The Royal Society of Tasmania congratulates President Prof. Ross Large on the award of the Society’s most prestigious medal, the Royal Society of Tasmania Medal, for his research in the field of geology.
Booking Information for The Royal Society of Tasmania Medal Presentation and Lecture at Government House – 30 August 2018.
DEADLINE – 17 AUGUST 2018 – 6.00 PM
Booking information:
We invite you to register to attend The Royal Society of Tasmania Medal Presentation and Lecture at Government House at 6.00pm on Thursday 30 August 2018.
All attendees will need to book and print their tickets by Friday 17 August 2018.
The bookings for this event will open on Wednesday 1st August and close on Friday 17 August 2018.
There is no charge to obtain a ticket and these may be booked via the Government House website as follows:
- Go to http://www.govhouse.tas.gov.au and click on the ‘Events and Tours’ tab on the right-hand side of the homepage. Select ‘Reserve tickets’ for The Royal Society of Tasmania Medal Presentation & Lecture. You will be directed to the Government House Tasmania event on the http://Trybooking.com website.
- Enter the Invitation Code: RSMP18. This will allow you access to continue your booking via the Trybooking website.
- Complete the booking as per the Trybooking website instructions. Tickets should be booked in the names of the guests who wish to attend. Generic bookings, such as “Partner of Mr Bill Smith”, are NOT acceptable. In the ‘‘Capacity in which attending” box, we would be grateful if your guests would indicate the capacity in which they will be attending the reception, e.g: Organising Committee, Board Member, Member, etc. Ticket(s) will be sent to the guest’s nominated email address.
- Guests will need to print their ticket(s) and ensure that they bring it/them to Government House on the evening or, alternatively, the ticket(s) can be scanned from a mobile phone.
- The closing date for bookings is Friday 17 August 2018 (6.00 pm).
We look forward to seeing you there.
David Wilson
Honorary Secretary
Congratulations Prof. Trevor McDougall – Fellow of AGU
Congratulations Trevor McDougall!
The Royal Society of Tasmania is proud to report that Professor Trevor McDougall, one of our members, has just been announced a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).
The AGU Fellowship is an honour given to individual AGU members whose visionary leadership and scientific excellence have fundamentally advanced research in their fields.
The AGU is an international non-profit scientific association with nearly 60,000 members in 139 countries. It is dedicated to advancing the Earth and space sciences for the benefit of humanity through its scholarly publications, conferences, and outreach programs.
This year’s Fellows will be celebrated at a ceremony in December at the 2018 AGU Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Royal Society Bursaries
The Royal Society of Tasmania
Honours and Bursary Committee
About 20 years ago Dr. Peter Smith, a long time and valued member of the Society, noticed with the then Secretary that there were Tasmanian students in science who, having represented this state at a National science event of substance, were chosen to travel overseas and represent Australia at a similar but globally oriented activity. Over the years since, the Society has supported such students when they applied to the Society, but it has been very much ad hoc and not even advertised.
Last year the Council made a decision based on a recommendation from the Honours Committee that we would formalise this option of supporting outstanding young students who represent Australia at an international summer school, or similar. We named this a “Royal Society of Tasmania Bursary” and circulated details to key teachers around the state in both government and private schools.
We received quality applications for bursaries and are delighted to report that in this 175th year of the Society, nine young people will attend global science activities in Beijing, Cape Kennedy and London. We also supported two students to attend the Junior ANZAAS* school in Melbourne. The age range of the students is around sixteen to seventeen years old. (The names of this year’s recipients are set out below.)
In following years we will continue to offer these bursaries, but the number awarded is more likely to be about three or four per year. The standard of work our young people are doing now is quite outstanding and so our members can rest assured that the Society continues to “advance knowledge” in the next generation. It is also our fervent hope that we can move into the arts, as we acknowledge that key part of learning and developing.
Dr John G. Thorne AM
Chairman of the RST Honours and Bursary Committee
Recipients of Royal Society of Tasmania bursaries for 2018.
Dominic Grose and Max Cross attended the Junior ANZAAS Science School in Melbourne.
Rose Donnelly and Fergus Ayton attended the world-wide Science Summer Experience in London.
Raiden Lemon attended the global physics challenge in Beijing.
As a team, Alex Titchen, Koh Kawaguchi, Fergus Charles, Fabian Natoli, James Pash and Alex Hogan-Jones participated in the NASA/ Cape Kennedy science challenge.
All the students who traveled overseas were representing Australia having been chosen from an earlier but similar Australia-wide event.
*ANZASS – The Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science is an organisation that was founded in 1888 by Archibald Liversidge as the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science to promote science.
“And so to bed…” Susannah Fullerton
This lecture by Susannah Fullerton OAM will take place on Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 8:00 pm in the Central Gallery of TMAG, Hobart
The diary of Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) has long been considered the greatest diary in the English language. Historians have found it invaluable, but it is also a superb work of literature and the record of an extraordinary man.
Founder of the modern English navy, President of the Royal Society, Member of Parliament, author of books on the navy, talented musician and composer and lover of a very large number of women, Samuel Pepys delighted in many aspects of Restoration London and recorded them all in his diary.
“And so to bed …”, Susannah Fullerton’s talk on Pepys, tells of his experience of the Plague and the Great Fire, his constant womanising, his theatre-going and his dinners. Susannah loves to share her enthusiasm for this most human and delightful of diarists.
Please note the special time of Wednesday 14th of November for this lecture.
Further information can be found on Susannah’s website
here:-
And so to bed …
♠
Susannah Fullerton, OAM, FRS(N), has been president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, this country’s largest literary society, for the past 22 years. She is the author of several books on Jane Austen and gives many talks around the world about her favourite novelist.
Susannah also gives talks at libraries, schools, the Art Gallery of NSW and State Library of NSW on many other famous writers, such as Pepys, Oscar Wilde, the Brontës, Dickens, Trollope and many more. She has written Brief Encounters: Literary Travellers in Australia about famous authors visiting Australia, and has also written and recorded two audio CDs, Finding Katherine Mansfield and Poetry to Fill a Room. Susannah also leads literary tours to the UK, France, Italy, Scandinavia, NZ and America for Australians Studying Abroad.
Peter Smith Medal – Call for Nominations – Closing date: 30 September 2018
The RST Honours and Bursary Committee
Peter Smith Medal.
Nominations have been called for the Peter Smith Medal. This medal is awarded biennially to an outstanding early career researcher in any field. The recipient will receive a medal and deliver “The Peter Smith Lecture” to the Society.
For the purpose of the medal, “early career” is taken to mean that the time since the award of a PhD, at the award nomination deadline, is less than seven (7) years.
The conditions of the award are:
- The works are to have been largely carried out in Tasmania or under the aegis of a Tasmanian-based organisation and within the Society’s purview; and
- The nationality of the recipient is not to be considered in making the Award, that is, the Award is not restricted to Australian nationals.
The closing date for nominations is September 30, 2018.
Appendix F guideline for nominations is included on our web page (see below), and all nominations must be forwarded in digital form by the due date. Self-nominatiion is not allowed.
Members of the Society and other interested parties are encouraged to be pro-active in sharing this information.
Nominations should be sent to –
The Secretary – (email) royal.society@tmag.tas.gov.au
Dr John G. Thorne AM
Chairman
RST – Honours – Appendix F
APPENDIX F
Guide for Medal Nominations of the Royal Society of Tasmania
And Suggested Pro Forms
The following is a guide for nominating candidates for the Royal Society of Tasmania Medals:
- M. Johnston Memorial Medal
- The Royal Society of Tasmania Medal
- Clive Lord Memorial Medal
- R. Banks Medal
- Peter Smith Medal
The first page of the nomination should list:
- The name of the medal
- The name of the candidate and contact address and details
- The name of the proposer and contact address and details
No self-nominations are allowed.
A description of the candidate’s achievements relevant to the particular medal should follow. It should be no more 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 research or other scholarly contributions to science, history or other field of learning, industry or society should be clearly stated.
A full curriculum vitaefor the Honours Committee should be provided by the nominee to the nominator in confidence. It should include the candidate’s date of birth, the date/s of receipt of degrees and a full list of published works. The most significant publications should be highlighted (e.g. With an asterisk). Where the candidate’s standing relies on many co-authored papers, the candidate’s role in those significant publications 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 applied for.
All nominations should be submitted online to the Honorary Secretary of the Society by the due date.
Confidentiality is the hallmark of all the Honours Committee deliberations and will be strictly adhered to. All matters pertaining to the Society Awards (nominations, selection, deliberation by the Honours Committee and Council, and subsequent notification to recipients) are confidential until the public announcement of the Awards at the Society’s Annual General Meeting each year. This information about confidentiality must also be observed by both the nominator and nominee.
175th Anniversary Program
In October 2018, the Royal Society of Tasmania will be celebrating 175 years – a terquasquicentennial anniversary.
The Royal Society of Tasmania was the first Royal Society to be established outside the United Kingdom
The Society was founded in 1843 by Sir John Eardley-Wilmot, Lieutenant Governor, as the Botanical and Horticultural Society of Van Diemen’s Land. Its aim was to ‘develop the physical character of the Island and illustrate its natural history and productions’. Queen Victoria became Patron in 1844 and the name was changed to The Royal Society of Tasmania of Van Diemen’s Land for Horticulture, Botany and the Advancement of Science. Under the Act of Parliament passed in 1911, the name was shortened to The Royal Society of Tasmania.
Today, with the aim of ‘the advancement of knowledge’, the Society is flourishing and still an important part of Tasmania’s scientific and cultural community.
To celebrate this significant milestone, the Society has put together an inspiring program of events in addition to its usual lecture programs.
30 August 2018
Royal Society of Tasmania Medal Presentation and Lecture
Government House, Hobart
30 September 2018
The Laughing Gas Cure – Play Reading
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) – Inveresk, Launceston
16 October 2018
Reception to mark the Royal Society of Tasmania’s 175th Anniversary
Government House, Hobart
6 November 2018
Poles Apart: Fascination, Fame and Folly – Book Launch
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) – Dunn Place, Hobart
10 November 2018
Dinosaur Picnic
Royal Botanical Gardens, Queens Domain, Hobart
25 November 2018
Poles Apart: Fascination, Fame and Folly – Book Launch
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) – Inveresk, Launceston
Nov – Dec 2018
Poles Apart Exhibition
Morris Miller Library foyer, UTAS, Sandy Bay Campus
7 Dec 2018 – 5 May 2019
DINOSAUR rEVOLUTION
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Dunn Place, Hobart
27 January – 24 February 2019
Louisa Anne Meredith art exhibition
Lady Franklin Gallery, Ancanthe Park, Lenah Valley, Hobart
March 23–24 2019
Dinosaur Symposium
Stanley Burbury Theatre – University of Tasmania, Sandy Bay Campus
21 March – 11 June 2019
Simpkinson De Wesselow art exhibition
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Dunn Place, Hobart
Rise of the Drones: how Unmanned Aircraft Systems create new opportunities for environmental remote sensing and geosciences
Tuesday 4th September 2018, 8:00 pm – The Royal Society Room, TMAG, Hobart
In recent years, the increased use of ‘drones’ in civilian applications has received both positive and negative coverage in the media. Many find the thought of flying robots that ‘invade’ people’s lives or pose risks to passenger airplanes too intimidating and unacceptable. However, this presentation will show that drones (preferably termed Unmanned Aircraft Systems or UAS) fill a novel and exciting niche when it comes to observing, mapping, and monitoring the environment at unprecedented levels of detail.
The TerraLuma research project at the University of Tasmania has developed novel tools and algorithms for environmental remote sensing applications and aerial surveys using UAS. We have worked on a range of applications, including precision agriculture and viticulture; mapping and monitoring vegetation in remote locations such as Antarctica; deriving 3D tree structure for forest inventories; landslide deformation monitoring; 3D stock pile and quarry surveys and volume estimations; assessment of coastal erosion; mapping of geological structures; better understanding functions of natural vegetation communities such as saltmarshes; transforming images into knowledge.
Associate Professor Lucieer will give an overview of the technology and exciting applications of UAS remote sensing. I will share our practical field experiences, our ups and downs, dos and don’ts from the last nine years of operating UAS for remote sensing research.
Arko Lucieer is an Associate Professor in Remote Sensing at The University of Tasmania, Australia. He leads the TerraLumaresearch group, focusing on the development and application of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), sensor integration, and image processing techniques for environmental, agricultural, and high-precision aerial mapping applications. Arko teaches remote sensing and GIS at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He obtained his PhD degree in 2004 from the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) and Utrecht University in The Netherlands. His current focus is on quantitative remote sensing of vegetation with the use of sophisticated UAS sensors to better understand the structure, distribution, and functioning of vegetation, and to bridge the observational scale gap between field samples and satellite observations.
Associate Professor Arko Lucieer
Geography and Spatial Sciences, School of Technology, Environments and Design
College of Sciences and Engineering, UTAS
Book Launch – Mapping Van Diemen’s Land and the Great Beyond – July 2018
The Royal Society of Tasmania is celebrating its 175th Anniversary year, starting in October 2018. As part of the celebrations, two books are being published. The first, Mapping Van Diemen’s Land and the Great Beyond, has been published and is now available.
This exquisite volume, edited by Lynn Davies, Margaret Davies and Warren Boyles, contains over 100 high resolution images of rare and beautiful maps from the Society’s collection with text from such authoritative contributors as Matt King, Michael Giudici, John Williamson, Aidan Davison and Andrew Harwood, Peter Mercer, James Parker, Peter Marmion and Tony Fenton, and John VanderNiet.
The brief for the authors in the conception of this volume was to view the Society’s collection of maps and consider them within their historical, scientific, social and cultural contexts. This naturally led to the development of research inquiries and questions such as: how important were these maps when created? How important are they today in terms of knowledge and or specific systems such as geological or exploration maps? How historically important are these maps? What impact would these maps have had when they appeared? What did the compilers get right or wrong, and what did they not see or was not yet discovered? And, is there any general cultural context or social comment that arises as a result of these maps? The result of the exploration of these questions is a publication worthy of our 175th anniversary.
The official launch took place on Thursday, 19 July 2018, in the foyer of the Stanley Burbury Building, University of Tasmania, Sandy Bay campus. The Welcome to Country was conducted by Dr. Greg Lehmann, and then the book was officially launched by Dr. Tony Sprent AM from the University of Tasmania. A number of the authors were in attendance and giving away their autographs. And some good Tasmanian wine was sloshed.
A second launch was held in Launceston on the 22ndof July at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Inveresk, Launceston.
The book has been published in both soft and hard cover format, and can be purchased online through our website here: Mapping Van Diemen’s Land
The Royal Society of Tasmania Medal Presentation and Lecture – Government House – 6.00 pm, Thursday 30 August 2018
PLEASE NOTE: TICKETING FOR THE MEDAL PRESENTATION AND LECTURE HAS NOW CLOSED.
Members and friends are invited to attend The Royal Society of Tasmania Medal Presentation and Lecture, to be hosted at Government House by Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Kate Warner, AC, Governor of Tasmania. and Mr Warner at 6.00pm on Thursday 30 August 2018.
The recipient of the medal and lecturer is Emeritus Distinguished Professor Ross Large.
The Royal Society of Tasmania Medal was established in 1927 and is the most prestigious award conferred by the Society.
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The Rhythms of Earth and Life Through Time
Earth has a pulse called plate tectonics and this pulse has controlled the formation of great mountain ranges, the chemistry of the oceans and the evolution of life over the last four billion years. The formation and break up of supercontinents, the supercontinent cycle, involves continental plates crashing together to build major mountain ranges. This process, in geological terms, was slow to get underway, occurring roughly every 400 to 600 million years in the early stages of Earth history.
However, about 600 million years ago, the plate tectonic and mountain building process sped up to a frequency of 60 to 120 million years. This change in the rhythms of Earth processes was fundamental to the evolution of life, starting with the Cambrian explosion at 550–520 million years ago, followed by cycles of rapid bio-diversification, then mass extinction.
Five cycles driven by plate tectonics and mountain building took place over the last 600 million years, each commencing with diversification of life and ending in a major mass extinction event. These constitute the rhythms of Earth and life.
Ross Large is an Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Geology at the University of Tasmania. He gained his BSc (Hons) from the University of Tasmania in 1969, PhD from University of New England in 1973 and an Honorary Doctor of Engineering from the University of Lulea, Sweden.
For ten years Ross worked in the mineral exploration industry. In 1984, he joined the University of Tasmania and, five years later, established the Centre for Ore Deposit and Exploration Science (CODES). Under his leadership, CODES grew to become recognised as one of the top industry collaborative ore deposit research centres in the world.
Ross has published over 120 scientific papers and is internationally recognised for his research on the genesis of ore deposits and relationships to Earth evolution. His current research interest is the chemistry of past oceans and relationships to evolution of life, mass extinction and mineral deposit cycles.
He has won many awards during his career – the most recent as lead scientist for a UTAS team that won the 2016 Eureka Prize for interdisciplinary research. Ross is the President of The Royal Society of Tasmania and the Chair of the Tasmanian Division of The Academy of Technology and Engineering.
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You can hear Ross talking about his research on ABC Radio Hobart Breakfast with Ryk Goddard.
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Booking information:
We invite you to register to attend The Royal Society of Tasmania Medal Presentation and Lecture at Government House at 6.00pm on Thursday 30 August 2018.
All attendees will need to book and print their tickets by Friday 17 August 2018.
The bookings for this event will open on Wednesday 1st August and close on Friday 17 August 2018.
There is no charge to obtain a ticket and these may be booked via the Government House website as follows:
- Go to http://www.govhouse.tas.gov.au and click on the ‘Events and Tours’ tab on the right-hand side of the homepage. Select ‘Reserve tickets’ for The Royal Society of Tasmania Medal Presentation & Lecture. You will be directed to the Government House Tasmania event on the http://Trybooking.com website.
- Enter the Invitation Code: RSMP18. This will allow you access to continue your booking via the Trybooking website.
- Complete the booking as per the Trybooking website instructions. Tickets should be booked in the names of the guests who wish to attend. Generic bookings, such as “Partner of Mr Bill Smith”, are NOT acceptable. In the ‘‘Capacity in which attending” box, we would be grateful if your guests would indicate the capacity in which they will be attending the reception, e.g: Organising Committee, Board Member, Member, etc. Ticket(s) will be sent to the guest’s nominated email address.
- Guests will need to print their ticket(s) and ensure that they bring it/them to Government House on the evening or, alternatively, the ticket(s) can be scanned from a mobile phone.
- The closing date for bookings is Friday 17 August 2018 (6.00 pm).
We look forward to seeing you there.
David Wilson
Honorary Secretary