The Royal Society of Tasmania

The advancement of knowledge

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Associate Professor Arko Lucieer – 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

http://www.terraluma.net

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:

  1. 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.
  2. Enter the Invitation Code: RSMP18. This will allow you access to continue your booking via the Trybooking website.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. The closing date for bookings is Friday 17 August 2018 (6.00 pm).

We look forward to seeing you there.

David Wilson
Honorary Secretary

 

 

Associate Professor Jonathan Binns – Why does an Engineer need a PhD? – Sunday 26 August 2018, 1.15 pm, Meeting Room, QVMAG Inveresk, Launceston

The program will commence with reports by Rose Donnelly (Year 12) and Dominic Grosewill (Year 10) on their experiences at the 2018 London International Youth ScienceForum and the YouthConference of the Australian & New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science.

This will be followed by Professor Binns’ lecture on the role of research in the diverse and complex disciplines in engineering.

Engineering is an inherently applied set of disciplines. As such research and development often involves little “r” and big “D”. However, the definition of engineering from Engineers Australia is stated as “Engineers arescientists, inventors, designers, builders and great thinkers. They improve the state of the world, amplify human capability and make people’s lives safer and easier.” Improving human capability requires research, research requires research training. To fulfil the expectations of engineering we need to have R&D Engineers qualified with PhDs. Jonathan will explain high level R&D from engineers in fast ferry design, submarine analysis and America’s Cup technology.

America’s Cup Series, 2017, Bermuda, J. Binns

Jonathan has trained and worked as a design and research engineer. His primary expertise is in a variety of model and full scale experiments as well as numerical flow predictions. He has experience in hydrodynamic and structural design, research, development and simulation of marine craft.

America’s Cup Series, 2017, Bermuda, J. Binns

Jonathan has taken a leading role in research across the whole of the Australian Maritime College in his roles as Associate Dean of Research and Director of the ARC Research Training Centre for Naval Design and Manufacturing (RTCNDM).  The RTCNDM is a training centre whose mission is to create a new cohort of PhD trained engineers for the naval design, manufacturing and sustainment of a global supply chain.

 

 

 

GENEROUSLY SUPPORTS THE PRESENTATION OF THIS LECTURE

 

 

 

Prof Margaret MacMillan – War and the Making of the Modern World – Friday 10th August 2018, 6:00 pm – Stanley Burbury Theatre UTAS, Hobart

 

War is deeply woven into human history. Organised society and conflict appear to have marched side by side, each affecting the other. Wars have changed societies in many ways but changes in society have also affected the nature of war. We remember war, rightly, for its destructive impact but it has also led to advances in science, to improvements in the position of previously marginalized groups such as women, or to greater equality. This lecture will examine some of the paradoxes of war drawing on examples from history. Since it is a century since the end of the Great War particular attention will be paid to its causes and consequences.

Professor Margaret MacMillan is a Canadian historian at the University of Toronto and professor of International History at Oxford University, as well as a leading expert on history and international relations.

Professor MacMillan was educated at the University of Toronto and Oxford University. Her doctoral dissertation was on the social and political perspectives of the British in India. She is former provost of Trinity College at the University of Toronto and was a member of the History Department of Ryerson University in Toronto for 25 years. She is the recipient of numerous literary awards for her book Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference on 1919 and its Attempt to End War.  

MacMillan’s research has focused on the British Empire in the later 19thand early 20thcenturies and on international relations in the 20thcentury. She has served on the board of the Canadian Institute for International Affairs, the Atlantic Council of Canada, the Ontario Heritage Foundation, and the Churchill Society for the advancement of Parliamentary Democracy (Canada). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and a Senior Fellow of Massey College, University of Toronto.  She is a Companion of the Order of Canada and a Companion of Honour (Commonwealth Realms).

Professor MacMillan’s publications include: Women of the Raj:The Mothers, Wives, and Daughters of the British Empire in India; The Uses and Abuses of History(based on the 2008 Joanne Goodman lecture series); The War that ended Peace: how Europe abandoned Peace for the First Word War; and History’s People: Personalities and the Past (based on the 2015 Massey Lectures).

 

Professor MacMillan recently delivered the 2018 Reith lectures series, originally broadcast on BBC Radio4 and now being broadcast on ABC Radio National “Big Ideas” program. You can listen to podcasts of the series here:

1.  War and Humanity

2.  Making Sense of the Warrior

3.  Civilians and War

 

 

Presented in partnership with the High Commission of Canada, the University of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

 

 

 

 

Dr Karin Orth – Mega Volcanic Eruptions and the Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time – 1.30 pm Sunday 24th June 2018 – Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk

GENEROUSLY SUPPORTS THE PRESENTATION OF THIS LECTURE

Five near extinguishments of life on Earth have been related to changes in Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. Extra-terrestrial meteorites are often blamed, but Earth’s own forces may be suspect. Heat within the Earth builds volcanoes. Even small volcanic eruptions have local, regional and global climate effects. Giant lava fields coincide with the three most recent mass extinction events. Scaling up impacts from small eruptions to such voluminous eruptions indicates that volcanism is a major contributor to climatic disruption, with dire consequences for life.
Dr Karin Orth lectures in Earth Sciences at the University of Tasmania. After a primary degree at Monash University and working for the Victorian Geological Survey, she gained her PhD in Tasmania. She has worked on ancient volcanic rocks in various regions across Australia, most recently on a very large field of ancient volcanic rocks that stretch across the Kimberley of northern Western Australia.

Dr Andrew Cole – A New High-Precision Look at the Milky Way – TMAG Customs House, Hobart Tuesday 3 July @8 pm

All are welcome, free lecture.
In the past decade the field of astronomy has been building towards a revolution in the way we measure distances and other fundamental physical properties of the stars in our home galaxy, the Milky Way.  The rapid increase in detector sensitivity and computing power in the 21st century has enabled both ground-based and space-based astronomy missions to survey enormous areas of the sky with unprecedented precision in the astrophysical parameters.
Andrew will discuss some of the most significant recent developments to come out of this “big data” revolution, which range from improved knowledge of the frequency and masses of planets around nearby stars, the distribution of luminous and dark matter in the Milky Way, and the forensics of working out how the galaxy itself was assembled by infalling matter over billions of years.
Dr Andrew Cole is Associate Professor in Physics and Astronomy and the Director of the Greenhill Observatory, the home of UTAS optical astronomy research infrastructure.  Dr Cole studies the processes and effects that govern the evolution of matter in the Universe from the Big Bang to the present day.  Essentially, how things came to be from the beginning of time as we know it.  Along with many who came before him and undoubtedly many to follow, he is driven by an innate curiosity, stubbornness and a sense of adventure.  Dr Cole uses the UTAS 1.3-metre Harlingten telescope to search for exoplanets around stars in the direction towards the centre of the Milky Way by analysis of gravitational microlensing light curves.