The final event for the year long celebration of the 175th Anniversary of the Society took place on Monday 14th October 2019 at the Water Door, the Davey Street entrance of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.  

A commemorative plaque was commissioned and installed. It was unveiled on Monday by Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Kate Warner AC, Governor of Tasmania. Also conducting the ceremony were the President of the Royal Society of Tasmania, Professor Ross Large AO and Director of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Janet Carding.

Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Kate Warner AC, Governor of Tasmania (right), with Janet Carding (Director of TMAG) and Prof Ross Large AO (President of the Royal Society of Tasmania

Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Kate Warner AC, Governor of Tasmania (right) with Janet Carding, Director of TMAG

Dr Anita Hansen, Chair of the 175 Anniversary committee, and Prof Ross Large AO, RST President

Chel Bardell, RST Northern Council Member, and Prof Ross Large AO, RST President

Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Kate Warner AC, Governor of Tasmania (right) with RST Council member, Greg Lehman

(Left to right) Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens Director Gary Davies, Major Malcom McDowell and Stephenie Cahalan, Manager Development Philanthropy, TMAG

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The 2019 Peter Smith medal lecture was delivered by

Dr. Lucia McCallum

on Tuesday, 1 October 2019

at the Royal Society of Tasmania lecture room, Dunn Place, Hobart.

The Dish redux – from the Apollo Mission to Earth surveying.

Dr Lucia McCallum is the inaugural recipient of the Peter Smith Medal.

Established in 2017, this medal is awarded biennially by The Royal Society of Tasmania to an outstanding early career researcher in any field.

Dr McCallum is a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the UTAS School of Maths & Physics, radio astronomy group. She is a geodesist – or Earth surveyor.  Her field of research is the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) technique, using signals from far distant radio galaxies to measure the Earth. 

Mt Pleasant Radio Telescope, JJ Harrison

Lucia is involved with the AuScope VLBI project, which utilises the UTAS Mt Pleasant radio telescope (which can be seen to best advantage from a table at Frogmore Creek Winery, Cambridge) as well as two other UTAS operated radio telescopes in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. This facility array ties in Australian geodesy with the International Geospatial Reference Frame and is coordinated within the International VLBI Service and the Asian Oceania VLBI Group.

VLBI measurements provide imperative scientific information on the rotation of the Earth, the movement of continental plates and the effects of earthquakes. VLBI also provides the reference frame for all other types of geographic positioning technologies such as GPS, which we have come to rely on in our smartphones and which is allowing the development and operation of autonomous vehicles.

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Lucia received her Diplom-Ingenieur  from the University of Technology of Vienna, Austria, with a thesis entitled “Calculation of the Earth Rotation Vector with VLBI and Ringlaser measurements”. She continued to pursue her research in VLBI satellite tracking, and was awarded her PhD in Vienna in 2013.

Her first post-doctoral appointment led her to Hobart in 2014. In 2015, she was awarded the Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship by the Austrian Science Fund – ‘Sibling Radio Telescopes for Geodesy – Optimising the use of co-located VLBI telescopes in the southern hemisphere’.

In 2017 she received a Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) from the Australian Research Council, with the project ‘Achieving millimetre geodesy with space tie satellites’. Her research interests include global reference frames, earth rotation, and the emerging field of space ties.

The Society congratulates Dr McCallum on her  achievements.

More about the Peter Smith Medal

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 – click here to go to our Award & Medal guidelines

The Royal Society of Tasmania congratulates member and RST medallist Prof. Trevor McDougall AC, who has been elected President of the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO).

  Prof. McDougall is a leading figure internationally in the thermodynamics of seawater, the movement of energy through the oceans. His research has provided insight into how seawater mixes under different conditions, which is crucial for the understanding of climate change.

Trevor is one of Australia’s most decorated scientists. His awards include the Royal Society of Tasmania Medal, the Prince Albert I Medal of the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans, and Companion of the Order of Australia for eminent service to science, and to education, particularly in the area of ocean thermodynamics, as an academic, and researcher, to furthering the understanding of climate science, and as a mentor of young scientists. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of New South Wales, the Royal Society (London). He is the Scientia Professor of Ocean Physics at the University of New South Wales.

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IAPSO has the prime goal of “promoting the study of scientific problems relating to the oceans and the interactions taking place at the sea floor, coastal, and atmospheric boundaries insofar as such research is conducted by the use of mathematics, physics, and chemistry.”

Call for nominations for the

M. R. BANKS Medal 2019

Closing date is Thursday 12 September, 2019

In 1997, the Royal Society of Tasmania instituted the M.R. Banks Medal to be awarded biennially to a scholar of distinction in mid-career, in any field within the Society’s purview, with an age limit of 45 years. The Medal is to honour Dr M.R. Banks’ contribution to science and to the Royal Society of Tasmania.

The conditions of the Award are:

1. The scholar, to be recognised, must be no more than 45 years of age at the date of the Award and should have achieved a PhD or appropriate higher qualification.

2. The recipient shall be in mid-career, rapidly developing a standing in his/her field and be winning international recognition from peers.

3. The Award may be made in any field within the purview of the Society.

4. The work is to have been largely carried out in Tasmania or under the aegis of a Tasmanian-based organisation.

5. The Award is to be made every two years, alternating with, and not in the same year as, the Peter Smith Medal.

6. After the conferring of the Award, the recipient may be invited to address the Society by delivering the ‘M. R. Banks Lecture’ to the members.

Nomination Process:-

Nominations will only be received in digital form.

The first page of the nomination should list:

• The name of the medal.

• The name of the candidate and contact address.

• The name of the proposer and contact address.

This should be followed by a description of the candidate’s achievements relevant to the M R Banks Medal. It should be no longer than one page and should be written concisely and in language that is widely understood outside the candidate’s field of research. The candidate’s contributions to science, history or other field of learning, industry or society should be clearly stated.

A full curriculum vitae should be provided in confidence. It should include the candidate’s date of birth, the date of receipt of degrees, and a full list of significant published works. Where the candidate’s standing relies on co-authored papers, the candidate’s role in those significant papers should be indicated.

The Honours Committee of the Royal Society of Tasmania has limited ability to seek additional information and therefore depends on the nomination papers to provide a full and fair account of the candidate’s suitability, taking into account the criteria of the particular medal.

Applications should be emailed to the:

royal.society@tmag.tas.gov.au

Attention: The Honorary Secretary

Nominations must be received no later than Thursday 12 September, 2019 at 5 pm.

GPO BOX 1166 HOBART, TASMANIA 7001. (03) 6165 7014 royal.society@tmag.tas.gov.au

Nominations are open for the

CLIVE LORD MEMORIAL MEDAL 2019

(Science)

Closing date is Thursday, 12 September 2019.

Established in 1930 this Medal is awarded to a scholar distinguished for research in Tasmanian science or Tasmanian history. Competition for the award alternates between the disciplines of science and history. The 2019 Medal will be awarded in the discipline of science.