The Royal Society of Tasmania

The advancement of knowledge

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Dr Alison Alexander – May lecture at QVMAG

2019 Launceston Lecture series

 

The Royal Society of Tasmania

INVITES YOU TO

 

Jane Franklin – the Real Founder of the Royal Society of Tasmania

A PUBLIC LECTURE BY

   Dr. Alison Alexander

Sunday 26 May 2019, 1.30 pm
Meeting Room, QVMAG, Inveresk

 

admission free for members of the Royal Society of Tasmania
$6   general admission
$4    for students, QVMAG Friends, and members of Launceston Historical Society

 

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Various people have desired to gain kudos from establishing themselves as the founder of the Royal Society of Tasmania, notably Governor Eardley Wilmot. Alison will argue that Jane Franklin was the real founder, though as a woman with no official status she had to work behind the scenes.

Born and educated in Tasmania, Dr. Alexander has written thirty-three books about Tasmanian history. Her paid career was writing commissioned histories, including Launceston Church Grammar School and the Australian Maritime College. The subjects of her biographies range from romantic writer Marie Bjelke-Petersen to governor’s wife Jane Franklin, this book winning the National Biography Award in 2014. Duck and green peas! Forever! Finding Utopia in Tasmania (2018) is her most recent book.

 

Doctoral Awards lecture – Hobart

For the May lecture of the Royal Society we will hear from the joint winners of the 2018 RST Doctoral Thesis Award. This award is given annually to two recently graduated PhD academics who have made significant advances in the course of their doctoral research. The awards are made for excellence in research in any field within the purview of the Society, so we will be have the pleasure of hearing presentations on very diverse topics.

The Royal Society of Tasmania is pleased to introduce the recipients of the 2018 Doctoral Awards,

Jack Mulder and Feng Pan

 

Tuesday, 7  May 2019

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

 

 

Doctoral Thesis Winner: Feng Pan

Title: Individualised osteoarthritis pain treatment based on phenotypes: are we there yet?

Pain is the most prominent symptom in osteoarthritis. Pain experience is a complex and multifactorial phenomenon. Peripheral structural damage has been traditionally considered a source of pain and this has strengthened with MRI studies; however, a discordance between structural damage and pain severity suggests individual variations in pain presentation which may be determined by genetic, environmental (obesity), psychological and neurological factors. Each of factors may play its role or intact with other factors to contribute to the variation which can partly explain the overall lack of treatment efficacy with the current ‘one-size-fits-all’ treatment approach. Identifying pain phenotypes in knee osteoarthritis is promising to develop individualised treatments; however, the validity and reliability of osteoarthritis pain phenotypes have not been tested in clinical practice. Given the heterogeneity of osteoarthritis pain, peripheral, psychological and neurological factors are considered key phenotypic dimensions in the identification of pain phenotypes. This new concept allows for patients’ stratification for clinical trials, thus providing potential for individualised interventions in patients with osteoarthritis pain.

Dr Feng Pan is a Research Fellow at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, supported by the NHMRC Early Career Fellowship. His research interests span both epidemiology and clinical interventions to osteoarthritis-related pain. Much of his work has been on identifying biomechanical risk factors for chronic pain and osteoarthritis, identifying pain and osteoarthritis phenotypes and testing new therapeutic treatments.

Dr Pan completed a Masters of Medical Oncology in 2012, having completed a Bachelor of Medicine in 2009. His PhD was conferred in May 2017. His thesis work assessed the genetic and systemic factors in knee osteoarthritis and pain. Prior to his PhD, Dr Pan worked as an oncologist at the Anhui Provincial Hospital affiliated with University of Science and Technology of China where he was involved in running multiple clinical trials and assessing genetic contribution to solid tumors through systematic literature review and meta-analysis.

Doctoral Thesis Winner: Jack Mulder

Title: From Rocky Cape to the Rocky Mountains: The geological journey of Tasmania’s oldest rocks

The iconic rugged landscapes of western Tasmania are underlain by an ancient package of rocks that record the very earliest history of Tasmania. The ancient Tasmanian rocks represent a package of sediments that were deposited between 1.4 and 1.0 billion years ago. These sediments are made up of tiny fragments of even older rocks that were eroded from source regions and transported down rivers before accumulating as layers of sand and mud in a shallow sea. The source of these sediments can be traced and used to explore where Tasmania may have been located 1.4—1.0 billion years ago by studying tiny grains of the mineral zircon within the rocks. Zircons contain an ‘internal clock’ produced by the radioactive decay of uranium, which allows these tiny time capsules to be dated.

Dating several thousand individual grains of zircon from the ancient Tasmanian sediments reveals that they were sourced from older rocks that formed 1.45 and 1.70 billion years ago. Surprisingly, these zircon ages are a poor match for the age of potential source rocks in nearby parts of in Australia. This mismatch in zircon ages indicates that when the Tasmanian sediments were deposited, Tasmania did not form part of Australia. Instead, the zircon ages in the Tasmanian rocks closely match the age of 1.45 and 1.70 billion year old rocks that currently underlie much of the southwest United States. Based on the close match of zircon ages, the ancient Tasmanian sediments were likely sourced from the older rocks in the southwest United States, which supports a connection between these regions 1.4—1.0 billion years ago. A connection between Tasmania and North America at this time is also supported by the recognition that rocks a package of exposed in the Rocky Mountains of Montana and Idaho and in Grand Canyon, Arizona are the same age, rock type, and contain the same zircon age signatures as the 1.4—1.0 billion year old rocks in Tasmania. These 1.4—1.0 billion year old North American rocks may represent parts of the same ancient sedimentary basin in which Tasmania’s oldest rocks formed. This ancient basin was fragmented as Tasmania drifted away from North America and subsequently collided with Australia to achieve its present-day position.

Dr Jacob (Jack) Mulder, Research Fellow, Monash University

Jack is a geologist who studies ancient rocks to understand how Earth’s continents are built and how they have evolved through deep time. Jack grew up in southern Tasmania and studied at the University of Tasmania, completing his undergraduate in 2013 and a PhD in 2017. His PhD research integrated field work in western Tasmania and the western United States with state-of-the-art analytical techniques, and plate tectonic modelling to study the earliest geological history of Tasmania. He is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at Monash University where his research focuses on using the sedimentary record to track secular changes in the composition of the continental crust and plate tectonic processes.

 

 

 

April at QVMAG – Prof. Barry Brook

In the next instalment of the northern lecture series, Prof. Brook considers existential environmental threats facing humanity during the 21st century and speculates on the long-term future of ‘humanity’ (or our descendants) should we progresses beyond this zone of immediate global risk.

Barry lives on a bush property in the Huon Valley. He has published three books, over 350 refereed papers, and many popular articles. His research focuses on the impacts of global change on biodiversity, ecological dynamics, paleoenvironments, energy, and simulation models.

 

 

April 2020 lecture at TMAG – Dr Elizabeth Robinson

The Royal Society of Tasmania 

Presents

Dr Elizabeth Robinson

On educating young people in Tasmania today

A Public Lecture  – 2  April 2019

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

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Raised and educated in Tasmania, Dr Elizabeth Robinson grew up on the North West Coast, with parents whose lives were carved by the depression and war – timbercutting at the head of the Hellyer Gorge, and placing signal lines across the Owen Stanley Range of Papua New Guinea. These lived-experiences of inter-generational belonging inform the descriptive (mythopoetic) nature of her academic writing, inviting us to explore the historicity of our own lived-worlds and the disruptions that shape our understandings. She is currently principal of Kingston High School.

It seems that society sees schools as highly transactional places, a ledger of sorts, accounting for academic outcomes and failures, selecting consequences in which good and bad behaviours are respectively rewarded and punished. What does this traditional view of education mean in a contemporary context of the neuroscience of ‘growth mindset’, ‘positive psychology’ and ‘trauma informed practice’? Perhaps philosophy, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, might enable us to capture moments of poignancy and reinterpret such moments to come to understand how young people, particularly those who express themselves in a language of distress, given compassionate attentiveness, might find their voices again and return to learning.

Dr Robinson holds a PhD through Curtin University, with her thesis: Pedagogy of being present: An inquiry into the unconditional communion of listening. Her thesis received a chancellor’s commendation due to its contribution to a future of educational change in relation to the effects of trauma on learning and bringing individual students “back into voice and life”. Dr Robinson’s thesis explores the ways in which listening to young people opens up spaces for healing relationships that are both self-educative and mutually transformative.

As a teacher in Tasmanian high schools, Dr Robinson began to define her own teaching as a pedagogy of listening to young people. In the context of her current role as a principal, Dr Robinson notices the tensions between the social/emotional needs of young people and the capacity of schools to meet these needs, navigating the complexities of inter-agency relationships and community demands for student inclusion as well as exclusion. How might a philosophical approach to understanding the needs of young people help inform educational policy in Tasmania and the wider national discourse around needs-based funding?

Dr Costan Magnussen – March at QVMAG

The 2019 Launceston lecture series continues on 24 March at QVMAG. The speaker is Dr Costan Magnussen, a Fellow at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research in Hobart. His topic goes straight to the heart.

Costan has a joint appointment as adjunct professor of cardiovascular epidemiology at the University of Turku, Finland. He completed his undergraduate training and PhD at the University of Tasmania, before taking postdoctoral positions at the Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Finland and Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Melbourne.

Tasmanian Australian 2018, Scott Rankin

Inclusive growth – creating new pathways out of deep poverty 

by Scott Rankin, Tasmanian Australian of the Year for 2018

Date: 5 March 2019

Place: Central Gallery, TMAG, Dunn Place, Hobart

Time: 8.00 pm

 

The five Domains of Change which must be tackled together if we are to create sustained positive change in our communities, rather than spinning wheels, more welfare ghettos, and the dulling of potential amongst those in our communities who experience the effects of diminished opportunity. The For Profit sector and the Not For Profit sector must work together, bringing together shared values and practices.

 

Scott will call on examples of the work of Big hART a Cultural Justice organisation which began in Burnie 25 years ago and continues to expand nationally and internationally. Scott will also speak to themes in his recent Platform Paper “Cultural Justice and the Right to Thrive” (Currency Press) and from an unusual childhood growing up on a Chinese Junk. 

 

 

Scott Rankin is a nationally renowned public speaker, cultural commentator and founder of Big hART – Australia’s leading arts for social change organisation (www.bighart.org). His theatre, documentary and television projects have won multiple awards. He was the 2018 Tasmanian Australian of the Year and Big hART won both the 2017 Telstra Business Awards Tasmanian Small Business and Charity of the Year.

Walking Backwards into the Future

2019 Northern Lecture Series

 

The Royal Society of Tasmania

INVITES YOU TO

 

Walking Backwards into the Future

 – New Directions at QVMAG

 

A PUBLIC LECTURE BY

MRS TRACY PUKLOWSKI

 

       where:Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk

        when: 1.30 pm, Sunday 24thFebruary 2019

admission:  free for members of the Royal Society of Tasmania*

$6   general admission

$4    for students, QVMAG Friends, and members of Launceston Historical Society

*membership forms available at the door

 

Ka Mua, Ka Muriis a Māori proverb referring to “walking backwards into the future”. The past and future are intertwined, and nowhere is this more salient than in the work of museums.

Tracy Puklowski took up the position of City of Launceston Director of Creative Arts and Cultural Services in October 2018.  She will take this notionas the basis for discussion on how QVMAG’s history forms a platform for her vision for its future.

Tracy has held a wide range of senior roles in the cultural heritage sector, including at the National Museum of New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand. She has a long-standing interest in Australian art and museums,has an MA in Art History, a post-graduate Diploma in Museum Studies, and is a graduate of the prestigious Getty Museum Leadership Institute.

 

 

Generously supported by

Speakers for the Dinosaur Symposium

Dinosaur “bling” at Lightning Ridge and dinosaur tracks in “Australia’s Jurassic Park” are just some of the fascinating subjects covered by internationally renowned speakers at our upcoming Dinosaur Symposium (23-24 March) hosted by the University of Tasmania.

Here is a sneak preview of the program – 

 

Savannasaurus is part of the sauropod family | Image credit: Travis R. Tischler and Australian Age of Dinosaurs, Museum of Natural History

 

Winton – home of the Big Dinosaur

 

Dr Stephen Poropat, from Swinburne University, will talk about the dinosaurs of the Winton Formation in Queensland. One recent discovery in Winton proved to be the most complete sauropod ever found in Australia.

Sauropods include among their ranks the largest terrestrial animals that ever lived: some were more than 30 metres long, others more than 13 metres tall, and still others tipped the scales at more than 50 tonnes.

 

 

 

 

The eventful Precambrian Era

Stromatolites, Shark Bay, Western Australia. Image by Martin Barnes

Dr Indrani Mukherjee, from Earth Sciences at the University of Tasmania, will talk about life on very early Earth, the Precambrian Era. This period, spanning from 4500 million years ago to 540 million years ago, is known to record some of the most significant transitions and breakthroughs in the evolution of life. What shaped the course of evolution has always fascinated us. Whether it was the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere and ocean, nutrients in the ocean, or supercontinent cycles, or a combination of all these factors, the question is being thoroughly investigated.

Dr Indrani Mukherjee inspecting drill cores of very ancient rocks.

This talk focuses on some of the key biological events in the Precambrian, particularly between (3500 to 800 million years ago) and provides a geological explanation for the cause of these events. The talk ties the geochemical conditions of the ocean and the atmosphere with evolution and diversification of complex microscopic life that facilitated macroscopic life on Earth, including dinosaurs!

 

 

 

Dampier Peninsula: “Australia’s Jurassic Park”

Goolarabooloo Law Boss Richard Hunter (left) and Steve Salisbury (right) alongside tracks of a small theropod (3D track model and trackmaker silhouette inset, right), near Walmadany, on the Dampier Peninsula, WA. Photo Damian Kelly.





Dr Steve Salisbury, from The Queensland University Dinosaur Laboratory, will talk about the discovery of spectacular dinosaur tracks in the Kimberley region of north Western Australia. An unprecedented 21 different types of dinosaur tracks have been identified on a 25-kilometre stretch of the Dampier Peninsula coastline dubbed ‘Australia’s Jurassic Park’.


According to Dr Salisbury, “The dinosaur track fauna of the Broome Sandstone is extremely significant, forming the primary record of non-avian dinosaurs in the western half the continent and providing our only glimpse of Australia’s dinosaur fauna during the first half of the Early Cretaceous Period”.
















The Right Lower Jaw of Weewarrasaurus Showcases the Rainbow Hues of Opal in the Fossil. Photograph by Robert A. Smith




Fiery dinosaur fossil at Lightning Ridge






Dr Phill Bell, from University of New England, will talk about the amazing opalized dinosaur bones unearthed at Lightning Ridge in NSW, including the recent discovery of the jaw bone of a small ornithopod. The dinosaur has been named Weewarrasaurus pobeni – a name that recognises the fossil’s unearthing in the Wee Warra opal field, and honours Mike Poben, an Adelaide-based opal buyer who donated the specimen for research.


Like all fossils from the Lightning Ridge opal mines, the lower jaw—the only piece of the animal recovered—is preserved in opal. Precious opal gives off a rainbow of colours, in this case shimmering green and blue. Lightning Ridge is the only place in the world where dinosaur bones are commonly replaced by precious opal.


 


 






 






The exquisitely preserved 3D skull of Onychodus, a bony fish predator on the ancient Devonian reef of the Kimberley (Gogo site). Such fossils help us understand the evolution of vertebrates before the dinosaurs.




Evolution: Life on Earth




 


Professor John Long, from Flinders University, will give us the history of evolution of life on Earth, from single celled bacteria to fishes, then dinosaurs, birds and finally humans. He is an internationally acclaimed exceptional speaker and has led fossil digs all over the Earth. He is currently in Antarctica on a dig, but will be back in time for our symposium.


 












PaleoArt 












2020 Lecture Calendar


The Royal Society of Tasmania 


Hobart lecture program for 2019:


 




    

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        MARCH 5  –  Scott Rankin: Tasmanian Australian of the year for 2018.
        

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        APRIL 2 – Dr Elizabeth Robinson: On educating young people in Tasmania today.
        

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        MAY 7 – The Doctoral Award Winner Lecture
        

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        JUNE 4 – Aboriginal language revitalisation: celebrating the 2019 International Year of Indigenous languages
        

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        JULY 2 – Garry Bailey: Vision Zero: Road Safety in Tasmania
        

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        AUGUST 6 – Marley Large: A glimpse into 175 years of the Royal Society of Tasmania’s Minutes.
        

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        SEPTEMBER 3 –  Dr Anita Hansen: The first 175 years of the Royal Society of Tasmania.
        

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        OCTOBER 1 – Peter Smith Medal Winner, Dr Lucia McCullum: The Dish Redux – from the Apollo Mission to Earth surveying.
        

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        NOVEMBER 5 – UTAS Postgraduates Lecture Evening.
        

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        DECEMBER 3 –  Dr Alison Alexander: “Governors’ Ladies: the wives and mistresses of Van Diemen’s Land governors“.
        

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The full program for the 2019 Launceston Lecture Series can be viewed HERE


  






25 Nov. – Tasmania’s Forgotten Emus – David Maynard, at QVMAG


The November lecture for the Northern Branch of the Royal Society will take place on Sunday the 25th of November at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Inveresk, at 1.15 pm. The lecture by David Maynard entitled Tasmania’s Lost Emus will be preceeded by the northern launch of the latest Royal Society publication Poles Apart: Fascination, fame and folly.


 


The Royal Society of Tasmania – 2018 Launceston Lecture Series


Admission: $6 general public


$4 QVMAG Friends, members of Launceston Historical Society and students 


Free for members of The Royal Society of Tasmania


 


Tasmania’s Lost Emus


David Maynard




Tasmania’s extinct emu is less well known than the iconic thylacine, yet just as deserving of recognition. Recent research has aged skeletal material, and DNA work has shed light on the relationships between populations. There are many theories as to why the emu became extinct so soon after European arrival in Tasmania. David Maynard will review the Tasmanian emu and current research results, and discuss the drivers for extinction.


 




David has been the curator of Natural Sciences at QVMAG for six years, and in that role he works to preserve a record of Northern Tasmania’s biodiversity. Prior to taking this position he was an academic at the Australian Maritime College and University of Tasmania where he specialized in fishing gear technology, by-catch reduction and marine biodiversity. The role of curator has allowed David to do something he enjoys – continuing to learn. He has a growing understanding of terrestrial rather than marine fauna, and is focusing on Northern Tasmania’s insect and spider diversity. He also looks into Tasmania’s past, trying to understand how Tasmania has changed over the last 50,000 years.


 


The presentation of this lecture is generously supported by