War is deeply woven into human history. Organised society and conflict appear to have marched side by side, each affecting the other. Wars have changed societies in many ways but changes in society have also affected the nature of war. We remember war, rightly, for its destructive impact but it has also led to advances in science, to improvements in the position of previously marginalized groups such as women, or to greater equality. This lecture will examine some of the paradoxes of war drawing on examples from history. Since it is a century since the end of the Great War particular attention will be paid to its causes and consequences.

Professor Margaret MacMillan is a Canadian historian at the University of Toronto and professor of International History at Oxford University, as well as a leading expert on history and international relations.

Professor MacMillan was educated at the University of Toronto and Oxford University. Her doctoral dissertation was on the social and political perspectives of the British in India. She is former provost of Trinity College at the University of Toronto and was a member of the History Department of Ryerson University in Toronto for 25 years. She is the recipient of numerous literary awards for her book Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference on 1919 and its Attempt to End War.  

MacMillan’s research has focused on the British Empire in the later 19^thand early 20^thcenturies and on international relations in the 20^thcentury. She has served on the board of the Canadian Institute for International Affairs, the Atlantic Council of Canada, the Ontario Heritage Foundation, and the Churchill Society for the advancement of Parliamentary Democracy (Canada). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and a Senior Fellow of Massey College, University of Toronto.  She is a Companion of the Order of Canada and a Companion of Honour (Commonwealth Realms).

Professor MacMillan’s publications include: Women of the Raj:The Mothers, Wives, and Daughters of the British Empire in India; The Uses and Abuses of History(based on the 2008 Joanne Goodman lecture series); The War that ended Peace: how Europe abandoned Peace for the First Word War; and History’s People: Personalities and the Past (based on the 2015 Massey Lectures).

Professor MacMillan recently delivered the 2018 Reith lectures series, originally broadcast on BBC Radio4 and now being broadcast on ABC Radio National “Big Ideas” program. You can listen to podcasts of the series here:

1.  War and Humanity

2.  Making Sense of the Warrior

3.  Civilians and War

Presented in partnership with the High Commission of Canada, the University of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

All are welcome, free lecture.
In the past decade the field of astronomy has been building towards a revolution in the way we measure distances and other fundamental physical properties of the stars in our home galaxy, the Milky Way.  The rapid increase in detector sensitivity and computing power in the 21st century has enabled both ground-based and space-based astronomy missions to survey enormous areas of the sky with unprecedented precision in the astrophysical parameters.
Andrew will discuss some of the most significant recent developments to come out of this “big data” revolution, which range from improved knowledge of the frequency and masses of planets around nearby stars, the distribution of luminous and dark matter in the Milky Way, and the forensics of working out how the galaxy itself was assembled by infalling matter over billions of years.
Dr Andrew Cole is Associate Professor in Physics and Astronomy and the Director of the Greenhill Observatory, the home of UTAS optical astronomy research infrastructure.  Dr Cole studies the processes and effects that govern the evolution of matter in the Universe from the Big Bang to the present day.  Essentially, how things came to be from the beginning of time as we know it.  Along with many who came before him and undoubtedly many to follow, he is driven by an innate curiosity, stubbornness and a sense of adventure.  Dr Cole uses the UTAS 1.3-metre Harlingten telescope to search for exoplanets around stars in the direction towards the centre of the Milky Way by analysis of gravitational microlensing light curves.

Dr Klocker will talk about the 2016, 2017, and 2018 caving and cave diving expeditions he led to Sistema Huautla, one of the world’s deepest cave systems located in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.  The goal of the expeditions is to connect Sistema Huautla with its outlet in the remote Santo Domingo Canyon about 10 kilometers from its entrance.  The successful connection of Sistema Huautla with its outlet would result in the world’s deepest and most spectacular cave traverse.
Dr Klocker will focus in particular on the March 2018 expedition which promises to be one of the most ambitious and challenging cave diving projects ever attempted as the divers attempt to surpass the previous limit of exploration, some five kilometers underground, reached in 1984 when logistical challenges halted progress.
Dr Klocker, originally from Austria, completed a diploma in marine environmental science in Germany, and moved to Hobart to work as honorary research fellow at the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC.  He undertook a PhD as part of the UTAS-CSIRO joint PhD program in Quantitative Marine Science, followed by a postdoctoral position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he worked on ocean turbulence in the Southern Ocean.  He returned to Australia as a Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate System Science and the Australian National University.  Dr Klocker was then awarded an ARC DECRA Fellowship at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies continuing his specialist work on ocean turbulence.
Dr Klocker got hooked by caving in 2008 while doing his PhD, and soon after combined his caving and diving addiction to become a cave diver in 2011.  In Australia his main focus has been on cave exploration in the Junee-Florentine in Tasmania, an area known for Australia’s deepest cave systems, remote sumps and huge exploration potential.  In the last couple years he also turned his attention towards major cave systems in Mexico, in particular Sistema Huautla, where he enjoys the challenge of combining deep ‘dry’ caving and challenging cave diving in one of the world’s most amazing cave systems.

The development of smart phones and smart watches and our always-connected lifestyle has meant that we are able to obtain information about a myriad of things in an instant of a second.  You can find out where the closest restaurant is, get directions from your current location, and even an estimation of the calorific value of the food by taking a photo.  But it can’t tell you whether the fish on your plate is safe to eat, nor whether the water is safe to drink.  To do this, we need an entirely new generation of sensors, that requires transferring the measurement from the lab out into our life.  Over the past 20 years, Professor Breadmore has focused on simplifying the chemical processes involved in such measurements for therapeutics, pollutants and explosives, and the ways in which this type of technology can be made to increase the likelihood of commercial uptake and the development of products.  It is a long path, with many remaining challenges and problems to solve, but sometime in our lifetimes, there will be something to measure what you want to know right now.
Professor Michael Breadmore was born and educated in Tasmania, graduating from the University of Tasmania with a PhD in analytical chemistry in 2001 before spending 3 years undertaking postdoctoral research in the US (University of Virginia), Switzerland (University of Bern) and the United Kingdom (deltaDOT).  He returned to Australia and Tasmania as an ARC Postdoctoral fellow (2004-2008) which led to an ARC QEII Fellowship (2009-2013) and an ARC Fellowship (2014-2017), all within the Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science (ACROSS).  He has made significant contributions to the field of analytical chemistry over the past 20 years to simplify the design and fabrication of portable analytical technology and applying these to challenging current and emerging analytical problems facing society.

Lecture at 8 pm Royal Society Room, TMAG Customs House building. Enter through Dunn Place car park and look for the RST banners at the entrance.

University of Tasmania, Menzies Institute for Medical Research.
Deputy Director Menzies Institute for Medical Research
Associate Professor Tracey Dickson
16/05/2016
picture – Peter Mathew

There are no treatments or cures for Motor Neuron Disease, and most people with the illness die three to five years after diagnosis. For the past 10 years Associate Professor Dickson’s group at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research has been investigating the fundamental mechanisms of this devastating disease, trying to unravel the causes and determine where it begins. In the next three years they will be using this knowledge to perform critical research to determine whether they can repurpose an existing drug for the treatment of MND. This work takes them one more step along the translation pipeline from the bench to the bedside – in this case from the laboratory to the clinic. A/Prof Dickson’s presentation will reflect on her research journey, the unexpected findings, the challenges and the rewards.

Associate Professor Dickson (BSc, PhD) is a neuroscientist with a national and international reputation in determining the pathological basis underlying Motor Neuron Disease, Parkinson’s disease and the neuronal response to trauma. She is the Deputy Director and Associate Director for Research at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research and Leader of the Neurodegenerative disease and Trauma Theme. She leads an ambitious and productive research team at Menzies consisting of three post-docs, six PhD students, one research assistant and one honours student. Associate Professor Dickson was previously an National Health and Medical Research Council Career Development Fellow (2008-2012), and Early Career Postdoctoral Fellow (2001-2004), where she spent two years at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. A/Prof Dickson’s work has resulted in 70 original research papers and she has secured competitive funding for her research of over $7.5 million. A/Prof Dickson has an excellent record in supervising RHD students, with 13 PhD completions.

http://www.utas.edu.au/profiles/staff/menzies/tracey-dickson

The Royal Society of Tasmania has a long history of supporting the advancement of knowledge within Tasmania.  Yet, the deep dark shadow of the Royal Society’s behaviour towards Tasmanian Aborigines remains largely undisturbed, tarnishing this history and forestalling the possibility of a contemporary relationship with Tasmanian Aboriginal people. This presentation details the Royal Society’s role in the post-mortem desecration of William Lanne and trucanini, and subsequent exploitation of their remains, from an historical and from an Aboriginal perspective. The purpose is to stimulate a discussion on how this history can be acknowledged as a prerequisite to a process of reconciliation between the Society and Tasmanian Aboriginal people and communities.

Maggie Walter (PhD) is member of the Briggs/Johnson Tasmanian Aboriginal family, descended from the pairrebenne people of North Eastern Tasmania. She is also Professor of Sociology and Pro Vice-Chancellor of Aboriginal Research and Leadership at the University of Tasmania, Australia. Maggie’s scholarship centres on the social and cultural positioning of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and she has published extensively in the field of race relations, inequality and research methods/methodologies. Recent books include: Indigenous Children Growing Up Strong: A longitudinal study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families (2017) (Edited with K.L. Martin and G. Bodkin-Andrews, Palgrave McMillan) Indigenous statistics: a quantitative methodology (with C. Andersen, Left Coast Press 2013) and Social Research Methods (ed) 3rd Edition (Oxford University Press 2013).