The Royal Society of Tasmania

The advancement of knowledge

ABN 65 889 598 100

2019 Peter Smith medal – Dr Lucia McCallum at TMAG

The Royal Society of Tasmania

presents

the Innaugral Peter Smith medal lecture by

Dr. Lucia McCallum

on Tuesday, 1 October 2019

at the Royal Society of Tasmania lecture room,

Customs House, Dunn Place, Hobart

The Dish redux – from the Apollo Mission to Earth surveying

 

Whether we are talking about climate change, sea level rise or the exploration of natural resources, “Earth measurement” and “precise positioning” have long found their way into our daily vocabulary. Fundamental to all those applications is an accurate, stable, and accessible coordinate system. Today’s best coordinate reference is generated from a multitude of modern Earth surveying techniques, one of them making use of black holes as the most stable pillars of the Universe.

The Hobart radio telescope, once designed as part of the Apollo Missions, nowadays plays a crucial role to measure our dynamic Earth. This is a diverse task of managing old and new technology, establishing truly global collaboration, and performing innovative research delivering encouraging results.

 

 

Dr Lucia McCallum is a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Physics Department of the University of Tasmania. She is a geodesist – or Earth surveyor – with a proven record in the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) technique. Her main research interests are global reference frames, Earth rotation, and the emerging field of space ties.

Following a surveying degree, she performed her doctoral studies in Geodesy at TU Wien, Austria. Her first post-doc appointment led her to Hobart in 2014, where she now has settled with her young family. In 2015, she was awarded the Erwin-Schrödinger Fellowship by the Austrian Science Fund, and in 2017 she received a Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) from the Australian Research Council. She is now the winner of the inaugural  Peter Smith Medal.

 

 

 

ψ The Peter Smith Medal was established in 2017 and is awarded biennially to an outstanding early career researcher in any field. The winner receives a medal and delivers “The Peter Smith Lecture” to the Society. To be eligible for nomination, the research and/or works must be largely carried out in Tasmania or under the aegis of a Tasmanian-based organisation and within the Society’s purview. The Award is not restricted to Australian nationals. The medal will be open for nominations again in 2020.

September at TMAG – Dr Anita Hansen

The Royal Society of Tasmania

presents

Dr. Anita Hansen

 

Creating History: how does a settler society create its own independent history and identity?

 

Tuesday, 3 September 2019

8.00pm in the Royal Society Rooms,

Customs House Building, Dunn Place, Hobart

Ω

 

This is a companion to last month’s lecture by Marley Large, Snapshots of 175 Years of The Royal Society of Tasmania’s Minutes which looked at The Royal Society of Tasmanian’s history through its Minute Books.

The Royal Society of Tasmania developed the government gardens into a true botanical gardens and created a museum that was to become the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, as well as starting a wonderfully eclectic library: WHY?

This 175th anniversary of The Royal Society of Tasmania is a time to look, not only at the physical and scientific achievements of the Society, also at the cultural and historical legacy of the Society to Tasmania and Tasmanians as we moved from an English penal colony to the vibrant cultural centre that is Tasmania today.

 

 

Born in Denmark, Dr Anita Hansen moved to Australia with her family as a child. Her artist mother was fascinated by the exotic plants and animals of their new home and taught Anita to draw them. Anita has worked as an artist all her life – in Tasmania, interstate and overseas. She holds a doctorate from the University of Tasmania (Nineteenth century natural history art and belonging in Tasmania), a Master of Fine Arts (Orchid Illustrations of William Archer 1847–1874), a Graduate Diploma in Plant and Wildlife Illustration (University of Newcastle) and a Bachelor of Fine Art degree (University of Tasmania). Anita received a Fellowship with the Cultural Studies Department at the University of Toronto.

Anita co-edited The Royal Society of Tasmania’s books The Library at the End of the World: Natural Science and Its Illustrators and Poles Apart: Fascination, Fame and Folly, also writing about the artists whose illustrations were featured in the books. She has published a number of journal articles. Anita has curated a number of exhibitions in Tasmania and interstate, recently curating exhibitions for The Royal Society of Tasmania’s 175th anniversary (Louisa Anne Meredith: a remarkable woman, Poles Apart: Fascination, Fame and Folly) and was on the Steering Committee for the DINOSAUR rEVOLUTION exhibition, as co-ordinator of The Royal Society of Tasmania’s 175 anniversary committee.

Science Week – Dr Barbara Holland @ Beaker St

Friday 16 August – Main Stage Seating open from 8:25pm

Dr Barbara Holland and Meow-Ludo Meow Meow
With MC Mark Horstman

 

In TMAG’s Central Gallery

 

Presented by The Royal Society of Tasmania

 

 

 

Dr Barbara Holland, UTAS – 8:45pm

Why be Happy When You Can be NORMAL?

 

What is normal anyway? Any good statistician will be able to tell you the answer. Normal is a distribution. The normal distribution holds a famous spot in statistics due to the Central Limit Theorem which, in layman’s terms, explains why bell-shaped curves are so ubiquitous in describing a wide range of phenomena. Back in the good old days of the 19th Century, the normal distribution went by the name “Law of the Frequency of Error.” Indeed, one of the things the normal distribution should be able to explain is the behaviour of polls and how accurate their predictions should be. In this talk, Barbara will discuss what our faithful friend the normal distribution can tell us about why polls should work and try to give some insight into why they failed so spectacularly at the last election!

 

About the Speaker:
Dr Barbara Holland is an Associate Professor in the discipline of Mathematics within the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Tasmania. She works within the Theoretical Phylogenetics research group and lectures in Statistics. Since beginning her PhD she has enjoyed the challenge of working with biologists in trying to translate the problems they face into the language of mathematics.

Click on the Beaker Street link here for more information and booking details

National Science Week – Beaker Street (Hobart)

Friday 16 August & Saturday 17 August
6:00pm – Midnight.

Hobart Town Hall and TMAG.

The Australian Academy of Science is a proud partner of BeakerStreet@TMAG.

 

You are invited to join the Academy for four fascinating talks at Hobart Town Hall, featuring Academy Fellows, Professor Martina Stenzel, Dr Steve Rintoul, Professor Jenny Graves, Professor Mike Archer and Robyn Williams. Following each talk, all guests are invited (and musically escorted!) across the road to Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery for more science, including talks, workshops, art, music, food, bars and more. Tickets to each talk are sold separately. Check www.beakerstreet.com.au for details and tickets.

 

Friday 16 August 

5.30pm: Professor Martina Stenzel – The chemistry of life

6.30pm: Dr Steve Rintoul in conversation with Professor Robyn Williams – Ice, wind and waves: In search of climate clues in the Southern Ocean

7.30pm: Professor Jenny Graves in conversation with Professor Robyn Williams – The future of men?

8.30pm: Professor Mike Archer – Bringing back the dead: why extinction should not have to be forever.

 

About Beaker St:

During National Science Week in Hobart, BeakerStreet@TMAG is a pop-up science bar, a parlour of curiosities, an inn for inquiring minds. Come along to quench your thirst…for knowledge. You will encounter live music, zoological oddities, photographic inspiration, amiable wandering scientists, seriously good food and drink, and such a bounty of distractions that you may forget to go home. Entry at TMAG is free, but tickets must be purchased for some events.

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Friday 16 August & Saturday 17 August
6:00pm – Midnight
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

August at TMAG – Marley Large

The Royal Society of Tasmania

Presents

Marley Large

Snapshots of 175 Years of The Royal Society of Tasmania’s Minutes

A Public Lecture  – 6  August 2019

8.00pm in the Royal Society Room,
Customs House Building, TMAG, entrance from Dunn Place. 

 

 

Over the last year, Marley has researched several topics in the Royal Society of Tasmania’s archives. Along the way, she discovered various unexpected and often exciting twists and turns and went down many irrelevant but highly enjoyable rabbit holes. The result is a wealth of information, sometimes scientific and sometimes quirky, about individuals, developmental events, social issues, infrastructure and innovation that made a significant difference in Tasmania.

 

 

 

 

 

Science Week – Breaking New Ground (Launceston)

 

The Royal Society of Tasmania

INVITES YOU TO

Breaking New Ground

PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS BY

University of Tasmania PhD Candidates

 

 

.

This a FREE event, presented as part of NATIONAL SCIENCE WEEK

Venue: Auditorium, QVMAG at Inveresk

Time: 1.30 pm Sunday 11 August 2019

 

 

 

Microbiome: The new clinical frontier

Ravichandra Vemuri’s project is a collaboration between the UTAS, CSIRO (Brisbane),and UAS labs (a USA probiotic company) With ageing, the gut microbiota develops significant imbalances affecting host metabolism and overall health.Dietary supplementation with probiotics could beneficially change gut microbiota and metabolism. Ravi’s project is primarily focused on investigating the influence of probiotics on gut microbiota and metabolic profiles in ageing mice, and potential implications in humans.

 

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The Socio-Ecology of Wildlife Conservation on Private Land

Matt Taylor is researching the socio-ecology of wildlife conservation on private land. He has Interviewed landholders to capture their views about wildlife management, and organised 160 of them into using wildlife cameras and other technologies to collect information. His research aims to empower communities to become involved in scientific enquiry about matters relevant to the management of wildlife on their own land. Matt’s study is a partnership between UTAS and the Tasmanian Land Conservancy, where he works as an ecologist.

 

Changes in the surface waters of the Southeast Pacific and beyond

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Rachael Sanders is a PhD student at the British Antarctic Survey and University of Southampton, UK, which has funded a three-month internship at UTAS. Her research focuses on how the surface of the Southern Ocean is changing due to changes in the amount of sea ice and the strength of the winds around Antarctica.

 

 

 

Living long or living well: dilemmas older people face when considering dialysis

Rajesh Raj is a full-time nephrologist at Launceston General Hospital. He is studying the factors which affect the outcome of dialysis for older patients with kidney failure, as not enough is known about the impact of dialysis on quality of life. His research aims to identify information clinicians can use to help the elderly choose treatment options or to improve outcome after they have started therapy.

 

 

 

Generously supported by

 

 

July at QVMAG – Prof Hallegraeff

2019 Launceston Lecture Series

 

The Royal Society of Tasmania 

 

INVITES YOU TO

 

Harmful Algal Blooms in the Australian Region

 

A PUBLIC LECTURE BY

 

Professor Gustaaf Hallegraeff

 

Venue: Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk, Launceston
Time: 1.30 pm Sunday, 28 July 2019
Admission is free for members of the Royal Society of Tasmania*
$6 for general admission, and
$4 for students, QVMAG Friends, and members of Launceston Historical Society.

(*membership forms available at the door)

 

 

 

While microalgal blooms are natural phenomena, since the 1980s their impacts on public health, tourism and fisheries have increased in frequency, intensity and geographic distribution. Environmental agencies and aquaculture are increasingly forced to invest in improved technologies for monitoring for an increasing number of harmful algal species in water, and increasing complexity of algal toxins in seafood. Climate change is calling for increased vigilance in seafood safety.

 

Gustaaf Hallegraeff is a Professor at the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania. He has worked on a wide range of Harmful Algal Bloom issues including shellfish toxins, climate change, ship’s ballast water and fish-killing algae. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences and Engineering, winner of the 2004 Eureka Prize for Environmental Research, and 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Society for the Study of Harmful Algae.

 

 

 

 

Generously supported by 

Joint meeting with Geological Society at QVMAG

2019 Launceston Lecture Series

 

The Royal Society of Tasmania

  and

The Geological Society of Australia

 

INVITE YOU TO A JOINT MEETING AND PUBLIC LECTURE BY

 

Dr Claire Kain

Hazards of Flooding and Flood Modelling for Northern Tasmania

 

Venue: Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk, Launceston
Time: 1.30 pm Sunday, 14 July 2019
Admission is free for members of the Royal Society of Tasmania and Geological Society of Australia
$6 for general admission, and
$4 for students, QVMAG Friends, and members of Launceston Historical Society.

 

 

The storm events of 2011 and 2016 led to severe flooding and sediment movement across northern Tasmania. During both events, the Westmorland Stream alluvial system at Caveside (near Mole Creek) was affected by debris flows and flash flooding, which threatened nearby residents and farming operations. A multidisciplinary study was undertaken to understand the hydrogeomorphic functioning of this system. The findings of this study have wider implications for the estimation of debris flow and flood hazard in Tasmania and elsewhere.

 

.Dr Kain is employed as a Natural Hazards Geologist at Mineral Resources Tasmania, working on understanding the risk and effects of hazards such as landslides, floods, debris flows and tsunamis in Tasmania. Originally from New Zealand, she has worked in the natural hazards field since 2008. After finishing her PhD at the University of New South Wales she moved to Tasmania three years ago.

 

 

 

Generously supported by