Gamechangers by Western Sydney University

GAMECHANGERS

Western Research

GAMECHANGERS RESEARCH MAGAZINE

WELCOME Gamechangers is a new research magazine for Western Sydney University. Our aim is simple: through our research we create knowledge that adds value to our communities. We want to share the story of that research with you. As you read our stories, you will realise our research doesn’t just happen in the lab. It happens in partnership with our communities. Their diversity drives our research and our researchers. When you listen to older women under housing stress— like Dr Emma Power does; when you listen to men and women who have survived cancer talk about sex—like Professor Jane Ussher does; or when you talk to Sri Lankan farmers about empowering their farming practices through technology—like Professor Athula Ginige does; when you listen to your community like our researchers do you make a difference in real lives. You create research that has impact. You change the game. And that is what we are here to do: listen, understand, create knowledge, and make a difference.

Professor Scott Holmes, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Research and Development), Western Sydney University

Photo: Scott Holmes

westernsydney.edu.au

MARCS INSTITUTE GAMECHANGERS RESEARCH MAGAZINE

WHO WE ARE

WHY

WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT

We understand communication.

MARCS researchers study how we learn language and handle foreign accents, how we program robots for human interaction, how we communicate with infants and the elderly, and how we monitor the emotional effect of music because understanding communication will help solve a host of real-world problems.

Our success is based on bringing people together to solve real-world problems and deepen the scientific understanding of human communication. Our research is diverse, like our researchers, because our research responds to the diversity of our community here in the fastest growing urban region in Australia.

Human communication is diverse and all around us. It can be impaired by conditions like dyslexia, or heightened by stress. And non-verbal communication—like music—has the power to move us. Even under normal conditions, the way we acquire language—our first or our second language—is fascinating across a spectrum of research: the social and emotional aspects of language; the way our brain processes sound; the computation that lie behind automatic speech recognition. MARCS is Western Sydney University’s Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development. MARCS brings people from all walks of life—new mums and neuroscientists, linguists and Indigenous Australians, grandmothers and computer scientists, musicians and engineers—together to understand human communication. MARCS is 130 engineers, musicians, linguists, psychologists, computer scientists, mathematicians and neuroscientists working in an integrated high-tech facility.

MARCS researchers work with infants and children on speech perception, speech production, language acquisition, bilingualism, and literacy. This research improves the diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia, informs and guides the teaching of languages, and helps to preserve Aboriginal languages. The Institute’s work on healthy ageing brings new insights into speech processing in older people and finds ways of helping those at risk of cognitive decline.

The science of communication—it isn’t just what we research: it’s how we do research.

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT MARCS? Visit westernsydney.edu.au/marcs

We use contemporary methods from cognitive neuroscience to investigate the exquisite timing and synchronization of musicians and musical ensembles as a model of timing in the human brain. The Institute’s work in music science has a variety of therapeutic applications. Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation will help stability and gait in people with Parkinson’s disease; the social, emotional, and cognitive benefits of collaborative music making may be a way to slow or prevent cognitive decline in ageing; and music therapies may slow dementia or manage the behaviours, anxiety and depression associated with mid- to late-stage dementia.

Photo: Karen Mattock

Western Sydney University

GAMECHANGERS RESEARCH MAGAZINE

MARCS RESEARCHER

PAOLA ESCUDERO

AN AUSTRALIAN, A CANADIAN, A BABY AND A ZEBRA FINCH

It’s not surprising that the Australian accent can be hard for non-native speakers to understand. But you might be surprised to learn that Australian ‘strine’, with its long vowels and resulting drawl, can be a struggle to understand even for the babies of Australian speakers. Associate Professor Paola Escudero from the MARCS BabyLab has found that Australian babies are more likely to understand words in Canadian accents than Australian. To uncover this surprising fact Paola made up the word ‘deet’ and taught it to 15 month old babies. The babies were tested to see if they could distinguish when the vowel sounds of ‘deet’ were changed in the new words ‘dit’ and ‘doot’. The babies did not notice the new words when they were spoken by an Australian speaker. When the words were spoken by a Canadian speaker—an accent that doesn’t elongate these vowels—the babies were able to tell the difference. Paola says this study highlights how ‘each individual accent may pose different challenges for different listeners and a challenge for infants when they are learning their first language.’

Paola’s research into understanding how speech and language is received and understood has drawn on more than differing accents: the answers to questions of speech and language can be also found outside human to human communication. Her research has used songbirds— zebra finches in fact—to examine how they, along with human infants and adults, learn different speech patterns. Acoustic differences are important to human speech production and perception. They help make meaning and are understood by a wide range of species. Songbirds are one such species sensitive to these different patterns in human speech. Paola showed that the way speech is understood is more similar between songbirds and humans than was previously realised. This means that there might be an ‘auditory bias’ shared across species that plays a greater role in understanding some speech patterns than individual differences between human speakers, like nationality.

Speech and language abilities underpin much of human communication. They enhance and focus our thinking, creative and social skills. As a consequence, understanding difficulties in acquiring language is hugely important: ‘Infants are learning words and having to pay attention to so many things,’ Paola explains. ‘Small variations across dialects may influence their learning.’ But the long vowel in Australian ‘strine’ is not just a problem for babies developing their language skills. ‘For adult migrants to Australia who are just starting to pick up the language, they may take a bit longer to master Australian English,’ Paola points out. There is one more twist. As a result of Paola’s research it might seem obvious to assume that the difficulties faced by Australian babies learning language would negatively affect their development. Paola has found the opposite may be true—these hard to differentiate vowel sounds may actually be making babies smarter. Paola’s research is uncovering vital new information about the way babies develop their language skills—an essential support to their future learning potential.

Photo: Paola Escudero

westernsydney.edu.au

GAMECHANGERS RESEARCH MAGAZINE

MARCS LEADERSHIP

JONATHAN TAPSON LED BY CURIOSITY

‘I didn’t build this. I am the curator of it. There is an amazing research culture here.’ Professor Jonathan Tapson is the Director of the MARCS Institute. ‘MARCS deals with human communication: verbal, nonverbal, physical, emotional, technological, and augmented. We try to understand the brain processes that allow communication to happen,’ he explains.

That path was in the measurement of odd variables—variables like whether the consistency of material flowing in a pipeline was right—in the mining industry. He made Professor at 39.

Making a difference outside the lab is a core feature of MARCS’ research culture—whether it’s developing new assistive devices or finding a way to diagnose dyslexia in children as young as two years old.

‘It was one of those moments. I thought: I don’t have anything more to achieve in the professional sense, and the work I am doing is not intellectually satisfying. I have another 29 years left in my academic career. I don’t want to keep doing the same thing.’

‘We have had years of fantastic results in pure research, and I think we have a new culture of getting our research out the door—of having an impact,’ Jonathan says.

So he returned to circuits that emulated the human brain and the work that interested him when he took his PhD: neuromorphic engineering.

Driving MARCS’ work is a desire to understand and address the critical points in technology and within an individual’s life—whether it’s language acquisition in infancy, well-being and connectedness in the elderly, or reaching the limits of computational power.

Neuromorphic engineering develops artificial systems that mimic those found in the brain. It’s a relatively recent, rapidly growing field that attracts researchers from diverse backgrounds—physics, engineering, biology and physiology—and may resolve a roadblock to increasing computer power.

Jonathan’s own career has been driven by crucial moments too. Although he wasn’t ‘an electronics geek as a kid,’ he discovered a love for electronics while completing a degree in theoretical physics. He decided to take another degree in electrical engineering and then, a PhD.

‘Digital computation—with conventional computers—is at a dead end,’ Jonthan ventures. ‘There are opportunities to reduce the power consumption and increase the power of computation. We need a new way of computing.’

‘During my PhD I built a control system that worked a little like the neurons in the brain. Almost by accident,’ Jonathan says, ‘I found myself reading a lot about the brain and about the cortex. But I couldn’t do anything about it. I was pursuing a different—more conventional—path.’

Already Jonathan and his colleague, Professor Andre van Schaik, have been able to build a system of neurons that can process natural language. The system can understand the sentiment behind a sentence: if it’s positive or negative, happy or sad.

‘Denis Burnham, the previous long-term Director of the Institute, set up a family-like culture. It’s a fun place to work. It is a hard act to follow, to maintain that sense of joy about coming to work and doing research and enjoying the people you work with and getting excited about the results.’ With major challenges on the horizon and new fields of research to explore, there are still critical moments that excite the team at MARCS. The next is ageing. ‘Australia has a rapidly ageing population and ageing is a multidisciplinary problem,’ Jonathan explains. ‘You lose a little bit of hearing and a little bit of eyesight and all of a sudden you are socially isolated. Well, how does that happen? And because you are socially isolated you are making bad decisions and your health is deteriorating. How does that happen?’ ‘It is a complex, interconnected problem: quality of life and ageing,’ Jonathan says with enthusiasm. ‘I think that is the perfect problem for MARCS to work on.’

If this seems like an abstract piece of research, it often turns out that pure research has an impact on every day life. Jonathan points to MARCS’ work into what angle of the eyes is the point beyond which people feel like you are no longer making eye contact. Seems trivial? Skyping with your friend or having a job interview by video conference is going to be more natural—and possibly more successful—if a device’s built-in camera can stay within your field of eye contact.

Photo: Jonathan Tapson

Western Sydney University

GAMECHANGERS RESEARCH MAGAZINE

MARCS PHD

JAMES WRIGHT NEW WAYS TO DO DISCOVERY

Most people enter a PhD by the same path: you finish an undergraduate degree, an honours year, get a scholarship, and start your PhD. That’s changing. James Wright is a PhD student with the MARCS Institute. ‘I worked in entrepreneurial environments where you were looking for answers to questions,’ he reflects. ‘Places where you had to do discovery, where you had to find a new way of doing it.’ ‘It didn’t feel that different going from the places I had worked into PhD study.’ During an undergraduate degree in Politics and International Relations James learnt how to code software on the side. He took a Masters in Computer Science before working as a software engineer with several start-up companies looking at neural networks—brain/ computer interfaces. ‘I was immediately fascinated by it without ever having gone looking for it,’ he says. ‘I was looking for another place where that sort of work could be done.’

His search brought him to the MARCS Institute. With Professors Jonathan Tapson, Vaughan Macefield and Andre van Schaik, he started to ask questions about how the body processes touch. ‘All of these different things that we are doing with our hands and our brains our muscles and our nervous systems,’ he starts, ’trying to understand how that interplay works together is a lifetime’s endeavour.’ So he started small: with one finger. He is trying to understand the neuro-physiological basis of touch sensation from one point. ‘When you are doing this science,’ he explains, ‘you are only ever able to chip away at the edges of the problem. You hope that by solving your one small part you open up a new path that somebody hasn’t seen before.’ Most existing research in the field focuses on how to send an artificial signal that the brain could understand as touch. But James thinks that might be the wrong way around: ‘We should try to understand how the brain codes sensation, and then create the artificial representation accordingly.’ Cracking the code will help grow the potential of exoskeletons to assist a range of people with mobility constraints. James is focusing on stroke victims, who, after rehabilitation, have few available treatments left.

The environment of MARCS, coupled with his own experience in industry, is a key influence on James’ drive to make a difference with his research. ‘MARCS encourages students to see their research applied in that fashion—whether it is them or finding someone in industry to become a partner to help make that happen.’ It’s part of the change in the PhD experience James represents. ‘Academic careers,’ he predicts, ‘will be different than they have been in the past.’ ‘MARCS has been very good at trying to recognise the change that is coming and to encourage the young researchers and PhD students studying there who are going to have to absorb this new way of doing business.’ And while James’ future will probably lie between academia and industry, solving problems and making the solutions a reality, he is certain about his research: ‘We have this little glimpse of what the future is going to be like. It might take a long time to get from my laboratory to your living room, but eventually it will get there.’

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT JAMES’ WORK OR PHDS AT WESTERN? Watch James’ Three Minute Thesis speech: https://youtu.be/79AHpem5U3Q Visit westernsydney.edu.au/graduate_ research_school/grs

Photo: James Wright

westernsydney.edu.au

GAMECHANGERS RESEARCH MAGAZINE

MARCS PARTNERSHIP

ALL HEAR TOGETHER HEARING CRC

Some problems are too big for one researcher, one university, or one business to solve. Cooperative Research Centres, or CRCs, are funded by the federal government to bring people together from a range of institutions, businesses and backgrounds to research complex interdisciplinary problems. The HEARing CRC explores all aspects of hearing loss. Hearing loss affects one in six Australians. By 2050, a quarter of the Australian population may be affected by loss of hearing—resulting in negative impacts on the economy, on education and on relationships. MARCS is a partner in the HEARing CRC alongside the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC). The RIDBC is Australia’s largest non-government provider of therapy, education and diagnostic services for people with hearing or vision loss. As a CRC partner, the RIDBC acts as a conduit between HEARing CRC research and practical interventions that change lives.

‘Technology like the cochlear implant is essential—but technology can only get you so far,’ reminds Professor Greg Leigh, Director of the RIDBC.‘ Children with hearing or vision loss get the best possible start to life when they, and their families, receive immediate support from appropriately trained professionals.’ Professor Denis Burnham and his colleagues at MARCS are undertaking research to ensure that young children with hearing difficulties receive the earliest possible interventions. Denis leads a team trying to understand the brain functions that support speech. Understanding the way the brain processes sound—including speech and hearing augmented by hearing aids or cochlear implants—is key to Denis’ research, and should lead to more options for those with a hearing impairment. Denis and his team use specialised facilities at the MARCS BabyLab to undertake this research. The MARCS BabyLab—established in 1999—hosts around 1000 babies per year. In the BabyLab MARCS researchers explore speech perception, speech production, and skills like literacy and its development among infants and children.

Discoveries in MARCS about speech perception in infancy have been instrumental in convincing governments in Australia of the necessity of mandatory hearing tests for newborn infants. Perceptual learning happens in the first months of life. MARCS has helped prove how vital this early learning is to social, emotional and cognitive development, and its necessity for the development of speech, language, communication, and readiness for formal education. The developmental delay associated with failing to detect hearing impairment until 8, 12 or even 24 months of age is significant. Early testing is key to enhancing outcomes for babies with hearing impairment—as is demonstrating the effectiveness of using cochlear implants early in the lives of children with hearing loss. As Professor Leigh says, ‘developments in so many different areas ensure that children with hearing loss can achieve alongside their hearing peers.’

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE HEARING CRC? Visit hearingcrc.org

Photo: Rochelle Finlay

Western Sydney University

GAMECHANGERS RESEARCH MAGAZINE

REDI LEADERSHIP

ROCHELLE FINLAY MAKING CHANGE EASY

Universities have to show a social return on the research they undertake. Yet we still struggle to make the connections between our publicly-funded research and the business and not-for-profit sector. REDI is changing that. ‘We are bridging the gap between what the client needs and what the University can deliver.’ Rochelle Finlay is the Director of Western Sydney University’s Research, Engagement, Development and Innovation unit, REDI. Rochelle has, by her own account, worked ‘from every angle in the research sector,’ and it’s given her a unique perspective on the cultures and challenges of research. ‘I started out in the lab, working on water quality research, but realised I needed to make a radical change.’ Lab work is satisfying but repetitive: ‘It is easy to lose sight of the big picture when you are working at the micro-level. I wanted to influence behaviours’. So Rochelle changed it up. She moved to the UK to start working in food tech research before joining the National Health Service to develop standard protocols for food testing. ‘I moved to the other side of the research fence,’ she says, ‘and I loved the variety.’

After finishing with the NHS Rochelle returned to New Zealand to take up an opportunity with a government research funding body. There she took a hands on approach to developing research with commercial and social return. ‘The driver,’ she says, ‘was to reduce competition, encourage collaboration, and enhance the quality of applications for funding.’ Unlike Australia, where nearly forty universities compete for government funding, the New Zealand system is small, with most funding for R&D being provided by government.’ This means the government has to take a leading role in ensuring its investment results in quality research and impact.’ ‘I became a bridge between the government client and the researcher. It was a much more active role in enhancing the outcomes of research.’ It is the same kind of approach that Rochelle brings to REDI. Together with her team, Rochelle is making it easier for clients to connect with the range of opportunities available within Western Sydney University. REDI has become the bridge between Western’s research and our community. But it isn’t easy. ‘The university and business have very different cultures,’ Rochelle says. ‘Understanding how they tick is incredibly valuable.’ In a way it’s like making the change from the lab bench to the manager’s desk: you have to see the bigger picture, but remember what it takes to put it all together. Rochelle has embraced that philosophy to build REDI’s business development team.

‘We are developing ourselves as experts in translation. Whether we are talking to the corporate community or to our academics the intent is the same: demonstrate the value of working with us; open up the opportunities; and realise that the University is not a onestop shop.’ The big problem people face in working with the University is navigating the labyrinth of specialisations and disciplines, departments and Schools. ‘It can be frustrating,’ Rochelle says. ‘Sometimes all the doors are the wrong doors. Sometimes the expert is always in another department. Our service ethic is simple: there is no wrong door. We provide a continuity of service from pure research to commercially applied research, and we will navigate that labyrinth for you.’ REDI is a big part of changing Western U’s research focus. They are leading a cultural shift in the University, encouraging researchers to look outward, to negotiate with business and the broader community, and to make sure our research makes a difference. ‘I am proud of the service culture and flexibility of the REDI team. We are negotiating innovative, flexible agreements between commercial partners and the University, but we can’t do it alone. It’s too big.’ There is only one solution, according to Rochelle: ‘We have to work together.’

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT REDI? Visit westernsydney.edu.au/redi Email redi@westernsydney.edu.au

Photo: Rochelle Finlay

westernsydney.edu.au

GAMECHANGERS RESEARCH MAGAZINE

REDI INDUSTRY PARTNER

DEMAND MANAGER MEASURING UP TO OPPORTUNITY

Behind the solar panels on your roof or the LED lights in your local shop there is a whole financial industry that trades energy savings certificates, negotiates funding with the public and private sector, and manages the financial risk of energy efficiency markets. In short, there are people who find the funds to make things happen, and they are critical to the wider renewable energy agenda that underpins national and international efforts to mitigate harmful climate change. Demand Manager, an Australian-based company in operation for over ten years, is at the forefront of clean energy financial services for small to medium enterprises. Demand Manager’s Founder and CEO is Jeff Bye. ‘They are car dealerships, RSL clubs, universities, offices, carparks, shops,’ Jeff says of his customers. ‘They are the full spectrum of businesses out there that, on their own, wouldn’t be in a position to negotiate funding themselves’. Jeff started Demand Manager after working with the Sustainable Energy Development Authority—a NSW government agency that delivered programs to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the production and use of energy. The work gave him an insight into the compliance side of the clean energy market, but didn’t give him the opportunity to make things happen on the ground. ‘I am an engineer by background with a finance qualification, so I enjoy things actually happening!’

Demand Manager has grown from just Jeff to eight employees. But a few years ago, Jeff realised he needed to diversify the business to limit the risk of relying on a limited number of customers and public sector funders. ‘Governments come and go with regularity and policies change, making it difficult to do business. If we can open up other sources of funding it will give our business a better grounding.’ He had an idea: find a better way to move the information from the person on the ground to the people with expert knowledge in securing clean energy funding. From the sparky doing installation work on the farm, to the systems designer working in the city office, to the international financiers—new technology could establish an industry innovation ecosystem. And making it easier for more people to access clean energy funding would grow and diversify Demand Manager’s customer base. That’s when he approached Western Sydney University and REDI. ‘A couple of things stood out about REDI and Western Sydney University. The attitude was making it happen, not identifying barriers, and the other was Dr Chris Le Brese: his background in software coding and hardware development provided the skill sets we needed’. Together with Dr Upul Gunawardana, his colleague in engineering at Western U, Chris began working closely with Jeff and the team at Demand Manager to develop a new Lux Meter. A Lux Meter measures the amount of light falling on a surface. This measurement is crucial to determining if energy saving lights comply with national standards—and demonstrating compliance is essential to securing government funding.

An electrician might have to conduct thousands of readings in a building, transcribing the results from the meter to a notepad or computer. The Lux Meter Chris, Upul and Demand Manager have created will send readings to the user’s phone, automatically formatting and calculating the measurements and comparing it to the relevant standard. It will even email the results to you. But during the development process, the possibilities for the Lux Meter and its app grew. What if it were a platform that combined the finance, product and installation providers involved? ‘If an electrician in Dubbo was able to use this tool, gather the data necessary for someone to do a lighting design, for someone else to provide a quotation in terms of the products and for us to get involved in the finance side of things, to equip that electrician with all the tools that now he is suddenly a champion in this space and is able to convince the customer to go through with the project, then we are delivering value for everyone,’ Jeff says. Now that the first version of the Lux Meter is nearly complete, Jeff is embarking on this second phase of the Lux Meter with Western Sydney University. Phase two, connecting customers on the ground with a complete energy efficiency solution, will enable more people to access clean energy finance; it will allow more people to become, as Jeff says, ‘the expert that makes the project happen.’

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT DEMAND MANAGER OR REDI? Visit demandmanager.com.au Visit westernsydney.edu.au/redi

Western Sydney University

JEFF BYE, FOUNDER AND CEO DEMAND MANAGER

From the sparky doing installation work on the farm, to the systems designer working in the city office, to the international financiersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; new technology could establish an industry innovation ecosystem.

GAMECHANGERS RESEARCH MAGAZINE

AJESH GEORGE

LOUISE CRABTREE

Women are at greater risk of poor oral health during pregnancy due to hormonal changes, changes to their diet, and morning sickness. This heightened risk may have serious consequences for the baby, with evidence suggesting that poor oral health during pregnancy can lead to increased pre-term births and lower birth weights—particularly for women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Sydney’s median house price is over one million dollars. Median rents for homes and apartments are both around $500 a week. 154,000 people were registered for access to public rental housing in 2014 in NSW.

And the risk remains after birth: decay-causing bacteria can be transferred from mother to baby through shared spoons and dummies.

What is shared equity home ownership? A shared equity homeowner purchases their home from a community land trust and owns it jointly with that trust. If the homeowner sells the property they receive the equivalent of the equity they owned, and the property remains jointly with the community land trust and the new owner—ensuring a stable stock of affordable housing.

FILLING THE KNOWLEDGE GAP

Despite the consequences, pregnant women don’t access dental services as often as they should. In Australia, only around a third of pregnant women see a dentist even when they have a dental problem, and across the developed world the figures are similar: in the US, it is between 23-49%; in the UK, even with a comprehensive dental care system through the National Health Service, it ranges from 33-64%. Dr Ajesh George has been working to find the best way of improving the oral health of pregnant women. The main problem is knowledge: even though dental health problems are common in pregnancy, less than ten percent of women receive any information about oral health during their pregnancy. Antenatal care providers—midwives, GPs, obstetricians and gynaecologists—have limited knowledge about the safety of dental treatment during pregnancy and the impact of failing to have this treatment. A survey conducted by Ajesh and his team to gauge the level of knowledge among antenatal care providers found an average correct response rate of 60%. Only 22% of those surveyed discussed oral health with their clients. ‘We now know that it’s safe to have dental treatment during pregnancy, including cleaning, fillings, extractions and even x-rays,’ Ajesh says. Ajesh has developed a first of its kind program to address the lack of knowledge about oral health during pregnancy. ‘The Midwifery Initiated Oral Health Program (MIOH) is improving the knowledge and confidence of midwives to promote oral health as well as the oral health outcomes, knowledge, quality of life and uptake of dental services among pregnant women,’ says Ajesh. The MIOH Program is a training program that improves midwives’ ability to guide their clients towards appropriate dental health care. The state of Victoria has already adopted the program, and Ajesh is working with NSW Health to mirror the work in NSW. Photo: Ajesh George

westernsydney.edu.au

BEATING THE SQUEEZE

Dr Louise Crabtree’s research into shared equity home ownership will give people squeezed by the booming property market an option that isn’t buying, renting, or living in social housing.

Shared equity home ownership is a model that can help low to moderate income earners enter the property market, but is rarely used in Australia. To change this, Louise partnered with government, industry and community agencies across multiple jurisdictions—alongside other academics—to create the first Australian Community Land Trust Manual. The manual contains legal templates, organisational advice and operational material to help community housing groups establish new pathways to home ownership. But Louise’s research isn’t just about affordable housing for low to moderate income earners. ‘It’s about how we steer housing in a way that’s most beneficial for the community,’ Louise argues. ‘Shared equity home ownership is defined according to local circumstances.’ Louise’s latest work looks at how community land trusts might better capture the aspirations of Indigenous Australians than other models of home ownership. ‘Many Indigenous households are more concerned with issues of stability, inheritability and autonomy than with wealth creation through home ownership,’ Louise says. Community land trusts could smooth the obstacles faced in increasing private ownership in Indigenous communities where land is held collectively, income levels are low, and the housing market is small. Like all of Louise’s research, her work in Indigenous housing focuses on building the community’s capacity for policy-making and practice, expanding their independence and range of choices by, as she describes it, ‘translating complex theoretical principles and arguments into practically workable models and policy.’

GAMECHANGERS RESEARCH MAGAZINE

COMMUNITY RESEARCH

SWEATSHOP

WRITING WESTERN SYDNEY DIFFERENTLY

This story starts in Bankstown, a place where people from all cultures can be found living in harmony with each other. A place where food from all around the world is served in many restaurants but the heart of Bankstown is Springvale Park. It is the only place in Bankstown where a forest of pink cherry blossom trees can be found. Yvonne Vo, ‘Song of the Thorn Birds’ Dark Skin, Black Hair, and Wide, Wary Eyes: 2015 Youth Week Writing Competition Showcase We cannot begin to talk about freedom and justice in any culture if we’re not talking about mass based literacy movements. Because degrees of literacy determine so often how we see what we see. bell hooks, author/feminist/ social activist

SWEATSHOP gives young people in Western Sydney the opportunity to produce films, podcasts, plays, performance readings and publications—like the one, produced in partnership with Bankstown City Council, in which Yvonne Vo’s story appears. SWEATSHOP empowers marginalised communities through creative and critical initiatives. SWEATSHOP is a Western Sydney Literacy Movement emerging from the Centre for Writing and Society—one of Western’s unique research Centres. SWEATSHOP is driven by the Centre’s inspiring postgraduate writers. Its Director is Michael Mohammed Ahmad, author of The Tribe and winner of the 2015 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist of the Year Award. Its Associate Director, Luke Carman, won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for New Writing for his book, An Elegant Young Man. The Education Officer of SWEATSHOP, Felicity Castagna, received the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction for her 2014 work, The Incredible Here and Now. Together with their peers within the Centre and across the University, these exciting young writers are committed to using their creativity to realise positive change for young people. SWEATSHOP’s roots are tied to Western Sydney’s cultural diversity but the impact of their activity extends far beyond these boundaries. The stories of disenfranchisement with which the group engages stretch beyond the region. Helping people excluded from modes of literacy to find their voice within those modes empowers marginalised communities to identify and communicate the issues affecting them to their friends, family, community and, importantly, decision-makers.

SWEATSHOP teaches and encourages participants in its programs to find their voice and use it to creatively inform and teach others. Through creative writing workshops SWEATSHOP helps students to develop their creative and academic writing and communication skills, and it does so in innovative ways—ways that produce work that is meaningful for both its young creators and their audiences. The school workshops deliver a new set of skills and strategies to schoolaged children to make their voices heard and their experiences recognised. Partnering with groups and organisations across the country, including Giramondo Publishing, NIDA, Powerhouse Youth Theatre, NSW Writer’s Centre, the Sydney Writer’s Festival, SBS, the Melbourne Emerging Writer’s Festival and the Alice Springs Eye of the Storm Festival, SWEATSHOP initiatives have resulted in numerous creative collections. One is a collection of spoken-word stories by students from Sir Joseph Banks High School, Lurnea High School and Sydney Secondary College, Balmain: On my Way to Sierra Leone. This short film captures the voices of its stars but also speaks for many experiences within their communities. The creative output and talent of SWEATSHOP is impressive, but it is the use of this talent in targeted, novel and meaningful ways that sets this writers collective apart. SWEATSHOP is a generous artistic undertaking that produces exciting new art with genuine social resonance.

WANT TO SEE MORE OF SWEATSHOP’S WORK? Visit http://sweatshop.ws/ Watch On My Way to Sierra Leone https://youtu.be/COPJ6Ekyr-g

Photo: Luke Carman

Western Sydney University

GAMECHANGERS RESEARCH MAGAZINE

EMMA POWER

DAVID TAIT

Ever stopped to pat a dog in your neighbourhood?

Can where the defendant sits in the courtroom influence the verdict they receive?

GOOD PETS MAKE GOOD NEIGHBOURS? It is a simple gesture that often leads to a quick chat; you say hello on the street or apartment building foyer when you see the owner again; perhaps you have a coffee together. Owning a pet can draw people into relationships with their neighbours and with their community. ‘The research connects human-dog relations to broader understandings of community practice,’ says Dr Emma Power. But the experiences of dog-owners aren’t always positive. A barking dog in an apartment building can take someone from being a responsible neighbour to a bad dog owner. Angry notes left in the common areas can change the experience of living in and sharing a building. Emma’s research examines everyday practices of community within apartment buildings—things like owning a dog—to uncover how these practices shape the experience of residents. ‘Buildings are more than a context or stage upon which the residents’ lives are lived,’ Emma says. ‘They actively shape practices of inhabitance.’ Emma discovered that dog owners within apartment buildings created informal networks with other dog owners ‘to keep up to date with arising issues and also to exercise social and peer pressure to ensure that others behaved responsibly.’ The pressure to be a ‘responsible neighbour’ is key to understanding the way in which governance mechanisms like strata title committees interact with informal frameworks like the angry note about a barking dog left in the common area. ‘Individuals are “governed through their associations” however defined, including through neighbourhoods, subcultures, age groups and ethnicities,’ Emma says. ‘When buying in to these places, owner occupiers do not simply buy into a set of property rights, but buy into a set of governmental objectives that define their responsibilities as neighbours.’ These insights have led to Emma receiving a large grant to study how single older women navigate housing stress and the idea of home within the context of being a responsible neighbour. Emma says the two are connected: ‘housing markets and supply impact on and are changed by home making cultures and practices.’ Photo: Emma Power

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JUST SPACES FOR ALL

Professor David Tait from Western’s Justice Research Group has the evidence to show it does. In most Australian courts the defendant sits in the dock—a separate section of the courtroom away from the accused’s legal team and others in the court. In cases where there is a threat to the defendant, or where the defendant is thought to pose a threat, they may be completely separated from the courtroom by a glass barrier. Over the past decade there has been growing disquiet among the judiciary on the use of glass barriers in jury trials. For instance, in the Baladjam case five men were tried in Sydney on terrorism-related charges. They sat behind a glass dock that made communication with their lawyers difficult and obscured views from and into the dock. The judge in that case, Justice Whealy, had to rely on his personal impressions of the impact on the jury of the use of the glass dock: ‘I was rather taken aback by the apparent separation of the accused from everybody else in the courtroom.’ There was no rigorous evidence of the likely effect of the glass barrier that Justice Whealy could refer to. David decided that the only way to find out what impact the position of the defendant had on the verdict was to conduct a trial of his own. ‘People think they can detect their own prejudices,’ he says. ‘In fact, all the psychology evidence is that they can’t. You need to do a randomized controlled trial to see how people actually behave.’ As part of David’s experiment 400 mock jurors watched a short live trial. Actors played the judge, legal representatives, witnesses and defendants. For different juries the defendant sat in different positions: at the bar table with their lawyers, in an open dock or in a glass dock. It turned out that the judges’ impressions were right. In the study 60 percent of jurors who saw the accused in the glass dock returned a guilty verdict, compared to 46 percent in an open dock and 32 percent at the bar table. ‘The impressions were that the accused was more dangerous, violent and threatening in the glass box,’ David observed. The research should lead to a re-design of courtrooms and the removal of glass docks. As David points out, ‘They undermine the presumption of innocence, they’re more likely to lead to a conviction, and they fundamentally undermine the right to a fair trial.’ 23

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RESEARCHER PROFILE

THOMAS ASTELL-BURT LIVING LARGE IN THE FOOD DESERT

What if living closer to a local park, or if living closer to places that sold fresh food, meant you were less likely to develop a disease like diabetes?

In 2008-2009 estimated health spending on diabetes was around one and a half billion dollars. Since the likelihood of developing diabetes increases with age, Australia’s ageing population is likely to cause the number of Type 2 diabetes sufferers to double between 2000 and 2051. The number will more than double if more of us are obese and more of us are less active. Dr Thomas Astell-Burt’s research explores the connections between where we live and how healthy we are. His work has examined the effect that access to green space—parks, bushland, sporting grounds—has on our likelihood to exercise. In a study of 200,000 people over the age of 45 he found that living within a kilometre from significant green space increased the likelihood of exercise. His recent work looks at food deserts, ‘an area,’ Thomas explains, ‘that has lots of fast food but no supermarkets or green grocers.’ ‘This makes the choice between purchasing fast food or purchasing apples and vegetables rather difficult.’ Thomas’ project is called the ‘Mapping food environments in Australian localities project’—or MEAL. The method is simple: take existing data sets and plot where the fast food franchises, supermarkets, fruit stores and bakeries are across Sydney. The resulting map might explain the inequality in health outcomes between Western and Eastern Sydney.

‘In communities in the West, for example in Blacktown, in Mt Druitt, in Liverpool and Campbelltown, the prevalence of diabetes is upwards of 6%,’ Thomas says. ‘If you compare that to some of the Eastern Suburbs, to some of the more affluent suburbs in the north shore, the prevalence of diabetes is just over two percent.’ ‘We think it’s driven by the types of environments we live in.’ If Thomas is right, his research has significant implications for the way we plan communities. Jobs, transport and urban amenity are key features of urban planning. Health should be a key element too. By increasing access to green space and fresh food it might be possible to reduce the rates of lifestyle-related illnesses like Type 2 diabetes. ‘At the end of this project we will have a very good idea of what types of policies and what types of urban planning help promote healthy communities,’ Thomas suggests. ‘We will be able to put that under the noses of policy-makers and urban planners so they can integrate that work into their daily practice.’

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THOMAS’ WORK? Read An interview with Thomas: abc.net.au/pm/content/2015/ s4269961.htm

Photo: Thomas Astell-Burt

Western Sydney University

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SIOBHAN SCHABRUN

ATHULA GINIGE

Our brains can change—and not just during childhood. Over the last few decades researchers have discovered that the brain rewires itself over the course of our lives. It’s called plasticity: the capacity of the brain to create new connections between brain cells, strengthen others and discard unused connections. Plasticity underpins the way we think, the way we learn, the way we remember, and the way we recover from injury.

The spread of mobile technology is staggering. There are seven billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide. Mobile technology is spreading fast in the developing world: mobile penetration in developing countries is around 90%. Alongside increasing adoption of mobile technology, use of the internet is growing in the developing world. Nearly two thirds of the world’s three billion internet users are in the developing world—a number that has doubled from 974 million in 2009.

RE-WIRING CHRONIC PAIN

Dr Siobhan Schabrun is leading the plasticity revolution in the understanding and treatment of chronic pain. Chronic back pain affects the lives of many in the developed world. In Australia nearly 80% of the population experience lower back pain during their life. Over 10% of the population will suffer a significant disability—resulting in an incapacity to work, exercise, or otherwise enjoy life—as a result of lower back pain. Chronic pain, Siobhan thinks, could be caused by faulty wiring. The theory is that the motor and sensory regions of the brain rewire after an injury, but in some people the brain rewires abnormally: the brains of people with persistent back pain look quite different from those who recover. For some, there appear to be changes in the motor area of the brain, and this could cause changes in the way people move their muscles. Others appear to have changes in the sensory region of the brain, and this could make them highly sensitive to even mild pain. Siobhan is tracking 264 people from the time they injure themselves for a period of twelve months to see who recovers, who doesn’t, and why. ‘There are lots of studies that examine people with persistent back pain at a specific point in time,’ Siobhan says. ‘But there has been no investigation of brain changes in the transition from acute to persistent low back pain—which is precisely when some people are getting better while others are not.’ Using techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation to test the responsiveness of brain and muscle connections and electroencephalography—like an ECG for the brain—Siobhan is trying to find a reliable why to predict the development of chronic pain. ‘Our findings have numerous potential implications for clinical practice,’ Siobhan says. ‘They will give us the ability to know when someone comes through the door how likely they are to develop persistent pain, to know what to target—whether it’s the brain, movement, spinal cord or stress— and hopefully stop the patient developing persistent pain.’

THE DIGITAL FARM

But the spread of mobile connectivity doesn’t guarantee that those in developing countries will receive its benefits. Mobile technologies need to be re-shaped for developing world economies. Many in the developing world rely on education, healthcare, fisheries and agriculture for their livelihoods, yet there are few digital tools targeted to help these communities improve their economies. Professor Athula Ginige is filling that gap. With an international team, Athula has pioneered the use of mobile phone apps to increase efficiency and profit for industries key to developing world economies. Athula’s most recent work is with Sri Lankan farmers. Athula and his team identified oversupply in vegetable crops as a major issue facing Sri Lankan agriculture. The basic problem was a lack of knowledge sharing at the right time in the cropping cycle. Farmers relied on last year’s prices to guide crop selection without any knowledge of what other farmers were planting. This led to oversupply and reduced prices. Reduced prices for agricultural goods matters: 70% of Sri Lankans rely on agriculture for their livelihood. Athula and his team created a mobile phone app to solve the problem— but it wasn’t as simple as just writing the code. Athula constantly consulted with Sri Lankan farmers, finding out what information was most relevant to them, how they currently sought out knowledge, and which interface they found most usable. He went through several prototypes of the app to find the version that best addressed the needs and abilities of the farmers that would use it. Now, Sri Lankan farmers can share knowledge about crop planning, prices, climate and pest control. Athula’s app empowers farmers with local knowledge they can apply on the ground to increase efficiency and profit.

Photo: Siobhan Schabrun

westernsydney.edu.au

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RESEARCHER PROFILE

JANE USSHER SEX AFTER CANCER

Sometimes research uncovers things we don’t normally talk about. For Professor Jane Ussher, exploring these unspoken things has been a pathway to new insights and better practices for those who are marginalised on the basis of their sexuality, gender or ethnic background.

Jane, together with her colleague Professor Janette Perz, is conducting ground breaking research into the sexual health of those who have suffered from cancer. For the first time, they have examined the post-cancer sexual health of a diverse group of cancer survivors: men and women; those who have suffered from reproductive and non-reproductive cancer types; and those from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and heterosexual communities. The results of Jane and Janette’s research are compelling. They interviewed 657 cancer survivors and 148 partners of cancer survivors. Across all cancer types they found that sexual frequency declined post-illness. Over half the women surveyed and just over 40% of the men reported that they never or rarely had sex after cancer. Nearly half of the cancer survivors rated their sexual relationship as unsatisfying. But the numbers don’t capture the experiences of those cancer survivors. While quantitative research can provide information about the nature of the changes to sexual health among this group, Jane says it doesn’t ‘enable analysis of the subjective experience and meaning of such changes for people with cancer.’ Giving a voice to those survivors by combining the numbers with research into survivors’ qualitative experiences is an important difference between Jane and Janette’s research and previous research into cancer survivors’ sexual health.

A 51 year old heterosexual woman, a survivor of breast cancer, described her loss of intimacy with her partner: ‘I feel very sad, I miss the intimacy and closeness we use to have 12 years ago. My cancer 4 years ago has made the situation more difficult—my partner now sleeps in another bed and bedroom. I am heartbroken.’ A 53 year old gay man, a survivor of prostate cancer, described his experience this way: ‘I feel inadequate—unable to express myself and a whole heap of stuff that I am dealing with.’ But not all of the cancer survivors interviewed experienced their changed sexual practice as loss or inadequacy. Some were able to renegotiate the terms of their sexual relationship with their partners in ways that maintained intimacy, connection and enjoyment. A 59 year old woman, a survivor of lymphoma, described her post-cancer sex as ‘like, oh, two puppies playing together.’ Jane and Janette’s work has resulted in changes to the awareness of sex across all cancer types and sexualities. A suite of cancer materials is being produced for LBGT patients and their carers; there are now resources educating cancer survivors on the sexual changes they may experience; and Cancer Australia has produced professional guidelines promoting the discussion of sexuality by health professionals.

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT JANE’S WORK? Read Jane’s articles on The Conversation: Search for ‘Jane Ussher The Conversation’

Photo: Jane Ussher

Western Sydney University

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THE CENTRE FOR WESTERN SYDNEY

WESTERN SYDNEY’S OPEN ARMS The Australian government, in response to the refugee crisis caused by the war in Syria, announced in September that Australia would accept an additional 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq. The Centre for Western Sydney took a look at the data on Western Sydney’s contribution to humanitarian migration. Our data partner id.com has released two data blogs addressing refugee arrival into Australia in recent years. One assesses the nature and size of refugee settlement. The other takes a close look at the Syrian community in Australia. The first of these blogs notes that Australia accepted 11,970 humanitarian arrivals in 2014. Typically humanitarian migration has been around 8-10% of total permanent migration to Australia in recent years. The three main sources of humanitarian arrivals last year were, in order, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Australia benefits from this flow of migration. Migration (in all categories) adds to the youthfulness of the Australian population, with all the economic and social benefits that flow as a consequence.

THE SIGNIFICANT ROLES OF FAIRFIELD AND LIVERPOOL As has been the case throughout Australian history, Western Sydney is playing a major role in the settlement of the current flow of humanitarian arrivals. The id.com blog shows that Western Sydney’s Fairfield local government area is currently far and away the major destination for refugees in 2014, hosting 4873 arrivals. The next most significant LGA host for all Australia was Hume in northwestern Melbourne, with 2754 arrivals, followed by Western Sydney’s Liverpool with 2186 arrivals. WESTERN SYDNEY’S HEAVY LIFTING COMPARED TO OTHER PARTS OF SYDNEY The id.com data can be read in conjunction with analysis by the Centre for Western Sydney of data released to the Australian Parliament. For the period 1 January 2009 to 4 May 2014, the federal parliament data counts the number of family and humanitarian migrants who came from poorer non-English speaking nations, the government’s English Proficiency groups 3 and 4. Remarkably, Fairfield LGA received 10,434 humanitarian and family reunion migrants in this five year period, equal to 5.3% of the LGA’s total population. Auburn LGA settled 5,092 persons in these two categories, equal to 6% of its population. Then Bankstown settled 3,919; Liverpool 4,913; and Parramatta 4,534. Clearly, agencies in these LGAs, including in education and health services, are being called on to provide resources at a level far beyond what other parts of Sydney are asked to give. Specifically, the Humanitarian migration category refers to those people found to be refugees according to the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Considering this category alone, we have processed the Hansard figures to reveal the major role played by Western Sydney communities in refugee re-settlement.

For the 2009 to 2014 period, refugees were taken in by Western Sydney LGAs in the following numbers: Auburn 1669, Blacktown 1365, Fairfield 5130, Holroyd 745, Liverpool 2720 and Parramatta 1243. In contrast, better-off parts of Sydney played a much less significant role in refugee resettlement. Warringah LGA, for instance, in this five year period settled just 83 humanitarian migrants from language groups 3 and 4, with Manly receiving 12, North Sydney 32, and the Sutherland Shire just 14. Surprisingly, Sydney’s inner city, once a prime destination for poor migrants and refugees in the post-war years, now receives very few in the humanitarian category for these two language groups, with Leichardt settling just 25 for this period, Marrickville 41 and the Sydney LGA 147. THE SYRIANS IN WESTERN SYDNEY What then of the Syrian community? id.com notes that ‘The 2011 Census showed 8,713 people born in Syria living in Australia. This is quite a small community compared to some of the larger groups, for instance we have over 76,000 from neighbouring Lebanon and 33,000 from neighbouring Turkey. And compared to Greece (100,000), Italy (185,000) and China (319,000) it is very small.’ The blog notes also that the geographic distribution of Syrians in Australia is similar to that of Lebanese, with NSW alone having 61% of the total, and nearly 90% being in NSW and Victoria combined. As with other recent migrant destinations to Australia, Western Sydney is a primary destination, again alongside Hume in northwestern Melbourne. The largest Syrian communities at the local government level are currently in Bankstown, NSW (944) and Fairfield, NSW (899), and Hume, Vic (598). These areas also have large Lebanese and Turkish communities.

Western Sydney University

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8-10%

8-10% of Australia’s permanent migration is from humanitarian migration 4873

THE CENTRE FOR WESTERN SYDNEY The Centre for Western Sydney focuses Western’s research on high-impact, policy relevant outcomes for Western Sydney. The Centre generates rigorous research on issues that will change the future of Western Sydney. We make our work open for all, and we create that work with teams from industry, academia and the public sector.

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Two of Australia’s top three local governments for refugee resettlement are in Western Sydney

Fairfield alone accepted migrants equaling 5% of its total population between 2009 and 2014 westernsydney.edu.au

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