New Honorary Editor and Council Member

April 8, 2019

The Royal Society of Tasmania is pleased to welcome Dr John Volkman as the new Honorary Editor to the Society. He will take over from Dr Margaret Davies OAM who undertook the role for the past sixteen years.

Dr Volkman has a long history of scientific research carried out in Tasmania and internationally. He is currently Co-Editor in Chief of the international journal Organic Geochemistry. John is a former Chief Research Scientist and Program Leader of the multidisciplinary Marine Biogeochemistry program at CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere in Hobart. He continues at CSIRO as an Honorary Fellow. Previously, he was Chair of the Tasmania Science and Technology industry Council and Aquafin CRC Environment program leader examining the environmental effects of salmonid and tuna aquaculture. He is internationally recognized for the discovery and application of lipid biomarkers in organic geochemistry, environmental studies, petroleum geochemistry, palaeoclimatology and the evolution of lipid biosynthetic pathways. Dr Volkman is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.

We would also like to welcome Roxanne Steenbergen as a new member of the Royal Society of Tasmania Council

Roxanne has thirty-five years of experience in primary teaching across a range schools. For over fifteen of those years Roxanne taught gifted and talented students online through the Department of Education’s Centre for Extended Learning (now the Gifted Online program). Through this program Roxanne engaged with students across Tasmania. In 2007, Roxanne and a colleague jointly won the Microsoft 2007 Innovative Teacher Awardfor their “Cool Chemistry” project. The project involved the creation of a virtual classroom connecting two schools, two teachers and a practising chemist. Within this environment, children used a range of software to share and compare their inquiries. Roxanne also has a keen interest in literacy through childhood reading and believes every student should have books in their hands whenever they want one – whether they are classics like Journey to the Centre of the Earth or the more modern stories of the 13-storey treehouse series.She won the Scholastic Literacy Champion Awardin 2013. Roxanne retired from teaching in June 2018, but retains a strong interest in making Science teaching accessible to everyone.

Passing the torch

April 5, 2019

Dr Margaret Davies OAM

AT the Royal Society of Tasmania meeting on 2 April, Dr Elizabeth Robinson presented a compelling lecture on educating young people in Tasmania today.

The Royal Society took the opportunity to thank Dr Margaret Davies OAM for her many years of service as Honorary Editor to the Society.

Margaret was educated at the University of Tasmania, the Australian National University and the University of Adelaide, from where she retired in 2002 after an academic career at that institution of 30 years. Her research focused on the taxonomy and systematics of the Australopapuan frog fauna with an interest in osteology. She has discovered and named 34 species of frog during that research career and has published 118 papers, books and edited works.

An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of South Australia, she served as Secretary, Editor, Vice-President, President and Minutes Secretary before returning to Tasmania where she became Honorary Editor of the Royal Society of Tasmania, a position she filled with distinction for sixteen years. Under her leadership the Papers and Proceedings thrived, and the annual calendar was much anticipated. Dr Davies also oversaw the publication of a number of excellent books and other quality publications.

The torch has been passed to Dr John Volkman who has been appointed the new Honorary Editor to the Society. Welcome aboard, John!

Presenter Dr. Elizabeth Robinson and RST Councill member, Dr. Taryn Noble

Ian and Liz Nicolson

Royal Society members, Noel Beswick and Dr. Deborah Beswick

de Wesselow exhibition of watercolours

April 1, 2019

An exhibition of the Tasmanian watercolour works of

Francis Guillemard Simpkinson de Wesselow (1819–1906)

21 March – 11 June 2019 at TMAG

**Dr Anita Hansen of the Royal Society will be giving a talk about the exhibition on**

30 April 2019

at 10.30 am

in the Royal Society rooms, TMAG, Hobart

All are welcome. Click HERE for registration.

Francis Guillemard Simpkinson de Wesselow, naval officer and artist, was born in London the son of Sir John Augustus Francis Simpkinson. His mother, Mary Griffin, was the sister of Lady Jane Franklin. Upon joining the navy in 1832 he served with his uncle, Sir John Franklin. He arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in September 1844 to take up his appointment to the Rossbank Magnetic Observatory in Hobart Town.

Simpkinson was an accomplished artist and recorded a great many landscapes around Van Diemen’s Land. He was often accompanied on his painting excursions around the colony, and even to Port Philip, by the artist John Skinner Prout.

When Lieutenant Simpkinson returned to England in December 1848, he took his collection of some 200 drawings and watercolours with him. In 1869 he added de Wesselow to his name by deed poll. Responding to a request from the Royal Society of Tasmania, Simpkinson de Wesselow gifted his colonial collection of paintings and drawings to the Society when he was aged 81.

On 10 July 1900 he wrote to the Bishop of Tasmania, Henry Hutchinson Montgomery, who co-jointly with Professor William Brown established the historical and geographical section of the Royal Society of Tasmania in 1899….

I happen to have several volumes of drawings and sketches made during the years I passed there – 1844 to 1849 – which have been lying packed away almost ever since my return. I am exceedingly glad there is now a chance of their being of some use or interest, & I forward them to you with much pleasure.