associate Professor Todd Mitchell and Emeritus Professor Tony Hulbert from the Faculty of Science, Medicine & Health.

IDENTIFYING THE RISKS OF FREE RADICALS AND FATS The presence of free radicals in the body is often associated with cell damage, leading to disease and aging. Colin’s research aims to shed light on the role of fats in this process.

“Before you can decide what can be done, you have to decide where the starting point is. There are a lot of unknowns about how oxidative damage occurs in fats,” Colin said.

“Although everyone uses oxygen to breathe for our metabolism, it is a doubleedged sword. As we breathe in and use oxygen, we are also producing a reactive oxygen species – or free radicals – that are generally considered to be dangerous to our health.

“Chemically there are some fatty acids that are far more likely to be damaged by the oxidative process; there are some fats that are three-four times more susceptible to these free radicals than proteins or DNA,” he said.

“In the past the focus has been on proteins or DNA because it has not always been appreciated that lipid content has anything other than a structural role but fats are very common in our cells, as they form cell membranes. For every protein in those membranes, there is probably between 10-100 fats. They outnumber all other components of a cell put together,” he said.

RESEARCH OF BULK AND COMPLEXITY Given the number of fats that require very particular diets in order to be produced, it proves to be a tricky subject to study. A major component of Colin’s thesis, that his winning three-minute talk did not cover, looks at how diet influences fat profile.

Reading scientific papers as far back as the 50s, he worked his way through the writings of every researcher who has done studies with animals, feeding them certain types of fats to observe how dietary

changes affected fat profiles.

“Fats are a combination of what you make yourself, what you need in the diet and the implications of belonging to particular membranes and cells,” Colin said.

“The general consensus is that animals with fat profiles that are more likely to be damaged tend to live shorter lives. So if they have a greater likelihood of oxidative damage, they are expected to have a shorter lifespan.

“A mouse will live four years and a pig lives about 30. A pig is much larger, and its profile has more of these vulnerable fats,” he said.

“Humans, naked mole rats and echidnas all live far longer than predicted by their mass and they all have a profile that is less susceptible to free-radical damage. These findings correspond to the membrane pace-maker theory.”

Winner: Colin Cortie’s three minute talk entitled ‘Of Mice, Pigs and Men: The Fats of Long Life’ will represent UOW at the 3MT Tran-Tasman finals.

Other aspects of Colin’s research, analysing how different fats are oxidised, are conducted in tightly-controlled experiments done in the laboratory.

“I thought the 3MT as an idea was brilliant.

It means you have to really drill down into what you are doing and why you are doing it; in a way that anyone can understand,” Colin said.

This year’s UOW 3MT Runner-up title went to Katherine Caldwell (Science Medicine and Health) and the People’s Choice award to Tongfei Tan (Engineering and Information Sciences). >>Find out more about the UOW 3MT competition http://bit.ly/1m10BNt

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21

AWARDS

Six staff and graduates among Australia’s top 100 engineers

The contribution UOW engineers make to society has been recognised with six staff and alumni named among Australia’s top 100 most influential engineers by peak industry organisation Engineers Australia.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Judy Raper (pictured above) was among those recognised in the Engineers Australia magazine list of Australia’s Top 100 Most Influential Engineers for 2014.

In addition to Professor Raper, the 11th publication of the Top 100 most influential 22

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also includes five UOW engineering alumni: Alex Baitch (Engineers Australia), Mark Cutifani (Anglo American), Bronwyn Evans (Standards Australia), Graeme Hunt (Transfield Services) and Alex Zelinsky (Defence Science and Technology Organisation).

UOW’s engineering strength was recognised in the announcement, with 6 per cent of the top 100 having completed their engineering degree at UOW. Top 100 engineers are involved in any number of categories, from academia to industry, with the primary criteria for the awards focusing on the level of influence the engineer has had in their field of endeavour over the past year.

Professor Raper was appointed UOW Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) in July 2008 and her current portfolio includes higher degree research students, grants and commercial research.

“Being influential in this field I think means having an effect on people in a variety of fields and enabling people to do the best research they can,” Professor Raper said.

“An achievement like this with six UOW engineers being recognised shows that our teaching and research efforts are leading to

quality graduate engineers.”

Professor Raper said her recent career highlights included the growth in research activity and reputation at UOW in the past five years as well as the recent launch of the Global Challenges research program and the success of UOW’s Solar Decathlon student initiative.

Her distinguished research career in chemical engineering has led to a number of prestigious awards including the Sheddon Pacific Award for the most outstanding young chemical engineer in Australia in 1992 and the Professional Engineer of the Year in 1998.

In 2003 her contribution to the engineering profession in Australia was recognised by election to the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in Australia and as an Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia. >> See Engineers Australia’s Top 100 list online http://bit.ly/1o4PCmh

awards

Verteran journo named Scholar of the Year Indonesia, which resulted in the 50-minute documentary. It seeks to understand how post-colonial history in Indonesia has shaped the nation’s tolerance towards violence, including lynching, in extrajudicial punishment.

“The program was a pioneering collaboration between Anthropology and Journalism. It

2014 has been an outstanding year for Journalism lecturer Dr Siobhan McHugh (pictured above), who has been named the inaugural Anne Dunn Scholar of the Year; and recognised internationally for her revealing radio documentary about crime and justice in Indonesia. Eat Pray Mourn: Crime and Punishment in Jakarta, aired on ABC radio last year and has received a prestigious bronze medal at the New York Radio Festival. The bronze gong for the information/documentary prize category follows similar success in 2010, when another one of Dr McHugh’s audio documentaries took out gold and bronze medals, in both the religion and history categories.

The Eat Pray Mourn project began in 2011, when Dr McHugh and anthropologist Dr Jacqui Baker (ANU) won a $10,000 scholarship to undertake fieldwork in

It sets the ground for radio documentaries to be considered NonTraditional Research Outputs sets the ground for radio documentaries to be considered Non-Traditional Research Outputs, as both major creative works in their own right and as a new publication medium for conventional scholarly research,” Dr McHugh said.

“Dr Baker’s research on extrajudicial police killings in Indonesia previously received scant attention. Since our documentary was broadcast on ABC Radio National (in April 2013 and January 2014), she has been

called in to advise AusAid that funds aid to Indonesia, including to the Indonesian police, whose record of extrajudicial killings formed the context for the personal narratives examined in Eat Pray Mourn: three women from marginalised backgrounds mourning the death of their loved ones,” she said.

The documentary has also been set as a text in Asian studies and Justice studies in two Australian universities. On the radio front, it has also been honoured with a screening at the 40th International Features Conference in Leipzig, Germany.

Dr McHugh came to academia after more than three decades working in the media industry. Her PhD in Creative Arts (2010) developed key ideas around orality, aurality and affect, exploration the materiality of the audio medium and its particular affinities with emotive storytelling. She has also recently founded a journal, RADIODOC REVIEW, that aims to contribute to debate and knowledge about what she believes to be an undertheorised area of journalism practice – audio storytelling. In May the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association and the Journalism Education Association of Australia, recognised Dr McHugh with a $3,000 award as the inaugural Anne Dunn Scholar of the Year. The award recognises excellence in research about journalism or broadcast media for the public benefit.

Celebrating science communication The Cochlear implant has helped nearly one million people regain their hearing, but with any implanted device, there is an inflammatory response that can be detrimental. Binbin Zhang’s 30 second video about her PhD research investigating how to integrate a drug delivery system into a cochlear implant, offers a solution to the problematic inflammatory response.

“I turned to 3D Printing technology and I optimised the materials so they can be printed,” Binbin said.

“Eventually I was able to fabricate the 3D scaffolds as desired, so hopefully patients will have a better experience in the future.”

Binbin created the 30-second video as part of a Researcher Showcase competition run by the Cooperative Research Centre to celebrate good research, communicated well. As a shortlisted finalist, she was invited to attend an international conference in Perth, ‘Innovating with Asia’.

Binbin is a member of the ACES Bionics program & the HEARing CRC.

Australia’s Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb AC (second from left) with competitors L-R: Dr Honor Calnan, Binbin Zhang, Michael Scott and Jake Lacey

>>Watch Binbin’s 30 second clip http://youtu.be/kcAVM8-ubr4 R esearch & I n n ovatio n News

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TRAVEL TALE

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South Africa’s crusade against salt Epidemiologist and public health expert Associate Professor Karen Charlton has spent the last decade examining sodium intake in South Africa. She travelled to Johannesburg in March to present her research at South Africa’s first Salt Summit.

A/Prof Karen Charlton at the South African Salt Summit, Johannesburg

With the average Australian consuming around eight to nine times more sodium than they need for good health, public health experts are devising salt reduction strategies to help prevent diseases associated with elevated sodium levels, such as hypertension, heart disease and stroke.

NATION’S FIRST SALT SUMMIT Leading the charge in the global push for less salt is South Africa, and in March the country’s held its first Salt Summit in Johannesburg. Associate Professor Karen Charlton from UOW’s School of Medicine presented her research at the Summit, showing that by reducing the sodium content of bread, margarines, soups and gravies, salt intake can be decreased by 0.85 grams per day, resulting in 7,000 fewer deaths due to cardiovascular disease.

Other measurable outcomes include 4,000 less non-fatal strokes in the country per year and savings in the order of 300 million Rands ($40 million) in healthcare costs associated with non-fatal strokes alone.

“South Africa provides an ideal case study that could be applied to other countries

particularly in low middle income and developing countries,” A/Prof Charlton said.

“It’s all tied up to what is available and what people can afford. Fruit and vegetable consumption is low and that is related to cost. Maize meal is the staple food and is often consumed at breakfast lunch and dinner. To make it palatable stock cubes and flavour enhancer (with MSG) is added – and this is where the salt consumption becomes an issue,” she said.

MONITORING CRUCIAL FOR ‘SALT WATCH’ New guidelines released by the World Health Organisation in January recommend adults consume less than 2,000 mg of sodium, or 5 grams of salt, per day.

Professor Charlton said the world now has its eyes on how the South African legislation will influence changes in population health.

At the Summit, a new campaign called the ‘salt watch’ initiative will be launched, while key government officials, food industry partners and researchers will discuss future salt strategies.The visit to South Africa will also be an opportunity for Professor Charlton to begin work on a

new project that aims to lessen the burden of diseases related to hypertension (high blood pressure) through innovative salt reduction strategies. The collaborative project will involve researchers from the World Health Organisation, the University of Ghana and the Human Science Research Council in South Africa, as well as UOW. A/Prof Charlton is resolved to keep monitoring on the agenda as part of scheduled meetings she has with key government officials at the Summit. In her view an assessment of salt levels in foods (in becoming compliant) and monitoring changes in levels of sodium consumed (through the collection of urine from participants over a 24 hour period) are paramount.

“It is absolutely essential that monitoring is discussed and taken serious – without it there would be evidence and no change,” A/Prof Charlton said.

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NEWS

3D Print Sydney

Eye of the fly may hold the key to anti-fogging materials

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) took its cutting edge customised 3D Printing facility and expertise to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney for 3D Print Sydney on 10 June.

Hosted by ABC presenter Bernie Hobbs, 3D Print Sydney featured short talks by engineer Dr Stephen Beirne, scientist Professor Gordon Wallace, surgeon Professor Peter Choong, ethicist Professor Susan Dodds and sculpter Louis Pratt.

Each presenter shared a story about how their own industry is being impacted by 3D printing technology and their views on where this technology is heading.

Over 180 people came to watch the several printing demonstrations on show, including the popular handheld 3D printing ‘pen’ (above) that the public were free to try themselves.

3D Print Sydney followed a similar event in 2013, 3D Print Wollongong, and is the latest public event on the dynamic ACES outreach program calendar. >>Watch a video of Professor Wallace speaking at 3D Print Wollongong

http://bit.ly/1r0cB1Z

Self-cleaning windows and fog-resistant glasses are among the innovative applications that could soon appear after UOW researchers turned to the common house fly for the inspiration behind a new anti-fogging material.

The material, developed at the Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials (ISEM) led by Professor Shi Xue Dou, could also be used as a coating to prevent ice build-up that leads to interruption of supply and service on high-voltage overhead power lines and telecommunications networks.

The common green housefly can see clearly in dusty and wet environments and when the researchers put it in under a microscope in a humid environment they found condensation occurred only on its body and not its compound eyes.

Inspection under a high-powered scanning electron microscope revealed the surface of the eye was made up of thousands of small hexagonal shapes and, within each of those hexagons, there were still more hexagonal shapes.

According to Associate Professor Jung Ho Kim, it is well-known that zinc oxide has a similar hexagonal structure, so the team set about building a material to mimic the fly’s eye to replicate the anti-fogging and

Book explores evolution of bioethics UOW Historian A/Prof Sarah Ferber has celebrated the launch of her new book ‘Bioethics in Historical Perspective’. The book highlights political minefield of bioethics in modern ‘culture wars’.

Prof Ferber, who researches in two fields of cultural history – early modern European religion and contemporary bioethics, said the book shows how our understanding of medical history still plays a part in clinical medicine and medical research today.

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‘Bioethics in Historical Perspective’ presents an extensively documented set of case studies in biomedical ethics, exploring the important role played by history in thinking about modern medical practice and policy. It also provides up-todate information about issues in bioethics as well as a guide to the most influential ethical standpoints. The book is published by Palgrave MacMillan and can be purchased at: >>http://bit.ly/1tdR9fk

anti-contamination properties.

The scientists tested the zinc nanoparticles assembled into hexagonal shapes similar to the fly eye and found them to be similarly superhydrophobic, or could not be wet with water, which would allow the material to be developed into coatings that boast anti-fogging, anticorrosive and self-cleaning properties.

The process used to construct the material is also feasible for low-cost, large-scale production.

Researchers have long studied nature to find answers for developing new materials to address common problems such as moisture build-up that can wreak havoc on small electronic components and devices.

“Nature is great teacher,” Professor Jung Ho Kim said. “Anti-fogging and anticontamination coatings have a potential range of applications from self-cleaning windows on your car or home right through to windows on planes.

“As someone who wears spectacles and doesn’t enjoy cleaning my windows at home, I hope that further work can be done on these applications sooner rather than later.” >>Read the published findings in the journal Small

http://bit.ly/1tsS8V6

STUDENT PROFILE

Elspeth Hayes Belgium Bound: PhD student Elspeth (Ebbe) Hayes is headed for the University of Liège, where she will complete a two-month exchange studying stone tools.

Left: Ebbe Hayes is studying aboriginal stone tools as part of her research at the Centre for Archaeological Science.

What are you studying?

I am a PhD candidate at the Centre of Archaeological Science (CAS) in the Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health. I work under the supervision of Professor Richard Fullagar, Dr Zenobia Jacobs, Professor Bert Roberts and Dr Chris Clarkson (University of Queensland).

What does your research focus on?

My research aims to identify the function of prehistoric Australian Aboriginal stone artefacts through microscopic examination of residues and the wear traces present on the artefact surface. Wear traces on stone tool surfaces have characteristic patterns, depending on the way an artefact was used (e.g. cutting, scraping, pounding or grinding) and the kind of material that was processed (e.g. bone, skin, plants or seeds).

Organic and inorganic residues adhering to the tool surface also provide an indication of past tool function and can sometimes be taxonomically identified.

I remove microscopically visible residues and use biological stains to determine distinctive animal and plant tissues.

Absorbed or “invisible” residues have also been identified using other methods of analysis, such as gas-chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and absorbance spectroscopy.

I am studying stone artefact assemblages from two Australian Pleistocene sites. The artefacts I am analysing include collections of grinding stones and fragments spanning the last 50,000 years. I have been examining all the available sandstone artefacts and my results show that they have been used to grind or file a wide range of organic and inorganic substances linked with subsistence, craft and decorative art.

By documenting the function of Pleistocene-aged grinding stones and how these functions have changed through time, I am able to investigate past behaviours of Aboriginal people since the time of colonisation around 50,000 years ago.

Changes in artefact function through time may relate to shifts in site function, variation in subsistence practices, food consumption, cultural behaviour, and related technological and social changes.

This research may also provide information about resource use, including the extraction and processing of specific plant foods, which are otherwise invisible in the archaeological record.

What next? - I will be heading off to Belgium in the European summer on a two-month exchange award funded by the University of Liège, where I will be working in the newly established TraceoLab. This laboratory was established in 2013 after the European Research Council

awarded a grant to Dr Veerle Rots to develop a state-of-the-art use-wear and residue laboratory. Dr Rots is a leading archaeologist and world expert in the study of micro-wear traces and prehistoric hafting technologies; so being able to work with her and colleagues at the University of Liège is a very exciting opportunity!

During my research exchange, I will also be participating in an archaeological dig at the site of Les Cottés in Vienne, France, run by Marie Soressi, a lecturer at the University of Leiden (Netherlands). The site is a recent Neanderthal site that dates to the Chatelperronian culture, the final stage of Neanderthal occupation in France.

The analysis of artefacts from this site will therefore provide insights into the behaviour of the last Neanderthals and the first anatomically modern humans in Western Europe. This may help shed light on the interaction between these two human populations just before the demise of Neanderthals. I will be working with a PhD student from Liège, Dries Cnuts, on site to carefully excavate artefacts so that the stone tools can be brought back in the laboratory with intact residues for further study.

What has been the highlight of your career so far? - As a student, I have been incredibly lucky in that I have been able to travel during my research career. I have presented at five international conferences including Europe, Asia and North America.

In 2013, I was given the opportunity to visit Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Canada, where I learnt a range of techniques to identify and characterise invisible or absorbed residues. I would have to say the highlight so far has been fieldwork experience working with a local Aboriginal community and small research team up in northern Australia, to excavate one of Australia’s earliest archaeological sites. It was such a wonderful opportunity to work at a site of huge significance to Australian archaeology! >>Follow Ebbe on Twitter: @ebbehayes >>Learn more about CAS http://bit.ly/1jIDQd2 R esearch & I n n ovatio n News

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NEW STAFF

Leading international human geographer, Professor Noel Castree has joined UOW’s Faculty of Social Sciences. Previously appointed Professor of Human Geography at Manchester University (UK), his primary research interest is the political economy of environmental change.

“I have always had an interest in geography, going right back to my first peer review publication in 1995 when I was half way through my PhD. “Ironically, what has happened in the last 120 years is that many geographers have stopped being interested in integration and now you have human geographers who are essentially social scientists, some humanities scholars over here and physical geographers who are very much scientists over here - until recently, there was not very much in the middle,” Professor Castree said.

“I see myself as being in the middle, as someone who has an eye on the physical science aspects of studying nature; but who values the social sciences, humanities aspects to do with values and power and institutions as all really important things,” he said.

Professor Castree is particularly interested in the relationship between society and the environment and he is a key contributor to ongoing academic debates about the ecological implications of the capitalist way of life.

“For example, one of the things that I have written about is the way Marxist ideas help us understand recent changes in environmental policy across the world – so I’m talking about things like trying to value eco-systems services economically. I have spent a long time trying to understand how it is that a Marxist interpretation of how capitalism works affects our understanding of what is happening to the environment around us,” he said.

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After completing her bachelor and master degrees in Electronic Engineering at the University of Tehran (Iran), Fargol Hasani Bigarbooneh took up a Research Fellow post at the same university, where she turned her focus to the physics of electronic devices and quantum electronic modelling.

“My PhD was focused on the optimisation of Dye-sensitised solar cells,” Dr Hasani Bigarbooneh said. “The applications relating to my research area include solar cells, photocatalysis, Organic Photovoltaics, and water-splitting.”

Dr Hasani Bigarbooneh came to learn about IPRI browsing the web, and was successful in applying for a University Postgraduate Award to support her studies. Since moving to Australia to pursue her PhD, her knowledge and skill has earned her the highest rank in UOW’s School of Electrical Computer, Telecommunications Engineering (SECTE) for a tutor and lab demonstrator.

“After graduating, I started working at UOW’s Electron Microscope Centre (EMC) until I joined the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI),” she said.

“Currently my work on a CRC-Polymers project involves collaboration with the University of Newcastle, University of New South Wales, University of Queensland, and ANSTO.”

Archaeologist Professor Richard Fullagar is the latest research fellow to join UOW’s Centre for Archaeological Science (CAS), with extensive field experience in the Australia–Papua New Guinea region and scientific expertise in determining the function of ancient stone tools. He comes to the CAS team to work alongside Australian Laureate Fellow Professor Richard (Bert) Roberts, studying stone tools from Southeast Asia as part of the project ‘OUT OF ASIA: unique insights into human evolution and interactions using frontier technologies in archaeological science’.

“I seek to find out how stone tools were made and hafted; how they were used to make and maintain other tools made from stone, bone, shell, wood, skins and other materials, and also what other kinds of resources they were used to process-- like for example, plant and animal foods, fibres, medicines and poisons,” Prof Fullagar said.

In 1986 Prof Fullagar’s PhD research was the first study to examine functional traces on entire artefact assemblages from one site, providing some of the earliest evidence of starch, bone and other residue traces on Australian stone tools. His pervious collaborations with Prof Roberts have provided a revised chronology, with evidence of bioturbation and much reduced age estimates, based on one of the first applications of single grain optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating.

The integration of fine resolution OSL techniques to date artefact burial is now the hallmark of current work in northern Australia.

“My role is to integrate bimolecular, residue morphology and use-wear approaches in the study of early modern human archaeological sites in Eastern Asia and northern Australia,” Prof Fullagar said.

“My broader research objective is to understand relationships between prehistoric resource use and human evolution through study of stone artefacts, which constitute the main component of archaeological sites throughout human history,” he said.

Dr Samantha McMahon has been working as a Research Assisant at UOW since 2006, the same year she commenced her Bachelor of Teaching (Primary). After completing her PhD reconstructing the ‘knowledge of challenging behaviour during Professional Experience’ in 2013, she has now taken up work investigating ways to improve school completion rates of Australian indigenous students with the School of Education in the Faculty of Social Sciences.

“My area of expertise is sociology of education, so working on a project that has such a strong focus on social justice in education is a real privilege,” Dr McMahon said.

“I am working with Associate Professor Valerie Harwood and Dr Sarah O’Shea on the AIME Partnership Research Project.

“We are collaborating with AIME and a colleague from Macquarie University, Dr Gawaian Bodkin-Andrews, to better understand why AIME mentoring is so effective and how it works. This team has worked together in the past and I’m very much looking forward to continuing the research,” she said.

Dr McMahon’s doctoral thesis received commendation from both of her examiners, taking out the Beth Southwell Award for Outstanding PhD thesis from the NSW Institute of Educational Research. In 2007 she won the Primary Pre-service Teacher Award for Excellence in Science Education from the Department of Education and Science Training for excellence in her undergraduate studies.

Dr Hironori Onuki brings diverse academic experience to UOW as a lecturer in International Studies, having previously taught at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in Canada, Japan, and the Philippines. He recently held an appointment as a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Science at York University (Canada).

“My research interests lie in the areas of international political economy, global labour migration, gender relations, and human as well as national security, with special reference to the Asia-Pacific region,” Dr Onuki said.

“Focusing on the contexts of Japan and the Philippines, my doctoral research explored how policies regarding migration and labour markets, in both the sending and receiving states, shape and are shaped by the political contestation and political agency of migrant workers.”

Articles related to the project have been published in New Political Economy, Refuge, and three edited books (two of which are written in Japanese).

“My future research agenda draws on the same foundation and follows three main lines of work: • Disaster capitalism and global labour mobility: Migrant workers under Japan’s recovery from the triple disaster; • A new era for global labour migration?

The economic crisis and migrant workers in Japan and Australia; and • Neo-Gramscian approaches in international political economy: Their contributions, limits, and potentials from global perspectives.”

Based in Tasmania, Dr Dora von Crady works in rural General Practice and holds a GP research registrar position under the supervision of UOW’s Clinical Associate Professor Bastian Seidel and Professor Andrew Bonney (Roberta Williams Chair of General Practice) from the Graduate School of Medicine. The term 3 registrar is conducting a research project into Complementary and Alternative Medicine use in the rural and general practice setting, and whether this relates to levels of health literacy.

“I started my training in the area of General Surgery and spent five and a half years working in this area in both Ireland and Western Australia,” Dr von Crady said.

“I then decided to take these skills and apply them in a rural general practice setting, whilst diversifying the scope of my practice to meet the demands of this population. This is what took me to Tasmania,” she said.

Dr von Crady meets with Dr Seidel twice a week at Huon Valley Health Centre to discuss her research and is currently teaching third and fifth year medical students from the University of Tasmania. In 2003 she obtained her Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG) and became a member of Ireland’s Royal College of Surgeons in 2006. Since then she has gone on to work in New Zealand, Western Australia and Tasmania.

“I have also had the opportunity to join the voluntary organisation Specialists Without Borders in 2010, when I travelled to Rwanda to deliver medical products, text books, surgical expertise and teaching to local junior doctors and medical students,” Dr von Crady said.

“It was a thoroughly rewarding experience and I was very grateful for the opportunity,” she said.

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EVENTS

UOW Community Engagement Symposium

ENGAGE TODAY/TRANSFORM TOMORROW Thursday 24 July | 9.00am–5.00pm Communications Building 20 University of Wollongong INFO: http://bit.ly/1ntjeMn RSVP: community@uow.edu.au REGISTRATION ESSENTIAL The inaugural Community Engagement Symposium, ‘Engage Today/Transform Tomorrow’ will offer the opportunity for delegates from the community, business, industry, not-for-profits, community partners and UOW to discuss how they can collaborate to create and realise bold visions for the future.

The Symposium will also provide networking, educational and skill building opportunities with a variety of presentations.

SPEAKER SPOTLIGHT: PROF IAN BUCHANAN Lively, Creative, Active: Cities in Transition Professor Buchanan will speak about three inter-related research projects that he is working on with city councils around Australia. His research focuses on different strategies that regional Australian cities use to reinvent themselves and generate economic growth, as well as cultural sustainability. In particular he will talk about the ‘Lively City’ project he and Professors Gordon Waitt (UOW) and Elaine Stratford (University of Tasmania) are working on in collaboration with Wollongong City Council.

Following the Symposium, the UOW Office of Advancement will be hosting an

The sense and sensitivity of Open Justice INSIDE JILL MEAGHER’S HANDBAG: LOOKING AT OPEN JUSTICE Wednesday 6th August | 4.30-6pm Building 67.101, UOW RSVP: http://bit.ly/WuffDP UOW’s Legal Intersections Research Institute has invited criminologist, historian and legal scholar Associate Professor Katherine Biber (UTS) to give a seminar examining a recent high-profile instances where criminal evidence has been released to the public, through open justice mechanisms. Prof Biber will argue for a more robust assessment of the sensitivities of this material before it is disclosed >>Find out more about events hosted by the LIRC http://bit.ly/1uadvi4 30

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active networking session to introduce the ‘Collaborative Communities Network’.

Delegates will have the opportunity to build and strengthen community networks for learning, resource sharing, problem solving and collaboration across UOW and the broader community.

Other speakers include: Professor Michael Cuthill - Chair, Regional Community Development, Australian Centre for Sustainable Business and Development, University of Southern Queensland Kimberley Abbott - Founder/Executive Director, ROKA Shamal Dass - Director, Philanthropic Services, JBWere Dr Bronwyn Carlson - Senior Lecturer Indigenous Studies Unit, UOW

EVENTS

Uni in the Brewery Wednesday 5th November, 2014 Time: 5.30-6.30pm Venue: Five Islands Brewery, WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong INFO & RSVP: research@uow.edu.au

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATHELETICISM With Philosopher Professor Dan Hutto FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Where sporting prowess collides with conceptual blindness - you’ll leave seeing performers (be they athletes or dancers) in a whole new light.

In this Uni in the Brewery, our newest Professor in Philosophical Psychology will examine professional sporting performance through the lens of cognitive science.

The fact that the mind is embodied in

important and surprising ways is now beyond serious dispute. Professor Hutto will demonstrate how failure to fully embrace this new line of thinking about expert performance can prevent full appreciation of some very important lessons.

“Prominent scientists are actively calling for theories about expert performance to be informed by the embodied cognition framework,” Professor Hutto said.

“This presentation identifies some pivotal, but not obvious, lessons of direct importance on expert skill acquisition and performance,” he said. >>Find out more: http://bit.ly/1kO5HJq

Manga Studies is now emerging as an important field of scholarship and criticism within Japanese Studies and Cultural Studies, but its methodologies and theoretical foundations are still being developed in relation existing academic disciplines and everyday practices.The University of Wollongong, in cooperation with Kyoto Seika University’s International Manga Research Center, has announced an international scholarly conference on manga to be held in October .

The Manga Futures symposium is to run over the weekend of 31 October – 2 November 2014, in UOW’s Creative Arts Building (25) and will bring together some of Japan’s leading manga studies scholars based at Kyoto Seika University’s International Manga Research Center with leading Japan studies scholars from Australia and the US. Participants will consider the state of the field of ‘manga studies’ internationally, discuss methods and approaches to the study of manga culture, and consider how young people‘s interest in manga and Japanese popular culture more widely can be harnessed to increase global understanding and appreciation of Japanese language and culture.

One of Japan’s most eminent manga artists, Professor Keiko Takemiya, has been invited to present a talk at the Manga Futures symposium, entitled ‘Keiko Takemiya, Witness to 50 years of Manga’. At this event (Thursday 30th October at the University of Sydney) Professor Takemiya will discuss the environment that has enabled manga to become a successful art form and cultural

Photo: Junko Kimura, Getty Images

Manga Futures to explore popularity of Japanese culture

influence, both domestically and globally.

On Saturday 1st November, Professor Takemiya will deliver another special lecture called ‘Picturing Manga’s Future in a Global World’. Here she will share how Takemiyasensei, who has been a future-oriented artist, not least in her Science-Fiction narratives, pictures the future of manga.

The talk will discuss what developments

Professor Takemiya believes will eventuate with respect to professional artists, fan production, criticism and research, education and the publishing industry.

Manga Futures is sponsored by the Japan Foundation and Madman Entertainment. >>Find out more about the symposium by visiting the Manga Futures website: http://mangafutures.com/ R esearch & I n n ovatio n News

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Research Services Office, Building 20, Level 1, University of Wollongong, Northfields Ave, Wollongong, NSW, Australia, 2522 research@uow.edu.au | +61 2 4221 3386 | www.uow.edu.au/research

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