UOW Impact Makers 2018

Impact Makers 2018

Impact Makers We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which the teaching, learning and research shared in this publication took place, and pay our respects to Elders past, present and future Cover Image Dr Nadia Zainuddin, School of Management, Operations & Management

Inside â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Welcome 04 Brain for change

2018

Natalie Matosin

The best childhood

Eye on the sky

Steven Howard Jenny Fisher

Overseeing our oceans 10 Lowell Bautista

Understanding 11 cheating Ann Rogerson

Engineering social good

Robert Gorkin III

Marketing for change 14 Nadia Zainuddin

Naturally healthier cities

Critical accounting

Energy at speed

Strong culture connections

Thomas Astell-Burt Sanja Pupovic Yi Du

Rebecca Stanley

Beyond business as usual

Earth, diamonds & oil 21 Nicolas Flament

Amanda Webster

Building sustainably 23 Zhenjun Ma

Compassion fatigue

Evidence-based 26 nutrition

Healthier environments

Technology on track

A smart sense to share 45

Communities of practice

Moves in health promotion

Social impact economics

A taste of culture

Miracle material

Working on wellbeing

Andrew Zammit-Mangion

Elizabeth Neale

Shuaishuai Sun

Michelle Eady

Alfredo Paloyo

Justice & social security

Active play

Inclusive, creative societies

Fuelling innovation

Scarlet Wilcock Dylan Cliff

Pippa Burns

Khay Wai See

The business of digital 35 Shahriah Akter

Giving nurses a say Jenny Sim

Data driven discovery 38 Jie (Jack) Yang

Belinda Gibbons

Inclusive education

Numbers game

The power of voice

Gender in microfinance

Siobhan McHugh

Farzana Tanima

Mim Fox

Xiaoqi Feng

Johan Barthelemy

Anne-Maree Parrish Sukhmani Khorana David Cortie

Shamika Almeida

Disaster geographies 50 Christine Eriksen

Quality & collaboration

Super detectors

Taking charge

Adrian Tootell Linh Tran

Wei Kong Pang

Augmented virtuality 56 Sasha Nikolic

The milky way

Educational experience

Shahla Meedya

Janine Delahunty

University of Wollongong

Welcome Welcome In 2015, we launched the 40 Years of Research Impact booklet to celebrate the achievements of UOW researchers, In 2015, we launched the 40 Years of Research coinciding with the University’s 40th Impact booklet to celebrate the achievements anniversary of independence.

Impact Makers

of UOW researchers, coinciding with the

In 2016, we profiled UOW Women of Impact, and in 2017 we University’s 40th anniversary of independence. featured collaborative partnerships that facilitate UOW’s In In 2016, we profiled UOW’s Women of Impact and in 2017 research success with the UOW Partners for Research Impact we featured collaborative partnerships which facilitate UOW’s series. research success in UOW Partners for Research Impact

In 2018, we recognise the talent of early-to-mid-career In 2018, weinrecognise the talent of Early-to-Mid-Career academics academics UOW Impact Makers, our fourth and final feature in UOW Impact Makers, our fourth and final feature publication in publication in this series. this series.

In UOW Impact Makers we uncover and profile the nextIn UOW Impact Makers we uncover and profile the nextgeneration of change-makers, researchers, teachers generation of change-makers: researchers, teachers and innovators and innovators who are set to deliver real change to the whose emerging career is set to deliver real change to the environment, economy, and society and culture through their environment, economy, and society and culture. work. A career in academia can be both exhilarating and exhausting: it

Arequires career in academia can be both exhilarating andsacrifice. exhausting: commitment, determination and, at times, Yet itatrequires commitment, determination and, at times, the heart of it is a great deal of passion for a better worldsacrifice. and this Yet at thecan heart of it is a great deal ofthe passion for a better world passion be identified among all of 43 academics featured. and this passion can be identified among all of the 43 academics UOW is committed to supporting our early and mid-career featured. 4

academics thrive, for they are the future of our University; they

UOW is committed supporting mid-career are educators of the to next generation,our andearly they and are pioneers of the academics thrive, for theytechnology, are the future of our University, advancements in science, arts and culture that willthey are educators of theof next and they are pioneers of solve the challenges ourgeneration, time. the advancements in science, technology, arts and culture that I extend my thanks to all of the academics involved in this initiative will help solve the challenges of our time. and invite our community to discover the inspiring stories within.

I extend my thanks to all of the academics involved in this initiative and invite our community to discover the inspiring stories within. JUDY RAPER PROFESSOR Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation)

PROFESSOR JUDY RAPER Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation)

University of Wollongong Impact Makers 5

UOW Women of Impact: Distinguished Professor Hua Kun Liu, Professor Sharon Robinson and Dr Bronwyn Carlson

Impact Makers

University of Wollongong

Brain for change DR NATALIE MATOSIN Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute

Tackling mental health diagnosis and interventions one brain at a time More adults are reporting extreme levels of stress than ever before. Traumatised populations, such as refugees and other displaced people, are on the rise. Understanding how stress manifests as mental illness is a global priority with the World Health Organization predicting that illnesses caused by stress will affect one in three people by 2030. Dr Natalie Matosin, a brain biologist and National Health and Medical Research Council CJ Martin Early Career Research Fellow, is on the case: she’s seeking to understand how stressors manifest as mental illness and how the effects might be passed on through generations. To do this, Dr Matosin studies the genetic and molecular basis of severe psychiatric conditions in living people as well as in the brains of people who have passed away but lived with mental illness. Her joint affiliation with the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich – arguably the world’s leading institute in this field – has supported and expanded her research program in Australia.

“Previously I had done a lot of work understanding what molecules are altered in people with mental illness. Whereas in Germany I was working towards understanding how and why they had changed in the first place,” she says. While living in Munich, Dr Matosin witnessed the influx of Syrian refugees in Germany and saw firsthand the effects of stress and trauma on individuals and families as well as social, economic and healthcare systems. After learning that the effects of stress might be biological and passed down through generations, Dr Matosin was inspired to direct her research to tackle these problems. With her return to Australia, Dr Matosin is enjoying being at the helm of the development of a major research program called TRIP (the Trauma and Refugee Intervention Project) to study refugee populations in Wollongong. While still in its infancy,

the project is hoping to attract funding for its diverse and international team which represents the fields of neurobiology, genetics, psychology, social science and health policy. “The idea is that we will not only produce scientific discoveries, but we’ll also have the team to tackle the social and political aspects of what we are doing as well,” Dr Matosin says of the interdisciplinary team. Dr Matosin’s research goals with TRIP are to understand the long-term impacts of traumatic experiences on the body’s physiology at the molecular level and how that contributes to the development of mental illnesses such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. She will also use epigenetics – the study of how our genes are switched on and off – to understand the transmission of mental health conditions to children. Furthermore, her research will identify feasible interventions to treat or prevent mental illness from developing in refugees and other traumatised populations. Dr Matosin is determined to curate a career that not only makes a scholarly impact, but that is also connected to the community by contributing to a number of research projects as well as sharing the value of scientific research with the community. Her collaborations with teams at institutes around the world, including the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, John Hopkins University, the University of Iceland, deCODE Genetics, the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, and the Max Planck Society, have garnered international attention. She is a multi-award winning scientist who has been recognised as a “young star” by Forbes magazine on their 30 Under 30 list in 2017 and was named as one of Australia’s 15 graduates to watch in 2015 by Women’s Agenda. Dr Matosin attributes her recognition so far to being prepared to engage with communities impacted by her research program, as well as the broader public. “As scientists, we need to communicate our research, and be more publicly available. Only in this way will we really be able to get the support to make a difference,” she explains.

University of Wollongong

Impact Makers

University of Wollongong Impact Makers

DR STEVEN HOWARD School of Education

The best childhood Supporting children to develop selfregulation abilities through practical programs and resources

available upon completion of the evaluation study “as a means to ensure dissemination and impact that is not conditioned upon the socio-economic means of pre-school centres, educators or parents”.

From predicting school readiness and academic success in childhood to health, wealth and criminality in adulthood, the development of self-regulation abilities early in life has been shown to influence a host of long-term outcomes.

In another example of practical innovation, Dr Howard has created, developed and validated a set of tools to help researchers and educators observe and monitor the aspects of a child’s development that lay the foundations for outcomes later in life.

Providing practical and low-cost ways for parents and early childhood educators to support the development of self-regulation has driven Dr Steven Howard to create a number of innovative, evidence-based, realworld strategies and resources.

Where many existing assessments cost thousands of dollars, require a licence to use, or require highlevel qualifications, Dr Howard’s Early Years Toolbox (EYT) is affordable and accessible and allows educators to easily and efficiently evaluate a child’s progress; the EYT collection of nine game-like iPad apps assesses self-regulation, language and numeracy development and has been downloaded nearly 10,000 times and translated into eight additional languages.

Dr Howard completed his PhD in developmental psychology in 2012 at York University in Canada. It was from this study that he identified a gap between what was known about the importance of developing self-regulation early and what was available at a practical level to support it.

“My work seeks to find effective solutions that are accessible to everyone, including those most in need who are often least able to access these sorts of supports,” he says.  In 2017, he was one of only two recipients of educationrelated grants through the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards.  Undertaken in three phases of research, this three-year grant has culminated in the creation of a program, known as PRSIST, to assist preschool educators and parents to positively influence self-regulation development. Implementation and evaluation of the PRSIST program is currently occurring in 50 Australian early childhood centres, reaching more than 400 preschoolers.  Committed to equality of access, Dr Howard says the PRSIST program will be made freely and widely

The nature of Dr Howard’s work both demands and drives engagement. He works with preschools and early childhood educators via various pre-school networks, including Early Start’s Engagement Centres, a selection of 41 preschools from across regional and rural NSW. Dr Howard consults with industry, government and education professional organisations to conduct his fieldwork and provides expert advice on a range of government and industry expert panels. Four children’s books related to the PRSIST program have also been developed and they have been featured across news media. “What inspires me is the possibility that my research can have a real-world impact on something truly meaningful to parents, educators and children.”

DR JENNY FISHER School of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Eye on the sky Atmospheric data analysis to understand environmental impact

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Dr Jenny Fisher believes that we all have a responsibility to understand our impact on the environment. As an atmospheric chemist, she investigates sources of air pollution and how those pollutants interact with other compounds and circulate around the globe. “I’m interested in the whole life cycle of those compounds and the interplay between human-driven and natural processes,” Dr Fisher says. In her research, Dr Fisher uses computer modelling to make the invisible visible. Her work advances our understanding of the composition of the atmosphere in different places and how compounds are exchanged between the land, sea and air.

Dr Fisher was also a member of the science teams for two NASA-led expeditions, known as ACRTAS and SEAC4RS, planning aircraft missions to investigate air pollutants in the lower atmosphere in climatesensitive regions. This information could not otherwise be captured by satellites or ground-based measurements, and both teams were awarded NASA Group Achievement Awards.

“We want the model to represent the current landscape of scientific knowledge as best as possible,” she says. Dr Fisher is also working to improve our understanding of air pollutants affecting Australia.

With areas of vast vegetation and a population concentrated on the coast, the Australian atmosphere provides an insight into pre-industrial pollution levels and what can be expected as stricter emission controls are enforced globally. Here, Dr Fisher is in a unique position, set to play a leading role in forthcoming international collaborations, and she is already working with the CSIRO and NSW Office of Environment and Heritage. Her research also directly informs her teaching practice. Dr Fisher has integrated computer programming across the undergraduate earth and environmental sciences curriculum, ensuring that students are equipped with coding skills for their future careers. Motivated to address the gender imbalance in her field, Dr Fisher has also developed a program to support female students in the computational environmental sciences with mentoring and career development opportunities.

Feeding this data back into widely-used models drives rapid advancements in the field and shapes global air quality agreements. Since her PhD, Dr Fisher has been actively involved in the development of a free, opensource atmospheric chemistry model called GEOSChem. The model is used by more than 100 academic groups around the world with updates driven by the users. Dr Fisher now sits on the steering committee.

In 2016, she was awarded the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Australia Fellowship to increase the complexity of the GEOS-Chem model over Australia to be able to distinguish between regional, natural and human-driven emissions, which will ultimately improve local air quality predictions.

Impact Makers

Using data sets from global observational systems to formulate robust predictions of local air quality, Dr Fisher also identifies areas of uncertainty where more work can be done to fill in the gaps. Findings from her PhD suggested that massive rivers in the Arctic were leaching toxic mercury into the ocean, driving the seasonal cycle of atmospheric mercury, and spurred further fieldwork by other research teams to investigate this previously unrecognised source of atmospheric mercury.

DR LOWELL BAUTISTA School of Law

Overseeing our oceans

Impact Makers

University of Wollongong

A commitment to the principles of international law relating to oceans

For Dr Lowell Bautista, an international law and ocean governance expert, his role as an advisor to the Philippine government in their case by arbitration to claim sovereign rights in the South China Sea encapsulated a lifetime of research. “As a lawyer [in this position], you’re dealing with nations and policies which could affect thousands of lives,” Dr Bautista says. “When you influence policy, that’s a rare privilege.” In 2012, when the Philippines was preparing a case against China, Dr Bautista worked with other scholars to devise the best legal strategy for the case under the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Law of the Sea. The ruling was handed down by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Netherlands. The Philippines won but China refuses to recognise the decision. “That’s the beauty and the downfall of international law. There is no overarching authority to enforce this ruling,” Dr Bautista says. Dr Bautista takes a contemporary and practical approach to his research, developing strong links with government agencies and international organisations. He studies maritime and territorial boundaries in the Asia-Pacific region at the point where disputes arise. The Philippine-born lawyer’s focus is dispute settlement mechanisms, a dynamic area of international law, with the South China Sea calling for the most attention with its rich natural resources traversed by vital trade routes and claimed by multiple countries. Over a decade ago, Dr Bautista moved to Australia to work with Professor Clive Schofield, formerly Director of Research at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS), and fisheries expert Professor Martin Tsamenyi. Dr Bautista began by examining the legal status of the Philippines Treaty Limits (colonial boundaries inherited by the archipelago – and since abandoned – that were incongruent with international law). His work helped clarify the matter and facilitated reform of domestic legislation to resolve the conflict. More recently, as a Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr Bautista looked at regional institutions and available legal mechanisms for managing conflicts over territorial and maritime boundary disputes.

He has provided advice to the Philippine Congress, Supreme Court and Department of Justice. Through ANCORS, he has also returned to the Philippines to deliver training workshops to capacitate government officials on matters pertaining to the Law of the Sea. With this expertise, which more broadly applies to maritime affairs and international environmental law, Dr Bautista has also worked extensively as a research consultant. He has developed a broad portfolio that includes maritime authorities of New Zealand, Ghana and Brunei, the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, among others. Working in this way, with a strong commitment to the principles of international law, Dr Bautista is establishing himself as an influential scholar of ocean governance.

DR ANN ROGERSON School of Management, Operations and Marketing

Understanding cheating Keen to clarify and document the patterns, Dr Rogerson sensed a research opportunity to inform teaching and learning practice.

Identifying strategies and tactics to help students and institutions develop better educational outcomes Dr Ann Rogerson, in a previous life, worked in operations and human resources management within the travel and airline sector. The experience gave her some insight into how and why people to do what they do. It also piqued her interest in the psychology of motivation and drive.

Then, in 2012, after observing irregularities in student work, Dr Rogerson was prompted to dig deeper into research related to academic integrity. A large number of unusual patterns and anomalies were identified in the 2012 cohort of students, which eventually led to a series of interviews to discuss the issues observed, and to differentiate between poor student scholarship and attempts to cheat. The findings from the interviews facilitated the identification of later cases of academic misconduct.

While Dr Rogerson’s work is receiving local, national, and international recognition, and is impacting policy and influencing approaches to assessment and the recognition of academic misconduct, her main aim is to inspire students. “I want all students to embrace the opportunity to learn by providing support strategies to facilitate their acquisition of knowledge and skills that translate into lifelong learning practices,” she says.

When she decided on a career change and elected to move into academia, Dr Rogerson wanted to satisfy her curiousity and the behaviour of her post-graduate business students became a source of intrigue.

In recognition of her work, Dr Rogerson was invited onto the international scientific panel for the Plagiarism across Europe and Beyond 2018 conference. She was one of only two Australians accorded the honour. Dr Rogerson has also won several awards, including a Global Innovation Award, for her commitment to academic integrity.

Impact Makers

Dr Rogerson’s work was picked up by several industry publications, academic texts and other media outlets domestically and internationally. High public engagement with her material led to extensive discussions across all levels of education, even prompting a re-examination of scientific outputs by agencies uch as NASA. The impact is ongoing and has led to a change in practices through the training of education professionals in detecting cheating, and refining assessment design, globally.

University of Wollongong

Through her research, Dr Rogerson discovered patterns in submissions noted as containing nonoriginal material that are not necessarily flagged by text-matching tools such as Turnitin®. A further link between free online paraphrasing tools and their implications in supporting contract cheating practices was established. The studies prompted the need for work into broadening an understanding of some of the methods students use to cheat, including free online devices, as well as ways in which cheating can be detected.

Impact Makers

University of Wollongong

Engineering social good Australian Institute for Innovative Materials

Bringing together engineering and entrepreneurship to benefit society Associate Professor Robert Gorkin III is known in some circles as the Geldom guy. He’s turning a tough hydrogel material primarily used for prosthetics and implantable medical devices into skin-like condoms with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. There’s a lot more to A/Prof Gorkin than Project Geldom though.

Despite a clear track record in research and publishing, A/Prof Gorkin doesn’t identify as a traditional academic. Instead, he describes himself as an engineer and an entrepreneur. “I like working at the nexus of academia and industry and I enjoy having a hand in bringing innovative concepts into reality,” he says.

A/Prof Gorkin was iAccelerate’s first Researcher in Residence and he is currently co-hosted between AIIM and the local startup incubator where he gets to flex his innovation management skills. Within the past two years, A/Prof Gorkin has become a strategic advisor for the non-for-profit Aussie Books 4 Zim, which is building libraries in rural Zimbabwe; he’s helped bring Devika, a mixed reality company, into UOW’s SMART Infrastructure

Earlier this year he led a project combining machine learning, blimps, and smart watches and demonstrated the first of its kind real-time personal shark detection at Kiama. At the moment, A/Prof Gorkin is working with UOW’s Digital Living Lab and an Australian startup, Briometrix, which specialises in wearable Internet of Things (IOT) technology for wheelchair users to create accessibility maps that show the best route for someone based on their ability. The group completed a pilot project to create an accessibility map of UOW (the first of its kind at an Australian university), and A/Prof Gorkin has helped secure funding to expand the project across Wollongong. “Why shouldn’t there be an option in apps like Google Maps to view routes based on accessibility. We’re aiming to showcase not only is this possible, it’s scalable, and critically it involves directly working with the wheelchair community.” While the list of projects A/Prof Gorkin is involved in is many and varied, there’s a clear theme of social good linking them, and it’s in no way accidental. “There has never been a time where access to people and technology has been so available – you can literally take ideas from concept to existence in days. I’m lucky to work with professionals, researchers, entrepreneurs, and social change architects that are driven to create tangible and measurable impact – we harness the emerging opportunities, co-create with the community, and execute.” As for Project Geldom, things are looking up. With the help of a recent $1 million grant from the NSW Government’s Medical Devices Fund, the team is preparing to begin clinical trials in 2018/2019.

“I try to spot potential for partnerships and bring different groups together to get things done.”

A/Prof Gorkin is also a co-founder of Australia’s leading graphene technology company Imagine Intelligent Materials Pty Ltd.

Impact Makers

The Pennsylvanian is a biomedical engineer with an MBA and an interest in biotechnology, Industry 4.0, and startups. He’s as comfortable in a research lab as he is in a meeting room and can fit in with different cultures, as demonstrated by his work in the US, Canada, Ireland, South Korea, Malaysia, India, and Kenya. In 2011, he arrived in Wollongong and joined UOW’s Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) to develop 3D bioprinting equipment to create nerve conduits and artificial muscles. He later moved into the Australian Institute for Innovative Materials (AIIM).

Facility to enhance research opportunities; and he’s helped launch virtual reality projects in mental health and wellbeing.

University of Wollongong

DR ROBERT GORKIN III

DR NADIA ZAINUDDIN School of Management, Operations and Marketing

Marketing for change

Impact Makers

University of Wollongong

A better understanding of people’s motivations, how they make decisions and respond to external pressures such as social norms and peer influence, is what Dr Zainuddin delivers with her market and health consumer research. Importantly, Dr Zainuddin does this while working directly with organisations providing health services. Her PhD was just the beginning. Dr Zainuddin partnered with QLD Health to examine breast cancer screening services delivered by BreastScreen Queensland. Interviews and focus groups with women who had participated in their breast cancer screening service, in addition to an Australian-wide quantitative survey she undertook, gave Dr Zainuddin insight into what women valued most in their experience, from which she could develop a framework for improved service delivery. It’s a citizen-centric approach to public health and one she aims to take forward in her future social change research. “When people derive value from their experiences, [and it can be emotional or social], they’re more likely to do it again. That’s really important for social change because you need a long-term commitment to that desired behaviour.”

Adding social marketing to the mix to improve health service design and delivery

Dr Nadia Zainuddin describes herself as a social change researcher, quick to challenge assumptions of what marketing can do. In her work, she applies marketing concepts and theories to issues of health and wellbeing to influence individuals, communities and organisations to bring about social change. Her early research has focused on marketing approaches to influence participation in preventative or voluntary health services, such as cancer screening programs and blood donation – services which are freely available and a means of maintaining good health. “Marketing helps us to acknowledge that people are not a homogenous group. We might do the same things but we do so for different reasons,” Dr Zainuddin says. Recognising this, Dr Zainuddin says service providers need to go beyond communicating how their health service benefits people and society to actively encourage proactive behaviour and to facilitate service use in different ways.

Dr Zainuddin delivered a number of workshops for QLD Health, presenting her work to executive directors and health promotion officers across the state. Based on her research findings, changes were implemented to their service design and communication strategies to create better service experiences for women. Equally important is understanding what discourages people from using health services that are freely available. Dr Zainuddin has worked with the Australian Red Cross Blood Service to understand what factors influence a blood donor’s intention to donate again and to identify ways to increase male participation rates because, broadly speaking, men are less likely than women to participate. This has led to other projects, currently underway, for Dr Zainuddin to investigate the use of bowel cancer screening kits in the home and online services for men’s mental health. Her research to understand health-seeking behaviours will be pivotal as the nature of health service delivery changes, no longer confined to the clinic, and for healthy ageing.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR THOMAS ASTELL-BURT School of Health and Society

Naturally healthier cities Getting nature back into cities to help keep us healthy, happy and out of hospital

University of Wollongong

Designing cities around cars are yesterday’s news. Today, person-orientated urban design is bringing buildings and people closer together. This makes walking a safer way to get around for millions. But city densification could have a downside - a loss of contact with nature - if we are not careful. Research by Associate Professor Thomas Astell-Burt and his team shows restoring parks and protecting tree canopies in cities can help keep us cooler, healthier, happier and out of the hospital. Recognised internationally for his research on green space and health, A/Prof Astell-Burt leads a number of projects in this area, including two funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Pro-active partnership building has been key to A/Prof Astell-Burt’s success so far, involving regular engagements and presentations of new findings with decision-makers in the health, urban planning, horticulture, parks and forestry sectors. He co-leads a five-year $3.3 million project with Associate Professor Xiaoqi Feng with co-investment from Hort Innovation Ltd, which ensures end-users of the research are involved from the start.

A/Prof Astell-Burt’s work with Western Sydney Diabetes has previously identified food deserts and ‘food swamps’ in Sydney: Economically disadvantaged areas where healthy food options are scant or nonexistent while unhealthy food is easy to purchase.

His work and partnerships extend beyond Australia, including collaborations with institutes in Sweden, the United States, the United Kingdom and China. In 2018 his contributions to population health and environment in China led to his Professorial appointment at Peking Union Medical College. These engagements have included studies analysing obesity, diabetes and urban planning changes over time in China – where an estimated 100 million people live with diabetes – as well as running seminars and workshops on multilevel analysis of big health data. He has also hosted visiting statisticians and epidemiologists and is supervising doctoral students from China CDC within the Population Wellbeing and Environment Research Lab (PowerLab), which he cofounded in 2016.

A/Prof Astell-Burt was named by Parks and Leisure Australia an Emerging Leader of 2014 for his research and advocacy on the health benefits of urban greening. He is also a member of the Western Sydney Diabetes Leadership Alliance, which won the Western Sydney Leadership Award and the Pemulwuy Prize in 2017.

This partnership fed into another NHMRC-funded project that aims to identify how better urban design can synergise with clinical management to enhance prevention of heart attacks in people with type 2 diabetes.

Impact Makers

One of these projects is a longitudinal study of over 250,000 adults in Australia to understand how urban greenery promotes healthy ageing, keeps us cooler during heatwaves and potentially reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Funded by an NHMRC Boosting Dementia Research Leadership Fellowship, A/Prof Astell-Burt’s findings have already been used in the development of Wollongong City Council’s Urban Greening Strategy and been cited by the World Health Organization.

DR SANJA PUPOVIC School of Accounting, Economics and Finance

Critical accounting “My passion for environmental injustice and controversies surrounding poverty in developing nations was an ultimate driver to investigate this in an accounting context,” she explains.

University of Wollongong

Currently, Dr Pupovac is investigating the role of accounting in human trafficking in an economically poor post-conflict Kosovo and the victimisation of a large number of girls and women forced into prostitution. When it comes to teaching, Dr Pupovac sees herself as someone who is in a privileged and influential position. “My inspiration for teaching and learning has largely been shaped by my life experiences. From a young age, due to war and conflict in my country of origin, I was denied an opportunity for education,” she says.

Impact Makers

“My experiences have shaped me, my passion against injustice, my ethics and moral values, but also my gratitude for having a job where I can give back to my students and research community. I feel beyond privileged and humbled to do what I do.”

Crunching numbers to fight social and environmental injustice Through forms of accounting geared toward responsibility and sustainability (critical accounting, social and environmental accounting) Dr Sanja Pupovac investigates the social and environmental impact of multinational corporations on vulnerable groups in developing countries.

“The role of these forms of accounting is to question prevailing social arrangements and how accounting practices contribute to inequalities, challenging the view that accounting is neutral and objective practice,” she explains. Dr Pupovac began to wonder about the meaning of numbers in society when she was young, watching her father “crunch numbers”. Later, during her undergraduate degree, she found some answers. “I was deeply touched by a paper on the role of accounting during the Holocaust as well as other works that explored the role of accounting in different social, political and historical contexts. Her doctoral thesis investigated corporate disclosures by the oil and gas company Royal Dutch Shell following oil spills in Nigeria.

Dr Pupovac believes firmly in the teaching-research nexus and she’s continually creating researchinformed content and assessment activities to foster high-level skills and ethics among her students. She also sees it as her role to increase awareness among her students about the impact of accounting on societies and organisations. “I aim to develop coherent and creative up-to-date resources to give students a thought-provoking experience in an intellectual and creative way,” she says. “I challenge my students to think outside the financial boundaries of accounting numbers. I look for opportunities to relate theoretical concepts to real-world challenges, which is why I’ve made space in the curricula for the role of accounting for social justice, environmental concerns, and war.” Dr Pupovac was awarded a Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning in 2018.

Energy at speed Exploring and developing novel, artificial materials for clean energy

For Dr Yi Du, the energy versus environment problem is one he is aiming to solve by designing and exploring novel, human-made two-dimensional materials for catalysis – the rate and repetition of chemical reaction, generally in energy production – renewable energy generation, and quantum devices. Dr Du is at the cutting-edge of materials science; part of an international race to produce world-changing wonder materials. The team he leads designs and fabricates artificial materials from atomic scale to large scale. “We use atoms as ‘lego’ building blocks to construct materials that were not naturally formed of this planet, but if fabricated will possess exotic physical or chemical properties.”

Recently, Dr Du was awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship to extend his work

His UOW team are proficient in publishing their work in top-tier journals, assisting their reputation with international peers and laboratories across the world. Though establishing repute drives Dr Du less than pure interest in the potential of his work to make an impact. “When I was an undergraduate, I learned that photoand- electrocatalysis possess an almost unique set of properties that allows for an effective direct transfer of light into highly reactive chemical species, however the catalysts that exist on the planet are very limited,” Dr Du says. “I decided to contribute my efforts in exploring new catalysts, it is my favourite research area, and my motivation comes from the fact that I can foresee my research efforts on photocatalysts will be paid off in real applications.”

Silicene is one example of this type of novel material. Dr Du was the leader of a team at UOW that was the first in Australia, and one of only a handful in the world, to fabricate this super-strong and ultra-conductive material. Just a single atom thick, silicene’s great promise is related to how electrons can streak across it at speeds close to the speed of light with only minimal energy input required to propel them.

With developments in the field moving at a pace that might feel to him akin to light-speed, Dr Du is focused on establishing strong national and international networks that facilitate access to the latest equipment for studying structures at atomic scales or less, as well as strengthening intellectual capital via joint funding proposals, visits for lectures and workshops, and student exchange and co-supervision.

Impact Makers

The demand for energy from natural resources to sustain our industrialised and technology-driven society is putting enormous strain on our planet.

exploring and tailoring two-dimensional materials by developing new approaches to control their structural and electronic properties at the atomic level for diverse photocatalytic applications, including clean hydrogen energy generation, pollution elimination and carbon sequestration.

University of Wollongong

DR YI DU Institute for Superconducting & Electronic Materials

University of Wollongong Impact Makers

Strong culture connections

DR REBECCA STANLEY School of Education

Connecting with community, culture and Country The Stronger Culture, Healthier Lifestyles project has been a transformative cultural journey for all involved – the children, mentors and Elders of three Aboriginal communities in the Shoalhaven region, and Dr Rebecca Stanley no less. Dr Stanley is a researcher with Early Start Research and a NSW Health Early-Mid Career Research Fellow working to understand the importance of culture and its role in health and wellbeing. In particular, she focuses on working with communities to develop and evaluate school-based activities and after-school programs that promote healthy lifestyles for children.

“Every child should have the opportunity for a healthy start to life, which includes feeling connected, knowing who they are and where they come from,” she says. In 2014, a visit to the Cullunghutti Aboriginal Child and Family Centre on a typical afternoon – when the centre was flooded with restless kids – sparked a flourishing relationship between Dr Stanley and the Shoalhaven Aboriginal community. Together, they have developed an after-school activity program connecting Aboriginal kids with culture to remarkable effect. Guided by co-investigator Dr Anthony McKnight, a local Aboriginal man and lecturer with the School of Education, Dr Stanley and the UOW research team have spent the past four years working with the community to understand their needs. “The Elders had noticed that the children were disconnected from their culture and it was having huge impacts on their health and education,” she says.

“The more I got to talk and listen to the Elders, the more I understood that their connection to culture, their health and their education can’t be separated.” Her work with the community led to the Koori Kids Culture Club, the first program of its kind. Aboriginal song, dance, arts and craft, bushwalks and fishing are all part of the program designed and created by the local Aboriginal community members for primary school-aged children. “My role is to support them to bring those activities to life. It’s very much community-driven,” Dr Stanley says. “It’s so meaningful because they’ve created it – they own it – a link that I think is missing in a lot of health promotion projects.” The program is a powerful example of how engaging with culture can promote healthy behaviours and improve educational outcomes for Indigenous children. It has directly increased the children’s sense of cultural connectedness and belonging, boosting self-confidence, and improved their engagement at school. Suspension rates have dropped and children are standing up in class, sharing their culture with their peers. With funding support from the UOW Global Challenges program and NSW Health, Dr Stanley has been gathering critical evidence on outcomes of the project to ensure its longevity, changing her research practices to include yarning with the kids and documenting their cultural journey to capture the whole story. The benefits of the project also extend to the community with mentors involved in the program going on to secure traineeships in early childhood centres and employment in the tourism and education sector.

University of Wollongong

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DR BELINDA GIBBONS Sydney Business School

Beyond business as usual

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University of Wollongong

Integrating the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in business and industry research and education locally and globally

Headlines continue to show that sustainable and socially responsible decision making is not yet a widely accepted practice among national and multinational companies. However change is achievable and necessary, according to Dr Belinda Gibbons, who is building greater awareness of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in industry and business education, and is helping future business leaders understand that success requires consideration of decision impacts on the environment and society. In 2016, Dr Gibbons became the sole academic representative for Australia and New Zealand on the United Nations Principles of Responsible Management Education Advisory Committee. She represents business higher education institutions in Southern Asia and the Pacific, and collaborates with other country committee members to direct responsible management education internationally. The Advisory Committee’s strategy for integrating the UN’s principles for responsible and sustainable business practices (outlined by the UN Global Compact) has been rolled out in more than 650 business education institutions across 85 countries. Dr Gibbons’ involvement with the Advisory Committee allows her to collaborate with institutions in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Her involvement is also having an impact on home turf.

“UOW was the first higher education institution in NSW to receive United Nations Global Compact membership,” Dr Gibbons explains. The senior lecturer has been interested in advancing business education for a while now. Her doctoral research examined alternative approaches to responsible decision-making in business education. The approach her PhD outlined has been ingrained in UOW’s undergraduate capstone business curriculum. Dr Gibbons believes that partnerships are the key to transforming our world and her continued interest in promoting responsible business practices and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals has led her to get involved in projects close to home and where her expertise is likely to be an asset.

She is, for example, involved in a Global Challenges Seed project that is investigating sustainable economic practices within a NSW central coast ecovillage (the Narara Ecovillage Co-operative). Dr Gibbons also partners with Healthy Cities Illawarra (HCI), an initiative to promote health and wellbeing locally underpinned by the World Health Organisation Healthy Cities movement. “Working with HCI enables [me] to take a leadership position in the local community pursuing action and providing evidence of what works, in which contexts and why, creating environments where conversations can be instigated to change the places in which we live, study and play,” she says. The partnership also allows her to advocate for including these global goals into local planning, as Wollongong City Council has done in its most recent community strategic plan, Our Wollongong 2028. Dr Gibbons is well placed, therefore, to see how business and sustainability can be positively connected and will continue to work towards ensuring this in future. “I’m motivated to take these issues to corporate decision-making tables, to make inter-sectoral change and to bring our students closer to the decisions they are and will be making.”

Earth, diamonds & oil Modelling Earth deep in time to improve future exploration

During his studies, he continued to ask questions and interrogate accepted knowledge. For example, his PhD thesis challenged the consensus view that sea levels have remained constant over Earth’s history. He proposed that the Earth was largely a water world for the first half of its history: a finding that has profound implications regarding the oxidation of the atmosphere and for our understanding of the evolution of early life.

“Understanding how the deeper, solid Earth works is important for understanding how life has evolved in the past, and then forecasting what may happen in the future. To some extent, the past is the key to the future,” Dr Flament says. Fortunately, this ongoing interest in past sea levels happens to align with some of the problems the resources industry has been trying to solve. By combining technology and historical information,

Working closely with the Norwegian oil company Statoil between 2010 and 2016, he used Dynamic Earth Models to reconstruct past motions deep within Earth. Viewing the evolution of large-scale topography over millions of years, in conjunction with geological information about past landscape evolution, reduces risk in decision making for new exploration areas. Similarly, Dr Flament has worked with diamond exploration company De Beers to combine information about past giant lava outpours (such as the ones that formed the Deccan Traps and contributed to the demise of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago) with Dynamic Earth Models to more effectively identify new diamond exploration areas. The partnership with De Beers continues via a recently awarded ARC Linkage Project, funding research that will investigate the link between continent motion and mantle upwelling over the past billion years. By combining tectonic reconstructions and Dynamic Earth Models with the global and Australian rock record in this research, Dr Flament hopes to develop a tool to improve the fundamental understanding of Australia’s diamond resources and improve industry’s approach to sustainable exploration.

An Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award fellow, Dr Flament’s research and teaching focuses on how the dynamics of the interior of the Earth drive sea level change, shape surface landscape and control climate.

Dr Flament fuses multidimensional data into 5D simulations called Dynamic Earth Models to guide exploration for hydrocarbons (oil and gas), diamond, and mineral resources. Impact Makers

Dr Nicolas Flament has been curious about rocks and how the Earth works from a young age. Not afraid to ask big, ‘blue sky’, science questions, it was fortunate that both his parents were geologists and were able to provide him with some well-informed answers to further fuel his fascination.

University of Wollongong

DR NICOLAS FLAMENT School of Earth and Environmental Sciences

DR AMANDA WEBSTER School of Education

Inclusive communities

University of Wollongong

Creating inclusive communities through partnerships for individuals on the autism spectrum

The number of people on the autism spectrum has risen steadily over the past few decades. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal that approximately one in 63 Australian school children currently have an autism diagnosis. Dr Amanda Webster is helping to bring together the different perspectives of parents, educators and students on the needs of these students, while creating inclusive education and community environments to support the achievement and selfdetermination of individuals.

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Dr Webster is currently the Academic Program Director for the Autism postgraduate programs at UOW but she began her career in school education sector before she made the move into academia. The combination of professional and academic experience placed her in the unique position to develop expertise and knowledge in autism leadership and curriculum, as well as help to establish connections with some of the world’s best autism researchers. Her established networks saw her find a place on the Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC) - the frontline of autism research which takes a whole-of-life approach to the disorder with a focus on diagnosis, early intervention, education and adult life.

“Since commencing my academic career in 2011, I’ve developed a clear and cohesive research focus on building inclusive communities, environments and strategies that empower individuals on the autism spectrum to achieve their goals. I want to work on projects that have a meaningful impact on their lives and the lives of their families.” She aims to merge teaching and research for sustainable impact, which she believes can’t be achieved without engagement from the autism community and industry partners. She has forged alliances with several autism advocacy groups including the I Can Network, ASPECT, Amaze (the peak autism organisation in Victoria), Autism Queensland, Autism Tasmania, and the Queensland University of Technology. She is engaged in a collaboration with the NSW Department of Education on an Australian Research

Council project focusing on decision-making and support for students with disability in schools. She is also a consultant for Autism Educators Australia, which provides advocacy and instruction for autistic individuals and their families. Dr Webster’s work within the community is what inspires her and motivates her to keep striving for impact with her own research. “In my career, I’ve been fortunate to get to know many parents, children, and autistic adults who have impacted me and helped me to grow. “My inspirations are the people who have a vision, who utilise research and their own voice to provide new insights and innovations that are creating a more inclusive society for all.”

Building sustainably Dr Zhenjun Ma takes a holistic approach to building design with a vision for a sustainable built environment that can improve living standards without costing the earth. With like-minded colleagues at the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC), Dr Ma is developing a suite of innovative technologies which can be used together to create a sustainable, productive and healthy built environment. Working with industry partners wherever possible ensures the practical application of his research. Specifically, Dr Ma focuses on heating and cooling systems that incorporate advanced materials and technologies to deliver energy savings and improve thermal comfort.

His research portfolio includes desiccant cooling systems that use a material to absorb moisture from the air to control humidity and could replace other energy-intensive air conditioning systems. Dr Ma is also developing ground source heat pumps that tap into stable temperatures below ground, dissipating or collecting heat as required,

Dr Ma has also teamed up with industry on an Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) project to design integrated renewable energy and thermal control systems. Sophisticated in design but simple in principle, the system integrated with phase change materials captures and stores excess heat released by hardworking solar cells during the day for heating later at night. An operational prototype is in place on the roof of the SBRC. Recognising that advanced technologies are not the only way to improve energy efficiency, Dr Ma’s research also involves data mining to improve the performance of large commercial buildings. Notably, in his PhD, he pulled data from a super high-rise building in Hong Kong, modelling different systems to control the building’s many heating and cooling devices and to optimise the building’s overall energy performance. His proposed control strategies were swiftly implemented.

“We spend most of our time indoors. Maintaining a comfortable indoor environment is essential for the wellbeing and productivity of building occupants,” he says.

in partnership with GeoExchange Australia and international collaborators. Buildings equipped with this technology, such as the SBRC, are more resilient to seasonal temperatures and are armed against rising energy consumption. Dr Ma is supervising a number of PhD candidates who are working to optimise the system’s design and performance to ensure upfront costs are not prohibitive to the installation of a system proven to deliver big energy savings over time.

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Working in partnership to create technologies that are sustainable and productive

University of Wollongong

DR ZHENJUN MA Sustainable Buildings Research Centre

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University of Wollongong

Numbers game DR ANDREW ZAMMIT-MANGION

Fusing mathematics, statistics and computer science to model complex systems Dr Andrew Zammit-Mangion started out as an electrical engineer, giving him a solid foundation in mathematics and computer programming before he took a new direction in his PhD at the University of Sheffield. Seven years later, he proudly calls himself a statistician – and he is quickly making his mark.

“That’s the nice thing about statistics,” he says. “The tools that you develop are so widely applicable.” From national surveys to satellites, data is coming from everywhere. Dr Zammit-Mangion is focused on data collected to study processes that evolve in space and over time, such as unemployment rates or greenhouse gases. “What sets statisticians apart is that we care a lot about uncertainty. We can tell you how confident we are of our predictions. Algorithms become much more computationally-intensive when you add that layer of complexity,” he says.

His PhD was focused on developing statistical modelling tools for space-time data, which at the off-hand suggestion of a colleague, he used to predict armed conflict in Afghanistan using WikiLeaks data of insurgent activity. Recognising that others could apply his methods elsewhere, Dr Zammit-Mangion shared his software online. “They could download it, run it and improve it. This is how science works.” His work gained worldwide attention and in 2012, Dr Zammit-Mangion received the Cozzarelli Prize,

This work has seeded a five-year UK-led project funded by the European Union called GlobalMass, which will attempt to extend his methods to the global scale and take into consideration all the contributors to sea-level rise. More recently, Dr Zammit-Mangion has shif ted his focus to using ground-based measurements and satellite measurements to identify the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. In 2018, he became an official member of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) Science Team. His next chapter, at UOW, will be to use novel machine-learning techniques to improve methods for analysing space-time data. With funding from an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, Dr Zammit-Mangion will apply sophisticated models used in artificial intelligence to improve predictions in complex environmental systems. In the case of sea-level rise, his research aims to improve risk management and mitigation policies. “Big data is now seen as pivotal to answering scientific questions of global importance,” Dr Zammit-Mangion says. The field is rapidly evolving as new tools are devised to interpret big data. He finds this both inspiring and motivating. “There seems to be no end to the range of techniques and applications that can benefit from this medley of mathematics, computer science and statistics.”

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What sets Dr Zammit-Mangion apart is his skills in statistical computing, a linchpin of modern statistics, paired with his training in engineering, which means he is focused on delivering real-world results.

Next, Dr Zammit-Mangion turned to modelling sea-level rise, a project which to his surprise saw him working with scientists from several institutions such as NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre, due to the interdisciplinary nature of the research problem. He developed a state-of-the-art framework to assimilate data from multiple satellite and ground-based sensors that measure different geophysical processes to assess how much of present-day sea-level rise is driven by melting Antarctic ice sheets.

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Dr Zammit-Mangion f uses mathematics, computer science and statistics to model complex systems. He designs statistical methods and computer algorithms to analyse big datasets in ways that improve our understanding of society and the environment.

awarded for a paper of his of outstanding excellence and originality published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Science (PNAS).

University of of Wollongong Wollongong University

School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics

DR ELIZABETH NEALE School of Medicine

Evidence-based nutrition University of Wollongong

Providing evidence for health claims on foods to inform consumer choice

The world of food and nutrition is awash with claims and counterclaims about the benefits of different nutrients and foods. Remaining pragmatic amid the health food hype can be a difficult task for the everyday consumer. Some professionals though, such as Accredited Practising Dietitian Dr Elizabeth Neale, have dedicated their career to reviewing the evidence in order to help people live genuinely healthier lifestyles based on dietary decisions. “The importance of evidence-based practice in nutrition is a huge source of motivation for me,” Dr Neale says.

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“By its very nature, nutrition is a popular area where myths and fad diets are common. I’m passionate about ensuring we have the best available collection, synthesis, and translation of evidence to support nutritional advice.” Since receiving her PhD in 2012, Dr Neale has conducted multiple systematic reviews for government and industry bodies to ensure information about foods and health effects is accurate. Between 2013 and 2015, Dr Neale co-authored a systematic review for an Australian Government Department of Health revision of the 2006 Sodium Nutrient Reference Values. The revised values were released in 2017 to inform national nutrition guidelines, food labelling and nutrition practice. In 2014 and 2015, she conducted a systematic review of claims relating to nuts and heart health for Horticulture Innovation Australia Limited, which funds a health education initiative (Nuts For Life) on behalf of Australia’s tree nut industry. The review examined more than 100 scientific papers and verified the general level health claim that nut consumption contributes to heart health. This claim is now being used by the food industry and is being displayed on food packaging nationwide. Today, Dr Neale continues to investigate the health benefits of nuts, including exploring current nut intake levels in Australia. She is also collaborating with clinicians at Wollongong Hospital to examine the safety and efficacy of nut consumption in haemodialysis (kidney dialysis) patients, with funding from the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute.

Dr Neale, who is also the Systematic Review Editor of Nutrition and Dietetics (Journal of the Dietitians Association of Australia), says her mentors and colleagues have opened her eyes to how much can be achieved via nutrition. She hopes to have a similar impact on her own students. “Supporting students to develop their skills in thinking critically about nutrition, to allow them to become the evidence-based practitioners and researchers of the future, is also very important to me.”

University of Wollongong

DR SHUAISHUAI SUN School of Mechanical, Materials, Mechatronic and Biomedical Engineering

Technology on track Commonly associated with suspension systems, magnetorheological (MR) technology centres around a carrier fluid, usually oil, filled with micrometresized magnetic particles. When subjected to a magnetic field, the particles inside increase the fluid’s viscosity. The fluid’s ability to transmit force can be controlled, which gives rise to its many possible control-based applications. Dr Shuaishuai Sun, an Associate Research Fellow in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences, is an MR and mechatronics expert. His interest in engineering came from a visit to a factory during his undergraduate studies where he decided that he wanted to build the next generation of vehicles.

End-users of his research include the transport industry, in particular for structural control in construction and robotics. But MR technologies provide real-world solutions across a variety of sectors, according to Dr Sun, by providing structural stability to reduce noise and vibrations.

Dr Sun has also been collaborating on a national level with the Australian firm M&S Engineering Pty Ltd. For several years the team has been developing and evaluating MR technology-based rail dampers for railway noise reduction which has evolved into a commercially viable product. This collaboration has resulted in an Australian Research Council Linkage Project as well as several smaller grants. Since 2015, Dr Sun has worked with Professor Shiwu Zhang from the University of Science and Technology of China to extend his expertise in the field of robotics. This collaboration has led to the creation of the adaptive robotic leg. The design is based on MR technology and allows for significantly improved locomotive energy efficiency, allowing the robot to move better. A barrier to MR technology use has been the high cost for developers, an area in which Dr Sun hopes his innovations will resolve by providing solutions that cost less and perform better across a variety of applications.

“MR technology soon attracted my attention because of its magic properties; its capability to improve the performance of many mechanical products, especially vehicles,” Dr Sun, who has focused his research in the field of MR technology and its innovative applications ever since, says.

For example, an advanced MR shock absorber, developed by Dr Sun under Professor Weihua Li’s supervision, opened a new research direction on vibration control. The development of this smart suspension has facilitated the opening of a company in China, with key players within the trucking sector committing to using this new technology in their vehicles, including forklifts.

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Technology improving the ride comfort of vehicles, operation speed of trains and efficiency of locomotive robots

DR MICHELLE EADY School of Education

Communities of practice

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University of Wollongong

Creating unique and meaningful ways to engage UOW students and the community Dr Michelle Eady does not just believe there is no substitute for meaningful, relevant and engaging learning experiences for students of all ages; she goes out of her way to create such educational opportunities, in and out of traditional classroom environments. Project DARE: Dementia knowledge, Art, Research and Education is a perfect example of this.

The senior lecturer was a key member of an interdisciplinary team that developed and piloted Project DARE, which used art to help children express their knowledge and understanding of dementia, a degenerative condition that children are more and more likely to encounter as the population ages. The project first ran at a local public school and involved artists who helped the children advance their creative skills as well as develop ability for personal expression. It has since been run in a primary school in Aberdeen, Scotland. The project, which collaborated with early education organisation Big Fat Smile, was designed to take advantage of existing resources – people, skills and programs – within the community. It is a strategy that Dr Eady likes to implement wherever possible.

“My life’s work is about trying to make a difference in society and making life better for people,” the Canadian-born academic says. Workplace Integrated Learning is another teaching strategy advocated by Dr Eady. She works hard to provide mediated instruction experiences for her undergraduate students and coordinates three large subjects that collaborate with more than 20 local primary schools to provide these authentic learning experiences. Dr Eady is also nurturing work-ready graduates in her role as an advisory committee member for the UOW Workplace Integrated Learning initiative, which supports the University’s efforts to connect with external partners and to give students the opportunity to gain practical experience throughout their degree. “Our school and community partners hold the key to extensive opportunities for our education students to connect to a wealth of expertise and experience,” Dr Eady says.

“I’ll continue to strive to make those connections a reality and extend them across different degree programs.” Her next pursuit is Project ADVOCATE, inspired by research of team member Kelly Lewer about students who attend university after periods of domestic violence. The project is aiming to improve the quality of services and support provided to students who have experienced domestic violence by ensuring staff are better prepared to help such students. The project has received funding from the UOW Community Engagement Grants Scheme and will involve a multidisciplinary team of academics from UOW, the University of Newcastle, and the University of NSW, and partners such as Domestic Violence New South Wales and Women’s Health New South Wales. In keeping with her previous projects, this project will have a direct benefit for students and stays true to her passion of “finding evidence through meaningful research and authentic experiences to help to develop the best educators possible”.

DR ALFREDO PALOYO School of Accounting, Economics and Finance

Social impact economics “When we look at these issues from an economics perspective with the tools that we have, we are able to draw conclusions that have direct policy implications,” Dr Paloyo says.

In this way, Dr Paloyo identifies opportunities where policy can intervene for greater impact and his research provides policymakers with evidence on how best to devote resources. “The fundamental lesson of economics is that resources are scarce. The policymaker is looking for ways in which policy will give the biggest benefit and that’s where economists can contribute. That’s where we will have the biggest social impact.”

From school classrooms to health care systems, Dr Alfredo Paloyo’s research has shown how microeconomics can add a new dimension to social issues and in the evaluation of the impact of policy decisions. Using statistical tools to interrogate observational data, Dr Paloyo seeks to understand what factors drive better outcomes in education and health. His research moves beyond simple trends and patterns to identify the root cause of observed effects and from this, predict behaviour.

To date, Dr Paloyo’s research has delivered new methods to expedite analyses of national health care provision in developing countries – work which was featured by the World Bank – and he has examined the effect that classmates have on a student’s academic performance.

Beyond this, Dr Paloyo believes in translating research outcomes to the wider community so that they too may contribute to policy discussions. He has done so via The Conversation and in partnership with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course at the University of Sydney, organising a public workshop on the social science of obesity. Dr Paloyo is set to continue his research into the transmission of obesity from parents to their children. “The default is that obesity is an epidemiological issue, a health issue, but obesity is a multifaceted problem. As microeconomists, we want to be able to contribute to that conversation.” Looking forward, his goal is to establish stronger links between the academic community and policymakers so that government agencies take research findings to form evidence-based policies, which ultimately translate to better social wellbeing.

“Economists bring with us a very good understanding of how people behave in response to incentives,” he says. Through this lens, Dr Paloyo has studied human capital – the way that people choose to invest in education and health care.

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Evidence-based policy for education and health care systems

Dr Paloyo’s research has been met with widespread interest and his expertise has been called upon by the University of Paderborn and Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, the University of the Philippines and De La Salle University, Philippines, where he has delivered intensive courses in applied microeconometrics for students. His work has also supported UOW’s Peer Assisted Study Sessions program.

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His latest work on peer effects has challenged the strong emphasis in education on grouping high school children by ability. He found that putting highachieving students together has little effect on their performance and that this strategy is detrimental to children who are already performing poorly.

University of Wollongong

Justice & social security DR SCARLET WILCOCK School of Law

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Understanding Government responses to vulnerable welfare recipients While helping welfare recipients navigate the law, lecturer Dr Scarlet Wilcock noticed how measures designed to target so-called welfare cheats were often making life harder for people just trying to make ends meet, especially single parents. She also noticed a lack of scholarly work in the area of social security fraud and compliance and its impact on vulnerable people and decided she could help fill the gap.

The misuse of the fraud reporting system is one line of investigation for Dr Wilcock. “Abusers might bully women into staying by threatening to report them for welfare fraud, whether the allegation is true or not. If you’re living close to the poverty line and worried about becoming homeless, such threats are very powerful. “The consequences of being prosecuted for minor and non-violent crimes can have devastating consequences for people also.”

“I’ve worked as a solicitor and volunteer in this area advocating for social security recipients. I’ve also been a welfare recipient as a student. It made sense for me to do research in this area and I feel it’s an area that’s under-researched.”

The goal for Dr Wilcock is to produce work that can inform strategies to improve how the government responds to extremely vulnerable welfare recipients. She is also seeking to produce work that can clarify what’s working and what’s not.

Dr Wilcock is collaborating with the National Social Security Rights Network (NSSRN), which represents community legal centres across Australia, to assess the relationship between family violence and social security compliance and fraud. The project involves the analysis of case files from the Welfare Rights Centre, Sydney, where Dr Wilcock began volunteering in 2009 and is now a board member.

Her doctoral thesis, for example, investigated and subsequently clarified that a push within Centrelink to focus on serious and intentional cases of fraud instead of minor or unintentional ones to fulfil KPIs had led to a change for the better.

“We’re looking at Centrelink’s responses to victims of domestic violence and how the response may alleviate or exacerbate the impact of domestic violence,” she says, noting that domestic violence victims are predominantly women and children. “There’s not a lot of research out there about what the push to be tough on so-called welfare cheats means for women who are living in poverty or are victims of domestic violence.”

“That research got positive feedback. People, including those within the government, were pleased to see independently produced research and evidence that the initiative, the culture shift, had worked and was worthwhile.”

University of Wollongong

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University of Wollongong

DR DYLAN CLIFF School of Education

Active play in childhood Promoting active play in childhood for healthy futures

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As a physical and health educator, Dr Dylan Cliff is determined to create spaces for children that encourage active living to support their development and wellbeing. Starting with his PhD, Dr Cliff evaluated education and public health programs designed to help kids be active and develop fundamental movement skills. His research has now expanded and involves working with childcare centres, teachers and parents to promote healthy levels of activity throughout the day and across all stages of childhood.

“We’ve often targeted the after-school window as a key period where children can choose what to do with their time. More recently, we’ve taken physical education into the early childhood space and we’re also looking at ways to implement change in traditional classrooms,” Dr Cliff says. In his work, Dr Cliff employs comprehensive measures of health behaviours which includes tracking physical activity and sedentary behaviour to report on the benefits of programs for kids. At the same time, Dr Cliff engages with families and parents, delivering programs about simple ways to help kids stay active and limit recreational screen time. Back-to-back fellowships from the National Heart Foundation and receiving an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award in 2014 and UOW’s Vice Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence for Emerging Researchers in 2015, has cemented Dr Cliff as a leading researcher in the field. He has contributed to national policy through his work on sedentary behaviour for the National Heart

Foundation’s Blueprint for an Active Australia and digital technology use for Early Childhood Australia and delivered practical training workshops for childcare workers as part of NSW Health’s Munch & Move Conferences. Dr Cliff was also part of the expert leadership group tasked with developing the Australian 24-hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years (from birth to five-years of age) which, for the first time internationally, integrated recommendations for physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep. Following this, Dr Cliff provided the first evidence that adhering to these guidelines benefits preschool children’s social and cognitive development. Dr Cliff is also promoting movement in schools, partnering with the Futures Learning Unit of the NSW Department of Education to explore how activity can be incorporated into different learning environments. “In flexible learning spaces, children spend less time sitting and more time up on their feet and moving,” he says. “We see students working collaboratively in groups, and being creative to find solutions and solve problems – all skills of the future. From our perspective, these spaces may be beneficial for children’s health and well-being as well.” Preliminary assessments by Dr Cliff and colleagues at UOW’s Early Start Research are informing the implementation of the roll-out across 1,600 school classrooms in NSW. They hope to investigate the longer-term health and educational benefits over the next 10 years.

DR PIPPA BURNS School of Medicine

Inclusive, creative societies The artworks produced by the children have since been displayed in two community exhibitions, two conference presentations have been given, and the program has been adapted for the Scottish curriculum and piloted in a primary school in Aberdeen.

Dr Burns was also part of the SMILE Project team which developed a community-based, multi-sensory environment (MSE), in consultation with local people, including those living with a disability and their carers. Based at the Horsley Community Centre, it is thought to be the first of its kind in Australia. But perhaps not for long: the project team have developed resources to support other individuals and organisations to develop their own MSEs, thus supporting other groups and communities to develop their own inclusive initiatives, based on research findings.

Using action research to bring people together to improve health and wellbeing is at the heart of research practice for Dr Pippa Burns.  “I strongly believe in the importance of giving back to our community, both at an individual and an organisational level. I think it’s particularly important in a small town like Wollongong where UOW holds such a pivotal place in the local economy.”

It aimed to develop, pilot and evaluate the impact of a short educational intervention on the conceptual understanding of dementia by primary school students. The researchers analysed progressive artworks to see how students’ understanding of dementia changed following the intervention. The effect of using a creative process to demonstrate learning and emotional connection took the entire team by surprise.

For her latest project, Dr Burns turned to the international crochet community. The Crochet Health & Wellbeing project will evaluate anonymous responses to an online survey about how the craft can contribute to wellbeing. It builds on an earlier project of by Stitchlinks, in the UK, which found knitting had significant benefit because it encouraged mindfulness, and therefore wellbeing.  The crochet survey saw an “unexpectedly positive” reaction, Dr Burns says, with over 8,000 respondents from around the world. The information provided by recipients is currently being analysed, but it has already attracted interest from both other crafters and health professionals interested in implementing crochet projects for health benefits.

The landmark Project DARE (Dementia knowledge, Art, Research and Education) brought together collaborators from UOW (with funding from the Global Challenges Program), UNSW, child care provider Big Fat Smile and Thirroul Public School.

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Action research benefiting the health and wellbeing of the community

Down the road in suburban Corrimal, Dr Burns and a UOW team are working with the local Chamber of Commerce, ASPECT South Coast School, and Autism Spectrum Australia, to establish the first autismfriendly community in Australia. Funded by the UOW Community Engagement Grants Scheme, the Autism Friendly Communities project will develop an audit tool that will enable business owners and individuals to make informed adjustments to their environment to make their surrounding more accessible for all.

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“We believe that Project DARE can evolve to include an expanded purpose, addressing other health-related issues and create a global impact, by working together to strengthen our communities,” Dr Burns says.

DR KHAY WAI SEE Institute for Superconducting & Electronic Materials

Fuelling innovation

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University of Wollongong

Electrifying the transportation fleet in underground mining to improve environmental and health safety outcomes

Dr Khay Wai See wants to encourage his son to be able to choose whatever job he likes when he gets older but says he would be reluctant to see him enter the underground mining sector until it’s made a safer working environment. Dr See, who is a senior researcher at the Institute for Superconducting & Electronic Materials, believes that while the renewable energy movement is gaining popularity, underground coal mining will remain a backbone for the Australian economy for some time to come. While this provides employment for many Australians, the conditions they work under can be arduous and in many cases dangerous. One of the key dangers faced by workers stems from the use of dieselpowered machinery. The diesel commonly used within mining machinery and transportation vehicles generates diesel particulate matter (DPM). When inhaled DPM can cause a plethora of health problems, including skin irritation, asthma and other respiratory complaints, as well as lung cancer. Another common complaint is hearing damage, which can be attributed to noise pollution from loud diesel-powered machines. The confined spaces with minimal ventilation exacerbate the problem.

The mining industry understands these are genuine problems for their workforce, and when key stakeholders saw what Dr See and his team were working on, they approached them to help solve the problem. At the time Dr See was working on projects for the Auto Cooperative Research Centre, in which they developed battery management systems to be incorporated into automotive applications. The team successfully built a fully electrified, road-registered car, capable of travelling a good distance on one charge. The mining sector recognised the potential to improve the inefficiencies of their current diesel fleet. The idea of electrifying the diesel fleet in mining isn’t new, with efforts made in the 90s, but with advances in lithium battery technology, it has now become a viable option. Dr See and his team are at the forefront of these specialised innovations and ways to best use the technology in what is sometimes volatile environments.

“About two to three years ago, we started to look at using lithium batteries within the mining industry. “The use of them above ground was one thing, but underground was a little different. People are reluctant to test batteries underground due to the presence of methane gas and the sparking and flash mechanism within batteries, which creates a significant chance of explosion.” After travelling to various coal mines around the world and engaging with industry partners, Dr See has overseen the development of a lithium battery which operates within a lightweight explosion-proof housing. Due to be trialled in the field early next year, Dr See says his research has only been given the opportunity to make real-world impact through the engagement of good industry partners. “Every researcher works within their own work space and we need to get our products and research out in to the real world, so it isn’t wasted. We need to get their industry specific opinions and ideas, to apply our research to their problems. Only then can we benefit each other equally.” While there are still challenges to navigate in regards to change and process management within the field and economically viable numbers for machinery build, Dr See is confident his current and future innovations will have a significant impact for coal miners. “It is time to transform this industry into a more sustainable one, and by working on the complex problems first, more doors can be opened by developing solutions which can be scaled back to requirements.”

University of Wollongong

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR SHAHRIAH AKTER Sydney Business School

The business of digital The rise of the digital economy and big data analytics is set to create a world of opportunity for business, government and the community in coming years. Simultaneously, how we harness the variety and purpose of data and the associated complexity of analysing and securing data is one of the great challenges of this generation. Digital marketing and analytics expert Associate Professor Shahriar Akter is investigating the opportunities and the risks involved in this emerging area of research with a team of PhD students. “Creating the means to help the world circumnavigate this big data revolution is essential,” he says.

For example, A/Prof Akter has helped others see and understand the potential of social media and big data analytics in emergency services, thanks for a longstanding collaboration with the NSW State Emergency Service (NSW SES). He has also contributed a case study on the subject (titled Achieving High-Level Emergency Service

Another project in collaboration with NSW SES explored the types of social media data and analytics that improve organisational performance. A/Prof Akter found in his social media studies that the use of sentiment analysis, topic modelling, and analysis of engagement, social networks and trends maximise business value. Other studies by his team also showed that most businesses do not know how to embrace big data or how to find value in it, though A/Prof Akter and his team are working on ways to help people overcome this through an interdisciplinary approach. Encouraging business students to adopt social media for marketing early on may be part of the solution. A/Prof Akter regularly interacts with students via LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. “These tools help me engage with my students and achieve learning outcomes,” he says. A/Prof Akter was recognised for his approach to teaching and learning by UOW in 2014 with an Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning Award.

And it cannot be done alone. A/Prof Akter is taking a co-creation approach to his work. He prioritises interdisciplinary research and pursues opportunities to work on real-world projects and collaborate with industry partners.

Delivery through Digital Transformation and Big Data Analytics: The Case of New South Wales State Emergency Service in Australia) to the Case Centre, a not-for-profit organisation that advocates case method teaching (a method of teaching where students review and try to resolve a real-world situation) in business education.

Impact Makers

Co-creating new business knowledge with digital transformation and big data analytics

Impact Makers

University of Wollongong

DR JENNY SIM

School of Nursing

Tracking key indicators of nursing care to evaluate quality and safety

As a Director of Nursing, Dr Sim had been frustrated by the lack of data capturing the impact of nursing care. Nurses are indispensable to the health care system, present 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but their contribution to patient outcomes can be lost in the wider system. “The care we provide is not always seen or noticed by others – but when it’s not there, it’s always felt,” says Dr Sim. “I want to give nursing a voice so that we can speak for ourselves about the impact that we make every day.”

By giving nursing staff data on their day-to-day practices, Dr Sim believes nurses can better understand the impact of their care and make improvements to their practice which ultimately benefit patients. Preventing common adverse events in hospitals, such as pressure injuries, falls

To this end, Dr Sim founded the Australian Nursing Outcomes Collaborative (AUSNOC). The data registry is the first of its kind in Australia, tracking key indicators of nursing care to evaluate the quality and safety of care on participating wards. It combines available data on the number of patients, staff and incidents with observational audits and patient experience surveys to provide each ward with monthly reports on their performance. Focusing on individual wards rather than the system at large means that the data is relevant for nurses and they can identify ways to make changes. “One of the biggest challenges for AUSNOC is giving nurses access to data that helps them to understand the impact that their care has on patient outcomes. It’s important to collect the right data in a meaningful way.” As data is collected over time, AUSNOC also evaluates the effectiveness of evidence-based changes to nursing practice and here, AUSNOC is quickly making a statement. Dr Sim has completed a successful two-year pilot of AUSNOC in three hospitals in NSW, in which time one participating unit reduced falls by over 60 per cent and another reduced pressure injuries by 40 per cent. She counts her collaborations with the Australian Health Services Research Institute and her participation in UOW’s iAccelerate innovation incubator program as vital to the success of the project, which is improving nursing care and patient outcomes day by day.

She embarked on a PhD to identif y ways to measure the unique contribution that nursing makes to patient outcomes, developing a suite of indicators that could be applied to individual hospital wards. Since her PhD, Dr Sim has worked closely with a number of private and public hospitals and the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District to translate her methods back to the system.

and medication errors, is key. “Every nurse goes to work every day to do the best job they can.”

Impact Makers

Twenty-five years working in nursing has given Dr Jenny Sim a clear focus on how she can enable nursing staff to improve the quality and safety of care in their ward.

University of Wollongong

Giving nurses a say

University of Wollongong

DR JIE (JACK) YANG

Impact Makers

SMART Infrastructure Facility

Data driven discovery Diverse partnerships, a passion for data, and game changing technologies Data is everywhere, accumulating across every facet of our existence, and Dr Jie (Jack) Yang wants to use it to make the world a better place. By providing cutting-edge big-data computing capability to support decision making, Dr Yang collaborates with cross-discipline academia, industrial stakeholders, and government bodies to solve real-world problems in an ever growing data-driven landscape.

For example, as the technical lead of an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project, Dr Yang undertook investigation work on a cutting-edge platform for online student behaviour modelling. The platform is used to collect student online activity from more than 25,000 smart devices across Australia, and processes thousands of pieces of streaming data in real time. The resulting analysis is used in domestic and international education policy development.

From collecting and analysing user generated content from social media to understand consumer sentiment across cultures, to developing complex simulations to guide transport and urban planning models, his research outputs have helped him to establish an impressive reputation across multiple industries.

In an ARC Discovery Project, Dr Yang is part of a multidisciplinary team striving to disrupt the Australian media industry. By encouraging creatives to be more innovative and connecting them to global trends identified in part through digital research tools and data collection and analysis, his team wants to ensure Australia isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t left behind when it comes to content creation.

One particular focus of his research is to bring together different aspects of computing methodology, such as deep learning, clustering, and evolutionary computation for massive data processing. Used independently or in combination with others, this research helps to provide better prediction accuracy and cost-effective outcomes for industry, government and the community.

Outside of academia, Dr Yangâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s partnership with industry and consultation work within the field of machine learning has won him two industrial patents. By exploring the challenges associated with big data processing from a research-led perspective, Dr Yang and his collaborators will continue to pursue developing advanced machine learning technologies that are of benefit to society.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR SIOBHAN MCHUGH School of the Arts, English and Media

The power of voice Capturing history in an accessible format to provide the marginalised a voice to influence change

University of Wollongong

Associate Professor Siobhan McHugh is internationally recognised as being at the forefront of podcasting studies. As a critic and scholar, as well as an acclaimed practitioner, her work over three decades has been dedicated to capturing the capability and intimacy of sound and the creative adaption of oral history. She strives to transform non-fiction stories into audio projects of cultural worth and significant social impact. A/Prof McHugh has authored more than 60 audio documentaries and won prestigious awards. Her theoretical research interests include the aesthetics and disruptive impact of podcasting and audio storytelling, critical analysis of podcast, radio and documentary form, and orality and aurality throughout history and the power of voice.

“Audio can also confer anonymity. These factors facilitate revelatory interviews that can be leveraged to examine sensitive matters that are in the public interest. Audio is also democratising in that it is highly accessible: you don’t even have to be literate to ‘get’ it.” Her collaboration with Fairfax Media on the podcast Phoebe’s Fall (2016) which was heard by approximately 1.5 million listeners, examined a possible miscarriage of justice in the death of a young Melbourne woman, Phoebe Handsjuk, in 2010. The series won four awards, but more importantly triggered a review of the Victorian Coroner’s Act. She is following on with this successful collaboration with Fairfax with Wrong Skin, released in 2018.

A/Prof McHugh incorporates learning from her research and commissioned projects into her teaching and in turn has enabled the professional development and success of journalists transitioning

A noted oral historian, A/Prof McHugh’s collections are held in the National Library of Australia, the State Library of New South Wales and at the City of Sydney. Her expertise in craf ted audio storytelling and the evolving media format of the podcast enhances access to and engagement with journalism, for impact on the public good. 39

A/Prof McHugh was also recently commissioned to produce a documentary for ABC Radio National, The Conquistador, the Warlpiri and the Dog Whisperer, as part of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project led by Professor Ian McLean examining transcultural aspects of the production of Aboriginal art.

from traditional media platforms. She has travelled extensively, addressing rooms packed with journalists and organisations such as New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, the Colombia-based Rutas del Conflicto (a human rights organisation that documents stories of victims of the FARC guerrilla groups), and the Australian War Memorial, all eager to access her knowledge to tell their own stories and join the podcasting revolution.

Impact Makers

“For people who have experienced discrimination through visual media, the audio medium can be liberating,” A/Prof McHugh says.

Impact Makers

University of Wollongong

DR FARZANA TANIMA

School of Accounting, Economics and Finance

Accounting for women’s empowerment in microfinance initiatives A few years after completing her PhD, Dr Farzana Tanima is transforming accounting practices for microfinance initiatives for women in Bangladesh to account for the true impact of social development programs.

“There’s a focus on financial self-sustainability and repayment rates as the only form of success in microfinance but we need to move away from that,” Dr Tanima says. “Showing only numbers hides other narratives.”

In this way, her work to date is fast transforming the role of accounting which extends to corporate social responsibility. “If you can change that language of accounting, you can bring about change in society and organisations.” At UOW, Dr Tanima has continued to explore ways in which accounting can foster social notions of

She is leading a multidisciplinary UOW Global Challenges project to evaluate microfinance initiatives from a social accounting perspective. This involves working with women loanees to create accounts which counter traditional financial reports and developing qualitative tools for monitoring, evaluating and reporting microfinance from individual interviews and focus group sessions. Dialogic accounting, as it is called, can capture narratives of women’s empowerment where numbers can’t. It also puts a magnifying glass to oppressive power imbalances in organisations and structural barriers that disempower women. Dr Tanima has a strong personal interest in the socio-political issues in her home country, Bangladesh. Here she is building firm relationships with women beneficiaries and non-government organisations, in particular, the Integrated Social Development Effort (IDSE), to enable her research. “Accounting is more than a number-crunching discipline. Accounting is a force for change. It can an influence people’s behaviour and affect social and organisational change.” Dr Tanima is putting those words into action.

In her PhD at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, Dr Tanima critiqued the narrow economic logic which dominates microfinance and considered alternative accounting practices that push for progress towards, rather than stagnate, women’s empowerment.

Tanima has quickly established herself as a leading researcher in this space, receiving the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) Best PhD Award and more recently, in 2016, the Broadbent and Laughlin Emerging Scholar Award.

Impact Makers

Microfinance initiatives, while regarded as a powerful mode of empowering women and alleviating poverty by providing loans to entrepreneurs and small businesses in developing countries, are laden with controversy. Concerns for the accountability of microfinance institutions who profit from lending schemes have been highly publicised. Less so, the way in which conventional accounting systems disservice women beneficiaries.

women’s empowerment. Her research draws upon the rich literature of gender and development studies and educational research to change how the success of microfinance initiatives is measured. This will challenge institutional norms of traditional accounting practices to promote greater social accountability.

University of Wollongong

Gender in microfinance

University of Wollongong Impact Makers 42

DR MIM FOX School of Health and Society

Compassion fatigue Drawing on personal experience to empower a fleet of skilled social work researchers

Dr Mim Fox wants to equip social workers with the skills and confidence to engage in social work research to impact change in their workplace. Research is one channel through which social workers are trained to create social change for social justice, together with counselling, advocacy and policy development, but the daily demands of the job and organisational culture can prevent social workers from actively engaging in research projects. Under pressure from heavy caseloads and in roles where they are constantly in contact with other people’s trauma, social workers don’t often have the capacity for research – in fact, social workers rarely see the change that they are creating with individuals, families and communities because of the pace of the work, says Dr Fox. This quickly leads to compassion fatigue and burnout. “There’s no time to acknowledge how they’ve impacted on those people or reflect on the meaning of the work they’re doing.” Over time, social workers engage less in their work as they build protective barriers. “People need to see success in their everyday work.” Drawing on her clinical experience as a social worker in hospitals and community health, Dr Fox saw an opportunity to intervene.

In 2015, she established a partnership with South Eastern Sydney Local Health District (SESLHD) to deliver a range of research projects to investigate the compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma that social workers commonly experience. In doing so, Dr Fox is also mentoring a fleet of social workers to conduct their own research. Across four major metropolitan hospitals, Dr Fox has united a research team of fellow social work practitioners to carry out the first project which will involve surveying and interviewing 100 social workers. She anticipates that the project will build momentum for policy on occupational health and safety (OH&S) guidelines for social workers based in hospitals, arming them with strategies to manage their workload, and encourage a revision of supervision practices to ensure social workers are receiving quality and timely clinical supervision. Beyond this, Dr Fox is driving a shift in workplace culture in SESLHD to allow social workers to actively engage in research projects for social change, which she hopes will be a beacon for other health districts and sectors. “I want to improve the working conditions of this crucial profession who on a daily basis contribute to and support the lives of some of the most vulnerable in our society.”

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR XIAOQI FENG School of Health and Society

Healthier environments Redesigning urban environments to support better health

University of Wollongong

Associate Professor Xiaoqi Feng actively engages with people and organisations to co-produce research with the goal to promote better health among children and mothers. This goal stems from previous work in which she found levels of obesity among young disadvantaged women aged between 15 and 24 that were only reached by those in more affluent neighbourhoods later in life – if at all. “My research suggests that we need to provide better environments from the start to prevent these health inequalities from emerging,” she says.

A major boost has been the receipt of a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Career Development Fellowship, which will involve analysis of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children and collaborations with other leading researchers in Australia and around the world. A/ Prof Feng will examine how changes in urban design – for example, urban greening strategies – could help to optimise the development of physical, social and emotional wellbeing early in life. How these greening and open space designs lay the foundation for better health throughout adulthood is also the focus of another ongoing study she co-leads with colleague Associate Professor Thomas AstellBurt, co-funded by Hort Innovation’s Green Cities Fund.

Working with organisations like Hort Innovation Ltd provides A/Prof Feng’s research with a roadmap for social impact across the country.

Locally, A/Prof Feng’s research has had a direct impact on the development of Wollongong City Council’s Urban Greening Strategy 2017-2037. The benefits of translating her work into policy and practice could benefit the nation by boosting educational attainment, increasing worker productivity and reducing preventable hospitalisations. “Working with policymakers and practitioners to codesign and translate my research and to see it driving positive change for local communities makes a career in science truly special,” A/Prof Feng says.

The Greener Cities, Healthier Lives project is examining green space and health across the lifecourse. A/Prof Feng leads her team to investigate how urban greening could help to prevent low birthweights, improve levels of emotional wellbeing and academic performance among children, and support healthier minds and bodies among young mothers.

Nationally, her findings on the health benefits of urban greening have already fed into the 202020 Vision that aims to make Australian cities 20 per cent greener by 2020.

Impact Makers

A/Prof Feng is building a portfolio of evidence that will inform the design of built and natural environments to enable healthier lifestyles and stronger social development in the early years. And this information is in demand if the funding, partnerships and recognition A/Prof Feng has already attracted is anything to go by.

Impact Makers

University of Wollongong

DR JOHAN BARTHELEMY SMART Infrastructure Facility

In-demand skills in applied maths, statistics and computer programming contributing to wave of ‘smart’ cities

project also connects with a number of partners including local council organisations, Sydney Water, Endeavour Energy, Remondis, NSW Government agencies and Iris Research.

From healthcare, to public utilities, transport and housing, data is collected from these sensors and connected by the internet-of-things (IoT) network. This information is then used to inform realtime software applications.

This is to ensure the facilitation of smart city solutions, by the people living in those cities, to improve the quality of lives in a way that accounts for the local environment and culture. It is an ideal which Dr Barthelemy holds close to heart.

As Director of the SMART Infrastructure Facility’s IoT Hub and Digital Living Lab, Dr Johan Barthelemy is leading the charge, designing and testing ever-improving sensors and devices and the associated backend application programming, including developing machine learning algorithms to process the abundance of collected data.

“The open source philosophy is what inspires me: sharing the results of our work with the community and seeing it being used and improved is very important,” he says.

The Digital Living Lab team is vital to the Vision Illawarra project - a regional digital dashboard collating regional demographic data and a myriad of other economic and social statistics. This online platform informs evidence-based planning and integrated development in the Illawarra. The

The in-house development of the sensor network and associated code allows Dr Barthelemy to ensure the work they do meets this accessibility mandate, and facilitates the huge community of academic and amateur interest in IoT technologies. Dr Barthelemy’s background in applied mathematics, statistics and data science with highly tuned programming and modelling skills have combined to place him in high demand. He makes contributions through Australian and interational professional organisations, including the Namur Institute for Complex Systems, and applied projects such as the SMART Pedestrian Project. Critically, he is leading the charge to train the next generation of specialists to meet demand in this rapidly expanding field of smart cities.

This technology being developed at SMART by Dr Dr Barthelemy and his team is being applied in a number of ways. For example, they are contributing to the SMART Pedestrian Project in which Liverpool City Council, UOW and Meshed, an IT company, can monitor pedestrian and vehicle movements around Liverpool’s CBD based on IoT sensors and artificial intelligence. By understanding how the city moves, efficiencies can be created and lives can be improved.

Impact Makers

Smart sensors, with embedded microprocessors and wireless communication links, have the potential to revolutionise the way systems and infrastructure are monitored, controlled, and maintained.

A large portion of the data collected by Vision Illawarra is accessible by the community, via the online dashboard, and this reflects a key ethos of Dr Barthelemy and the Digital Living Lab - that ideas should be shared to enable development and encourage creation.

University of Wollongong

A smart sense to share

University of Wollongong

DR ANNE-MAREE PARRISH School of Health and Society

Impact Makers

Moves in health promotion Helping to get children moving in to better lifestyle choices, starting in the classroom

With this front of mind, Dr Parrish’s research largely centres on promoting health and wellbeing through increased physical activity and reduced sedentary time in children.

When Dr Anne-Maree Parrish was in year six, she presented an assignment to her class about the popular health campaign at the time called Life. Be in it. Little did she know that this would be the humble beginnings of her interest in health promotion and public health.

“In the field we’re moving towards a 24-hour movement behaviour model. We’re acknowledging that physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep don’t work independently and if you change one of them it will impact the others in some way.”

Upon leaving school, Dr Parrish remained motivated to make an impact on the lives of others, so the logical path for her was to enter the field of nursing. Helping people came naturally, but she found her work to be counterproductive, with the return of patients inevitable in many cases from conditions that were often completely preventable. She wanted to actively stop people from entering the hospitals and becoming sick in the first place. Dr Parrish entered academia and found a structure where she could work with leading researchers, and a variety of internal and external stakeholders, to have a real impact on healthy choices as early in life as possible. “It’s estimated that by 2030, Australia won’t be able to financially sustain the growing incidence of chronic disease. It’s vital we produce research which impacts policies and systems in such a way that the healthy choice is the easy choice,” she says.

With the backing of grants and support from organisations such as the Heart Foundation and the NSW Department of Education, Dr Parrish and her team are working to integrate their findings across the board: at home, in government policy and in schools. Their current focus is the physiological and cognitive impacts of prolonged sitting, and the development of flexible working spaces in the educational environment. “We’re now speaking the language of the teacher, and can present the correlation to say ‘Look, by reducing sitting time we can increase concentration’. Through stealth this is one way to improve health and wellbeing across the board.”

DR SUKHMANI KHORANA School of Humanities and Social Inquiry

A taste of culture Exploring the complexity of intercultural identity and media in Australia

University of Wollongong

With an academic background in transnational film and media studies, Dr Sukhmani Khorana is focusing her research lens on understanding Australian multiculturalism and identity.  Dr Khorana approaches her work by bridging the gap between academia and the community. For her latest book, The tastes and politics of intercultural food in Australia, Dr Khorana interviewed and observed ethnic suburbs, social enterprises and markets to discover the way in which “food is central to everyday intercultural politics – and gender and class – in Australia”, according to a review by Professor Greg Noble from the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University.

“Most aspects of [this alternative food movement] ought to be encouraged, while remaining mindful of policing other people’s food choices or versions of authenticity,” Dr Khorana concludes.

With colleagues from the University of Tasmania and UOW, Dr Khorana is an investigator on an Australian Research Council Linkage Project examining the role of television in the experience of migration to Australia. The ‘Migration, Cultural Diversity and

Television: Reflecting Modern Australia’ project also partners with industry organisations Museum Victoria and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. She has also received several competitive Faculty grants for project examining refugee media, and how empathy can be transformed into responsibility. Dr Khorana balances her research with her teaching commitments at UOW’s South West Sydney campus, encouraging her students to collaborate, participate and open their minds to other points of view. According to one student studying one of Dr Khorana’s subject, “spending time discussing the material in groups has helped my learning process by opening up my view to incorporate the opinions of others”.

Dr Khorana began her academic career at the University of Adelaide with her PhD, a ‘criticalcreative’ project consisting of a thesis on the elements trilogy of Indian-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta, a documentary on Indian migrants in Adelaide and a web-log of production notes. Sections of her thesis have been published in academic journals and the documentary has been invited for public screenings.

Impact Makers

By engaging the public in her primary research through talks, media and long-form essays, Dr Khorana aims to reflect her findings back onto the community. She has been invited to speak on Australian identity in film and television at a forum organised for emerging and culturally diverse Western Sydney filmmakers by Information and Cultural Exchange, an initiative building creative capacity in the region. She writes for literary magazines, and provides expert media commentary. Recently, she examined ethnicity and veganism in a commissioned article in Sydney Review of Books, writing that what is unfolding at a Vegan Market held in Sydney’s Marrickville is a “complex socio-cultural and politico-environmental phenomenon”.

DR DAVID CORTIE Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials

Miracle material University of Wollongong

Exploring the frontier of electronic materials

Materials scientist Dr David Cortie is looking to the future in his search for new materials that can outperform silicon, the miracle material in smart phones and supercomputers. Our desire for smaller, faster and cheaper computers has pushed silicon to its limit: silicon can no longer deliver the kind of progress it has for decades. Cloud computing is doing the heavy lifting now, with networks of remote servers providing increased computing power, but the inefficiency of current electronic materials, coupled with an unprecedented demand, is costly.

Impact Makers

“We’re funnelling more and more electricity into computers. With the rise of cloud computing, there are giant computers out in the desert chewing up huge amounts of electricity, out of sight and out of mind,” Dr Cortie explains. To reduce electrical consumption and boost the computing power needed to drive information technology, Dr Cortie is designing novel materials with superior properties for high-performance computing. The goal is to find materials that offer near-zero electrical resistance. While superconductors have long been known to achieve this, the zero resistance state can only be achieved at low temperatures, and so the search for viable alternatives continues.

Dr Cortie is fascinated by the interplay between chemistry and physics in materials, exploring how different elements within a material affect its electronic and magnetic properties. To do so, he has developed ultra-sensitive techniques for interrogating the structure and properties of advanced materials. “We’re exploring new landscapes,” he says. In his PhD, Dr Cortie refined techniques for analysing the structure of magnetic thin film materials, work for which he was awarded the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering Gold Medal. His research has been propelled by a generous fellowship at the Quantum Matter Institute, which is an international centre jointly affiliated with the University of British Columbia and the Max-Planck Institute. His materials science research benefits from long-standing partnerships with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. The end goal may be to create next-generation electronics but Dr Cortie is inspired by the possibility

of surprising discoveries. “Along the way, while we’re searching for this special material [to replace silicon], we’ll find other materials that are useful for other things. We have to be open-minded,” he says. In this way, focused on the challenge at hand but open to ideas from different disciplines, Dr Cortie has contributed to a number of projects previously at the Australian National University and as an associate investigator with the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Future Low Energy Electronic Technologies. Recently, he was part of a UOW team that discovered a thermoelectric material with the capacity to harvest waste heat released by inefficient electronic materials and convert it back to electricity. He has also co-authored with colleagues from ISEM a Physical Review Letters paper that describes creating an effect in liquid gallium where the metal pulses rhythmically, like a beating heart. The finding has potential applications for fluid-based timers and actuators in artificial muscles, soft robotics and labon-a-chip microfluidic circuitry. Now, with a 2018 ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, Dr Cortie will explore the magnetic properties of topological insulators, materials that can potentially be engineered with atomic precision to allow electrical currents to flow unimpeded, meaning no power is lost in transmission. “It’s continuing the dream of superconductivity and ultra-low energy electronics but looking at it from a different angle.”

Working on wellbeing When she arrived from Sri Lanka more than 14 years ago, Australia provided Dr Shamika Almeida and her family many opportunities to succeed both personally and professionally. The goodwill this acceptance and support generated inspires Dr Almeida to give back to her adopted home through her research and teaching. Dr Almeida’s personal experiences are intricately connected with her academic career, which she embarked upon after working in the corporate sector. Her research journey began with her PhD thesis on the topic of employer perceptions of skilled migrants and why employers may be hesitant to hire migrants.

With the support of the internship team, in her role as the subject coordinator of the Faculty of Business’s undergraduate internship program, Dr Almeida helps to nurture student interns to be resourceful, use their personal strengths, be innovative, and become responsible stakeholders in the workforce. The internship program also aims to generate better graduate employment outcomes and cater to the

She highlights the internship team’s collaboration with the Accor Hotel Group and Claim Central Pty Ltd. over the past few years as prime examples of how internships have become an excellent opportunity for these organisations to source new talent. By working within organisations through workshops and seminars, such as a recent program at Claim Central, on understanding personal strengths and aligning strengths for increased engagement at work, Dr Almeida supports organisational change in the real-world. Dr Almeida is also collaborating with the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District to support wellbeing and resilience of their healthcare workers. For example, Dr Almeida is a core team member of the IMAGINE team who conducted a ‘Wellness Wednesday’ program at Bulli hospital for two cohorts this year. Overall, the participants of the Wellness Wednesday program note that they learnt to appreciate the importance of self-care, become more connected and built positive relationships with their peers, experienced personal growth and were able to share their learning with others.

“I believe this research has the potential to change the stereotypes and mindset of employers who may be unwillingly discriminating against people based on incongruence with their own personal socio-cultural background,” Dr Almeida says.

unique needs of UOW’s regional students including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, lower socio-economic status (SES) students and international students.

Impact Makers

Championing the wellbeing and engagement of students and employees through workplace training and education

University of Wollongong

DR SHAMIKA ALMEIDA School of Management, Operations and Marketing

University of Wollongong

Disaster geographies DR CHRISTINE ERIKSEN

Impact Makers

School of Geography and Sustainable Communities

Understanding the factors that connect people and the environment The prospect of bushfires is part and parcel of life in rural areas and on the fringe of cities in the warmer and drier months in many regions of the world and geographer Dr Christine Eriksen has spent the past decade studying the trade-offs people make when they choose to live in bushfire prone areas. A “simple but fundamental lesson” learned early on as an undergraduate student is what attracted the senior lecturer to this field of research.

“You cannot understand people without understanding the environment they live in, and you cannot understand the environment without understanding the people who live in it,” Dr Eriksen says. “Untangling the environmental history, natural hazards, social vulnerability, asymmetric power relations, social injustices, local knowledge and emotions that connect people and the environment intrigues me and keeps me busy in my endeavour to better understand social dimensions of disasters.” Dr Eriksen has delved deep into the social dimensions of disaster vulnerability and resilience by engaging with relevant groups – residents in at-risk areas, bushfire survivors, Indigenous fire stewards, firefighters and emergency management organisations in Australia and North America.

Through this process, Dr Eriksen has exposed differences in how men and women prepare for and respond to bushfires emergencies and has ultimately accelerated the recognition of gender as a key issue affecting all aspects of emergency management and bushfire safety processes. “My research has informed organisational approaches to community engagement, workplace culture, and wildfire management policy and practice, nationally and internationally. “It has championed the benefits of gender awareness, equity and equality through a sustained, longterm research commitment that built trust and awareness,” Dr Eriksen explains. Dr Eriksen has helped develop a preparedness kit to assist women before and during emergencies. She has provided expert advice on sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the wildfire profession in the US; she has raised awareness about gendered fatality trends; and she has helped educate the general public through regular engagement with mainstream media. From 2019, Dr Eriksen will be injecting her expertise into a new subject at UOW: Disaster Geographies. Through this, Dr Eriksen is seeking to inspire and equip the next generation with the awareness and knowledge to address the social dimensions that underpin disaster vulnerability and resilience.

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Impact Makers

DR ADRIAN TOOTELL School of Management, Operations and Marketing

Quality and collaboration

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Uniting industry and universities and building relationships

Collaboration between universities and industry can be tricky to establish, and even harder to maintain when the motivators for partnership are often at opposite ends of the innovation spectrum. The perceived ideals of industry wanting to only make a profit and academia focussing on reputation and results hinder progress before it has even really begun. Dr Adrian Tootell, lecturer and researcher in the fields of management, quality systems and operations, wants to bridge the gap of understanding between universities and industry to ensure communication channels are open, and a shared value system can be found. At the same time he wants to encourage a better value proposition for consumers and communities, through the establishment of an informed framework and standards. With 25 years of industry experience under his belt, Dr Tootell understands the challenges that businesses, management, shareholders and other stakeholders encounter. During his time in the manufacturing sector he experienced several business closures, and despite improvements to processes and general consumer satisfaction, macroeconomic factors continued to create uncertainty. Industry was simply trying to stay afloat, limiting the creation of world-changing innovations, much to the detriment of Australia and its workforce.

By researching the role of relationship marketing to initiate and develop ‘innovation relationships’ between universities and industry, Dr Tootell believes that rigorous scientific research can translate into ambitious new products in competitive domestic and global environments. “We’ve been looking at how we can incorporate best practice into handbooks and reference material to educate the marketplace of the possibilities. We want to create a conversation and show how collaborators can have an impact - and demonstrate that universities are a source of collaboration, and perhaps can drive innovation for some community needs,” Dr Tootell says. With his professional experience and his research understanding, Dr Tootell has found himself wellplaced to represent UOW and businesses on the Standards Australia committee for Quality Systems (QR-008). This committee is responsible for providing input into the development of international and

Australian standards on quality management systems and related documents, commonly referred to as the ISO 9000 group. His input particularly focussed on quality management and guidance for organisations to achieve sustained success. Within the committee, Dr Tootell represents a group of stakeholders across research and academic organisations, says Catherine Dunkerley, the Senior Stakeholder Engagement Manager with Standards Australia. “By participating internationally he represents Australia beyond academia to all stakeholder groups from technical and professional and employer associations to industry and government – for the net benefit to Australia and its citizens,” she says. “The work of Dr Tootell, and others like him, confirms Australia as a good global citizen in supporting organisations in other countries in the development of their Quality Management Systems.”

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DR LINH TRAN School of Physics

Innovation in radiation detector technologies for cancer treatment is leading to new and more effective treatment approaches

Developing tools to help doctors accurately measure how much radiation is given to a cancer patient during treatment and rapidly deploying them into the clinical setting keeps Dr Linh Tran busy.

“My research helps improve the quality of cancer treatment using protons and heavy ions. These types of radiation therapy are particularly beneficial for young patients,” Dr Tran says. “The silicon detectors are used to predict the radiobiological effect of radiation on a patient treated with charged particle radiation therapy, such as with

Dr Tran received her PhD in medical radiation physics at the CMRP in 2014 after working as a researcher at the Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute in Hanoi. Following her PhD she took up a position as a joint postdoctoral fellow at CMRP and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. In 2015 Dr Tran was invited to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester in Minnesota and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston to collaborate on research at a proton pencil beam scanning therapy facility using radiation detectors developed by the CMRP. Dr Tran has undertaken research exchanges with world-leading experts, including Professor Naruhiro Matsufuji from the National Institute of Radiological Science in Chiba, Japan. Dr Tran is also working with researchers in Norway at the Microsystems and Nanotechnology Facility at the University of Oslo. Dr Tran is committed to using her knowledge and skills to benefit cancer patients and her attitude toward research into improved treatment tools. Her quest to develop an advanced silicon radiation detection device could completely change the radiation therapy landscape.

Dr Tran is part of a team at the Centre for Medical Radiation Physics (CMRP), which already has a number of treatment enhancing devices and patents under its belt. Dr Tran has been central to a number of projects and experiments related to radiation therapy. Currently, Dr Tran’s focus is the research and development of silicon radiation detection devices for microdosimetry to improve the accuracy of radiation dosages.

protons or heavy ions, allowing better dose planning and accurate treatment,” Dr Tran explains.

Impact Makers

Super detectors

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Taking charge DR WEI KONG PANG Institute for Superconducting & Electronic Materials

Impact Makers

Understanding electrode materials to improve and innovate battery technology The lithium-ion battery (LIB) has changed the world as we know it. With its relatively high energy density, long life cycle and low cost, LIB technology enabled the development of mobile phones, laptops, and electric vehicles, among many other technologies. Today, more and more is being demanded of lithiumion batteries, with technological advancements outpacing the capacity of LIB for energy and power. Dr Wei Kong Pang is at the leading edge of research which aims to improve the chemical and structural reaction within batteries for better performance and potentially, entirely new energy storage systems. The working principle of a metal-ion rechargeable battery is to store energy in chemical form by using charge-balancing metal ions such as Lithium (Li+), Sodium (Na+) and Potassium (K+) that reversibly insert into the electrodes, which are the source of a battery’s power. Dr Pang’s research focus is on understanding electrode materials by combining battery electrochemistry and materials crystallography. That is, the relationship between the structure and chemical properties of the electrode within a battery at the atomic and molecular scales. “The structure and chemistry of the electrodes determines their functional mechanism, and the removal and insertion of Li ions can significantly

affect structure. It’s a very complex process, underpinning the performance of the whole battery,” Dr Pang says. By understanding this complex relationship between structure and electrochemistry, Dr Pang aims to be able to take batteries to the next level by meeting demand for better electrochemical performance, safer operation and longer durability. He is assisted in his research through partnerships with national and international experts, including Professor Ru-shi Liu from the National University Taiwan on the structure and crystallography of functional materials, Dr Zhengzhang Lu from Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan on the current issues of large-format lithium-ion batteries, and Professor Vanessa Peterson, from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation on the ‘in-operando’ mechanistic study of electrode materials in functioning batteries. This work studying battery properties when in use is the focus of research funded under a four-year Australian Research Council Future Fellowship received by Dr Pang in 2016. “With expertise in battery and crystallography fields, I believe it’s my responsibility to contribute my knowledge, combining the structure and electrochemistry, to the development of high energy, high power storage,” Dr Pang adds.

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Impact Makers

DR SASHA NIKOLIC School of Electrical, Computer and Telecommunications Engineering

Augmented virtuality “The point was to provide exposure to Australian engineering professionals and to educate students about the industry,” Dr Nikolic says.

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Students were encouraged to network with the alumni, asking questions that would develop their understanding of job prospects, career paths, the engineering profession, and the relationship between learning at university and work. “The physical equivalent of such an event can be logistically challenging and expensive to implement.”

Impact Makers

Making classrooms accessible online When Dr Sasha Nikolic joined UOW in 2006 as a staff member he was determined to improve the educational experience for engineering students. More than a decade later, his priority remains the same and his work has come to focus on using innovative teaching methods in the classroom as well as measuring the student’s learning experience. Dr Nikolic has mapped student evaluation scores to implement systems and processes that ensure quality laboratory experiences “By understanding the variables that influence the way students evaluate and perceive learning, we can improve teaching effectiveness,” he says.

When it comes to innovative technology methods, Dr Nikolic has used technology-enhanced learning in a variety of ways and has successfully introduced augmented virtuality technology into the classroom. “Compared to 2D environments, 3D augmented virtuality allows multiple conversations at once, the freedom for participants to move between conversations, and most importantly includes a video feed to represent each participant’s avatar. This approach enables a conversation in which body language and facial expressions, which are vital for effective communication, can be seen.” Using a software platform, iSee, which is based on the technology, Dr Nikolic has brought students across multiple campuses together with industry representatives and other subject-matter experts. In one case study, first-year engineering undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students were brought together via a virtual careers fair with UOW alumni presenting on various engineering disciplines.

The iSee software has also been used to run a Transnational & Industry Entrepreneurial Pitches program where teams pitched concepts for innovative projects to industry representatives and students from both Wollongong and Dubai campuses in a format resembling a trade fair or exhibition. The iSee software was used to address logistical problems in getting students across campuses and members from industry to participate in learning activities simultaneously. “Students found the advice from industry professionals invaluable to them as they continued to refine and develop their product ideas and designs. Ninety per cent of the students and 100 per cent of industry participants wanted to repeat the activity in the future.” In addition to his work as a lecturer and his investment in bringing augmented virtuality technology into the classroom, Dr Nikolic is currently the Chair of the NSW section of the IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organisation dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity, and is working to bring a flagship IEEE Asia-Pacific engineering and technology education conference to Wollongong in December. He is a member of the UOW team behind the Dementia Enabling University Strategy. “I received funding to integrate dementia awareness activities into engineering subjects,” Dr Nikolic explains, adding that for his part of the project he engaged students through an engineering subject. “Students were divided into teams and were asked to conceptualise and develop solutions for people living with dementia,” he says. “The goal was to encourage awareness of what dementia is and to initiate a process in which students can think about the problems that people with dementia might face and develop products and solutions to counter this.”

The milky way Supporting new mothers to prolong breastfeeding and improve infant health

Dr Meedya, who has 26 years of experience in clinical settings, education and research, is now working to make the Milky Way Program available via an app as a Global Challenges project in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team with members from four different UOW faculties, the University of Oulu in Finland, and a midwifery professor from the University of Queensland. “The app will allow geographically dispersed mothers to engage with the program, overcoming issues of locality,” Dr Meedya says.

Alongside her work on the Milky Way App, Dr Meedya is involved in a number of organisations and projects aimed at improving primary health care: she is a member of the Faculty Research Committee, South Asia Infant Feeding Research Network (SAIFRN) in Sydney; she provides expert advice on breastfeeding matters as a member of the Australian Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) advisory committee and contributed to the development of the Department of Health’s national breastfeeding strategy in 2017. Dr Meedya has also contributed to the World Health Organisation’s most recent BFHI guidelines, which promote and support breastfeeding in facilities around the world. In June 2018, Dr Meedya also represented Australia at the WHO’s BFHI coordinator’s meeting in the Netherlands. “Solving problems and helping others is the great motivation in my life and profession. I enjoy working toward empowering individuals to be active in their own lives and health,” she says. “Planning and conducting research allows me to express the best parts of myself intellectually, socially and emotionally. The desire of fulfilment keeps me motivated in research. I think by bringing a new theory or new trend you can create a mark where humankind will remember you for a long time.”

Back in 2015, as part of her PhD, Dr Meedya created the Milky Way Program, an educational initiative to support and encourage mothers to prolong breastfeeding. When first delivered face-to-face, the program saw cessation rates drop among participants and the number of women exclusively breastfeeding at six months increased three fold.

“My goal is to expand the breastfeeding app into a global project to support women and give the best start to their children in the world,” she says. Impact Makers

Breastfeeding is natural, beneficial to mother and child, cost-effective, and good for the environment. Just 15 per cent of babies born in Australia are exclusively breastfed during the first few months of their life though, according to Australian National Infant Feeding Survey statistics. Dr Shahla Meedya is working to increase the number of women breastfeeding for extended periods of time by addressing one of the key reasons for cessation – a lack of information and support.

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DR SHAHLA MEEDYA School of Nursing

University of Wollongong

DR JANINE DELAHUNTY

Impact Makers

Learning, Teaching and Curriculum

Educational experience Striving to create better learning experiences and educational practice for students Dr Janine Delahunty is motivated to enhance educational practice and improve the learning experience of students, particularly those from diverse and less advantaged backgrounds.

Commencing her academic career within the diversity portfolio of the Academic Development and Recognition Team at UOW put her in an exceptional position to be inspired by the people she aims to assist. Her research work has been largely based upon witnessing first-hand the challenges faced by her student peers. Dr Delahunty has built upon her experience as a mature age student to inform an extensive research agenda in the field of higher education participation and access. Her PhD thesis focused on the online learning space, particularly on the complexities of forum discussion and its effect on the teaching-learning experience. It honed in on the extent to which perceptions of ‘being listened to’ impacted on collaborative learning, sense of belonging and identity formation.

Dr Delahunty’s ongoing research spans all facets of the student learning journey. She has examined the experiences of first-in-family university students and how these students impact upon their family members and significant others not only in terms of educational goals, but in the transformative potential of higher education that reaches far beyond the individual. Dr Delahunty has proudly played a significant role in the design and development of the new Jindaola grant program – where a number of faculty teams are embedding Aboriginal perspectives into their curriculum. Her work on this project includes implementation, evaluation, ongoing scholarly research and collaborative dissemination through publications and presentations. It builds on an earlier project in which she led the collaborative creation of online resources for working effectively with Aboriginal students. In future, Dr Delahunty will continue to pursue research activities that directly impact approaches to supporting and engaging learners in the higher education sector, which includes supporting the academic development of staff at UOW.

UOW is committed to supporting our early and mid-career academics thrive, for they are the future of our University Professor Judy Raper, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation)

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EDITORIAL TEAM Amanda Morgan Carly Burns Clare Watson Jacqueline Wales

PHOTOGRAPHY Paul Jones

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

For academic profiles of the UOW staff featured, go to scholars.uow.edu.au

The University of Wollongong attempts to ensure the information contained in this publication is correct at the time of production (August 2018); however, sections may be amended without notice by the University in response to changing circumstances or for any other reason. UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG CRICOS: 00102E