RR_2012

RESEARCH REVIEW 2012

…following our rising research stars

The University of MelbourneResearch Review August 2012.

Published by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)

Level 5, 161 Barry StreetThe University of MelbourneVictoria 3010

ISSN 1441–3302

Enquiries for reprinting information contained in this publication should be made through the Editor Research Review. The information in this publication was correct at the time of printing.

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Editor: Silvia Dropulich

Design: Darren Rath®

Photography: Peter Casamento (p3,4,31 bottom left); John O’Rourke (p10,11); Supplied courtesy of Mediawise (p9); Dr Eric Hanssen (p28, top left); supplied courtesy of MUSSE (p28, bottom right), Gavin Blue (p30); Carl Thomas (p31).

Writers: Silvia Dropulich (p7,9,13,21); Dr Nerissa Hannink (p25); Eoin Hahessy (p23); Rebecca Hobden (p5); Joanne Morrison (p27); Gabrielle Murphy (p10); Annie Rahilly (p18); Rebecca Scott (p17); Zoe Nikakis and Esma Yucel (p28–33).

Views expressed by contributors to Research Review are not necessarily endorsed or approved by the University of Melbourne.

© The University of Melbourne www.unimelb.edu.au/research

Original thought comes from investigation and imagination.


2 WELCOME by Professor James McCluskey, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)

FEATURED RESEARCH

4 Understanding the world at the most fundamental level, two PhDs at a time

6 Sustaining endangered songs

8 Following new directions in animal health

10 The future of printing in the digital age

12 Protecting children’s rights

14 Using slang linguistics to make the message clear

16 Melbourne alumnus leads the way in understanding earthquakes

18 Navigating the road to medical ethics

20 Talkin’ ’bout my generation

22 The reality of reducing fire risks

24 Unravelling the complex issues around freshwater supply

26 Healthcare efficiency under the microscope

28 RESEARCH NEWS

34 AT A GLANCE: Facts and figures about research at the University of Melbourne

CONTENTS

1

…FOLLOWING OUR RISING STARS

What makes an outstanding researcher? The qualities are many and varied, but essential ingredients are curiosity, drive, persistence and passion. Hungarian biochemist and Nobel Prize winner for Medicine Albert Szent-Gyorgyi has described research as “being able to see what everyone else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought”.

Discovery comes from imagination and investigation.

Welcome to the 2012 edition of Research Review.

The focus of this edition is on our outstanding young achievers. The aim is to provide a snapshot of the career trajectory of a successful researcher – from our rising research stars, to our successful mid-career and late-career researchers.

According to the latest data available, the University of Melbourne has 3207 researchers spanning 11 faculties – engaged in diverse activities, characteristic of a comprehensive university.

The depth of talented researchers across the sciences, humanities, and social sciences is one of the globally recognised strengths of this University, as is our strong and valued affiliations with external research, community, industry and government organisations, each of which brings additional richness to our research community.

Research at this University takes many different forms and impacts on lives in many different ways: from breakthrough discoveries in cancer and astrophysics to authoritative evidence-based contributions to government policy in fields such as law, education and economics.

Our research includes partnerships with commercial and industry partners and creative contributions through the performing arts and wider cultural sphere.

This edition of Research Review, building on our past reports, provides a sample of articles highlighting the work of some our most successful researchers at different stages of their careers.

Some highlights of this review include:

Science: At just 33 years of age Dr Anthony van Eysden, who has two PhDs, will embark on the opportunity of a lifetime when he begins his two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics in Sweden. Dr van Eysden was one of only six successful applicants in a highly competitive field of 226 from around the world.

Music: It is estimated that around 98 per cent of Indigenous song traditions in Australia have been lost since colonisation. Dr Sally Treloyn is undertaking a collaborative, ethnomusicological ARC Linkage Project titled ‘Strategies for Sustaining and Preserving Aboriginal Song and Dance in the Modern World: the Mowanjum and Fitzroy River Valley communities of WA’. Dr Treloyn is one of three John McKenzie Research Fellows profiled in this review.

The McKenzie Fellowships were established in 2008 to acknowledge the outstanding contribution made by former Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) and internationally renowned geneticist Professor John McKenzie. The Fellows are selected for their potential to build and lead cross-disciplinary collaborative research activities within and across faculties.

WElCOmEto the 2012 edition of Research Review


2

Law: Working with Professor Phillip Alston, an international law scholar and human rights practitioner from the New York University Law School, Associate Professor John Tobin from the Melbourne Law School is investigating the complex legal issue of children’s rights.

Arts: Dr Caroline Hamilton, another John McKenzie Research Fellow, is examining the future of printing in the digital age. Her study hopes to establish that reports of the death of global publishing are greatly exaggerated.

In addition, there are articles in this review that highlight the research being undertaken across the full spectrum of disciplines at Melbourne: architecture, building and planning; business and economics; education; engineering; land and environment; medicine, dentistry and health sciences; and veterinary science.

The stories illustrate our vision of being a globally engaged, comprehensive, research-intensive university uniquely positioned to respond to major social, economic and environmental challenges.

To understand the University’s performance we have also included some statistics on the University’s research activity that are drawn from nationally collected data as well as international rankings.

The modest cross-section of the research presented in this review is intended to be stimulating and illuminating. I hope you will find some inspiration in this review as it celebrates the breadth and commitment of our researchers.

Professor James McCluskeyDeputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)

3

Understanding the world at the most fundamental level, two PhDs at a time

FEATURED RESEARCH

“I’ve been drawn to physics because I enjoy thinking deeply about problems and understanding how things work, at the most fundamental level.”


4

THIRTy-THREE-yEAR-OLD DR ANTHONy VAN EySDEN will soon embark on the opportunity of a lifetime when he begins his two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (NORDITA) in Sweden.

Dr van Eysden (pictured left) completed his first PhD in Physics at Melbourne in 2011, under the supervision of Associate Professor Andrew Melatos. In 2012, he submitted his second PhD in Maths, having worked closely with Professor John Sader in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.

“I never intended to do two PhDs,” says Dr van Eysden.

“I went back to university to study physics and as part of my undergraduate degree, I took a third-year maths subject with John during the summer of 2004,” he says.

“He invited me to work for a semester as a research assistant on one of his projects.”

“I looked at micro-cantilever beams and derived theoretical models for the vibration of the beams immersed in liquids.”

This predicted their behaviour for applications in Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), which was something that had been unsolved analytically up to that point, Dr van Eysden explains.

These ground-breaking theories are now being used by Caltech and other institutions around the world.

The AFM can be used in liquids where traditional forms of microscopy are inapplicable, and are routinely used to image DNA and proteins. MEMS are used for sensitive mass measurement and are capable of detecting specific biological molecules and cells, such as virus particles and cancerous cells.

Having made a name for himself in the world of mathematics, but at a career crossroads between maths and physics, Dr van Eysden decided to relinquish the maths pathway to follow his true passion.

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been drawn to physics because I enjoy thinking deeply about problems and understanding how things work, at the most fundamental level,” says Dr van Eysden.

Born in Hobart, Dr van Eysden’s first degree with honours was in engineering. He worked as an engineer for two years before realising he wanted to become a physicist.

In 2006, Dr van Eysden completed honours in physics, which was followed by his PhD on neutron stars in 2011.

“Neutron stars are ultra-compact stars left behind when a star ends its life in a supernova explosion,” says Dr van Eysden.

“Their interior is not made of atoms like on Earth, but is a sea of densely packed subatomic particles.

“Despite their high temperatures, the extreme pressure exerted by the gravitational force of all that dense matter means their interior is relatively cold.”

For Dr van Eysden studying neutron stars was fascinating, meaning that although he spent most of his time looking at equations, he had to use his imagination to picture them and remind himself that these extreme objects are actually out there.

Dr van Eysden’s research on the neutron star has been highly sought-after in physics, due to its combination of solving astrophysics, condensed matter physics and subatomic physics problems. This caught the eye of the selection panel at NORDITA, as their research focuses on these three physics disciplines. Dr van Eysden was one of only six successful applicants in a highly competitive field of 226 from around the world.

“NORDITA truly is an opportunity of a lifetime,” says Dr van Eysden.

“I’ll be doing what I love, looking at the fundamental problems of physics and having the time to think about and explore these.”

See: http://astro.physics.unimelb.edu.au/

5

Sustaining endangered songs

“The [research] project is developing and testing new strategies for preserving and sustaining Australian Aboriginal knowledge about song and dance.”


6

IT IS ESTIMATED that around 98 per cent of Indigenous song traditions in Australia have been lost since colonisation.

Dr Sally Treloyn from the Faculty of the VCA and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music believes that song knowledge in Indigenous Australia is more endangered than the languages.

“It’s often the oldest members of a society who hold songs and are masters in the poetics of songs,” says Dr Treloyn.

“And with the loss of elders comes the loss of songs.”

Dr Treloyn is a John McKenzie Research Fellow undertaking a collaborative, ethnomusicological ARC Linkage Project titled ‘Strategies for Sustaining and Preserving Australian Aboriginal Song and Dance in the Modern World: the Mowanjum and Fitzroy River Valley communities of WA’ in partnership with Professor Emeritus Allan Marett (University of Sydney), the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre and the Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre.

Through collaborative research and innovative uses of digital technologies, the project is developing and testing new strategies for preserving and sustaining Australian Aboriginal knowledge about song and dance.

Methods for repatriating, recording, documenting recordings, and disseminating recordings via digital media, and how these methods support cultural maintenance and creative innovation, are being investigated through collaboration with local,

community-led initiatives such as Art and Culture Centres, an Indigenous Ranger program, and remote community schools.

The project is identifying appropriate and efficient methods to preserve and sustain endangered song and dance that can be more broadly applied throughout Australia.

“By supporting community-led initiatives to engage young people in traditional song and dance, the research can contribute to the efforts of individual and organisational stakeholders to improve social and emotional wellbeing in their communities,” Dr Treloyn says.

She is particularly interested in the Kimberley region of northwest Australia, which holds some of Australia’s oldest and richest performance traditions.

“It is a culturally and linguistically diverse area, with some 30 distinct language groups,” Dr Treloyn says.

“It is also home to junba, one of the world’s most precious dance–song traditions.”

Dr Treloyn’s research interest is driven by a desire to develop community-led applied research that has significant benefit to both old and young people in the Kimberley, and through this brings benefit to the broader national and international community.

The highlight of her research career to date has been obtaining support for the project from the ARC and being awarded the John McKenzie Fellowship, which has enabled her to devote appropriate time and resources to the project.

Dr Treloyn says the research environment at the University of Melbourne provides an exceptional research environment for her interdisciplinary research.

“A strong ethnomusicological program led by Professor Catherine Falk and the Music, Mind and Wellbeing Interdisciplinary Initiative (MMW) provides an excellent base of expert knowledge and support in the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music,” says Dr Treloyn.

“Coupled with the vibrant interdisciplinary research network provided by the Murrup Barak Melbourne Institute for Indigenous Development, and the Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) within the School of Linguistics, my research enjoys a supportive research environment across multiple disciplines.”

According to Dr Treloyn, there is an emerging, strong community of researchers engaged in applied ethnomusicology across the world, within which Australian research is considered to be a leader.

See: www.conservatorium.unimelb.edu.au/staff/sallytreloyn

7

AN EARLy CAREER RESEARCHER gaining a high profile, Dr Joanne Devlin attributes her success to a combination of excellent mentors, a great research team, a supportive family and long days and nights in the lab or in front of the computer.

Dr Devlin (pictured right) is a lecturer in Public Health (Epidemiology) at the University’s Faculty of Veterinary Science as well as an Australian Research Council postdoctoral research fellow.

“Mentors are really important in research because so much is best learnt by example,” says Dr Devlin.

“I was fortunate to have many excellent mentors and now I try to provide the same sort of support to my own staff and students.”

Dr Devlin is motivated by her curiosity, which inspires her interest in animals and infectious diseases. Her work in veterinary public health is concerned with the links between human health, animal health and environmental health, and sits within the infectious diseases, public health and biosecurity research cluster within the Faculty of Veterinary Science. She leads a small group of staff and postgraduate students and also collaborates widely within the Faculty and with external researchers from Zoos Victoria, Victorian Department of Primary Industries and Monash University.

“My research focuses on the pathogenesis and epidemiology of veterinary infectious diseases with the aim of improving disease control and enhancing animal health and welfare,” says Dr Devlin.

“I am investigating infectious agents that cause disease in companion animals, livestock and wildlife species.

“The overarching aim of this research is to develop tools and strategies to control infectious diseases in animal populations.”

Controlling infectious diseases in animals benefits the animals directly by improving their health and welfare but also has broader benefits for human and environmental health, according to Dr Devlin.

For example, new animal vaccines not only prevent disease in vaccinated animals but can also decrease our reliance on antibiotics to treat infected animals.

This reduces the volume of antibiotics in the food chain and the environment and helps to minimise the emergence of antibiotic resistance. Recently, Dr Devlin observes, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified antibiotic resistance as one of the three greatest threats to human health.

“In the long term, I hope to contribute to the improved control, or even eradication, of the animal diseases that I am studying,” says Dr Devlin.

“In the shorter term, I hope to perform high-quality research that has national and international relevance.

“In my everyday work, I aim to contribute to a creative and productive research environment in the Faculty and help others to achieve their research goals.”

Dr Devlin graduated with a Bachelor of Veterinary Science (Honours) from the University of Sydney in 2001 and worked in private veterinary practice in Victoria before completing a PhD in microbiology at the University of Melbourne.

During her undergraduate degree she became very interested in infectious diseases, especially viruses and how they cause disease.

“I am fortunate that this job lets me combine my interests in animals and infectious diseases,” says Dr Devlin.

“I hope that continuing to follow my passions will lead me down the path of becoming an accomplished later career researcher.

“I try to keep my research program flexible so that I can follow new directions as animal health problems arise and change.”

See: www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/researcher/person29366.html

Following new directions in animal health


8

“The overarching aim of this research is to develop tools and strategies to control infectious diseases in animal populations.”

9

The future of printing in the digital ageIT WAS WIDELy THOUGHT that the wireless would prove the death of newspapers, TV would subsume the movies, CDs make vinyl redundant and video kill the radio star.

Contemporary opinion now predicts the demise of the book as a result of the digital tablet, but a new study by early career researcher Caroline Hamilton hopes to establish that reports of the death of global publishing are greatly exaggerated.

The city of Melbourne enjoys a long and rich tradition of publishing. It is hardly surprising that the changes being wrought by an all-pervading digital culture are causing widespread anxiety in traditional publishing circles and amongst book lovers and avid readers. Their questions are universal, often repeated and subsequently debated by opposing adherents of printed versus digital channels: ‘What is to become of the printed book or the literary magazine?’ ‘What is happening to the activity of reading and the concept of readership?’

Focusing on the Melbourne publishing industry and the impact of digital communications on the rich tradition and communities that have been established here, early career researcher Caroline Hamilton is working to provide answers to such questions in the global context by examining the impact of recent changes on a small, local scale.


10

“I’m especially interested in understanding how new technologies and traditional media for literature can coexist, and in the new opportunities that social media and online networks have opened up for the creation of literary communities,” says Dr Hamilton.

“As a consequence of conducting my research here in Melbourne, an official UNESCO City of Literature, I’ve also become very interested in researching just exactly what it means for the local citizens to be part of a literary city.”

Dr Hamilton was awarded an inaugural John McKenzie Fellowship from the University of Melbourne in 2010 to further her innovative research and build and lead cross-disciplinary collaborative research activities within and across faculties.

Dr Hamilton’s impressive and ground-breaking research also attracted an Australian Endeavour Fellowship in the same year and gave her the opportunity to travel to the United Kingdom to conduct research in collaboration with the Institute for the Future of the Book in London and, in the process, pilot some ideas of how bookshops might continue to connect with local communities in a digital landscape.

“I’m very pleased to say that this research provided the inspiration for the local experimental Future Bookshop at the National Gallery of Victoria that will be part of this

year’s Emerging Writers’ Festival in Melbourne,” says Dr Hamilton.

“While over in the UK I also had the opportunity to establish links with the Edinburgh City of Literature Trust. I hope that with the support of Melbourne’s City of Literature board we can create some opportunities for collaborative research between our two cities over the coming years.”

Dr Hamilton credits the opportunity provided by the University of Melbourne and its McKenzie Fellowship as a crucial ingredient in enabling and progressing her important work in these early years of her academic career.

“I’ve found a great range of people here really motivated and committed to research and teaching – especially in my discipline of publishing and communications,” she says.

“As far as I’m concerned a project like this could only happen at an institution like the University of Melbourne.

“Melbourne has a long history of research and expertise in this field and it has the established contacts and supportive research environment that research like mine requires.”

See: www.archive.uninews.unimelb.edu.au/view-21391.html

“I’m especially interested in understanding how new technologies and traditional media for literature can coexist.”

11

Protecting children’s rights


12

HARDLy A DAy GOES PAST when a complex issue concerning children does not arise in Australian society.

For example, in just a three-day period in February 2011 The Age carried stories on discipline in schools, child sex trafficking in the Northern Territory, food labelling laws and children’s health, refugee children in detention, paternity testing, bail hostels for juvenile offenders, child labour, the impact of children living in same-sex-parented families and yet another review of child protection laws.

Each of these issues, according to seasoned researcher Associate Professor John Tobin from the Melbourne Law School, requires the development of a new policy response or a critique of existing responses.

“Historically, the welfare model, with its emphasis on the best interests of the child, has tended to shape, at least in part, the response to these issues,” says Associate Professor Tobin.

“However, since the adoption of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), the recognition that children have rights has come to represent a major shift in contemporary responses to the issues confronting children in society.”

Associate Professor Tobin has published numerous reports and articles on human rights, especially children’s rights. Last year he was awarded $297,000 in ARC Discovery funding for the project ‘Children’s Rights: From Theory to Practice’. He is working on this project with Professor Phillip Alston from the New York University Law School.

The project will examine the historical and philosophical foundations of children’s rights and the measures required for their implementation.

“The project proceeds on the basis that the limited understanding of children’s rights undermines their capacity to contribute to the resolution of the complex issues confronting children,” says Associate Professor Tobin.

“The significance of this project lies in its capacity to address this deficit.”

“It is grounded in an Australian experience and perspective but is deliberately designed to reflect a truly cosmopolitan perspective and thus to generate insights that will assist in the implementation of the CRC in all of the 193 states that are parties to it.”

Children’s rights are important but their scope is contested. Associate Professor Tobin’s project will clarify their meaning. The research will provide guidance to legislators, policy makers and advocates working with or for children, and generate a deeper understanding of the role of rights in resolving some of the major challenges facing children in Australia and around the world.

The practical impact of the CRC has been undermined by four phenomena, Associate Professor Tobin explains. The first consists of diverse challenges to the coherence of the concept of children’s rights, which its rights proponents have been reluctant to answer.

Second is the isolation of much of the legal analysis of the CRC from interdisciplinary perspectives, which are of crucial importance in arriving at a balanced and viable interpretation of the various rights.

Third is the failure to contextualise rights claims under the CRC in a way that takes adequate account of conflicts among different rights and of problems such as those relating to scarce resources and cultural resistance to change.

And fourth is the failure of lawyers to promote a systematic and integrated jurisprudence surrounding the various rights recognised in the CRC.

“This project aims to address each of these four concerns and offer an account of the rights under the CRC that can guide policy makers, decision makers, practitioners, academics and advocates working with or for children,” says Associate Professor Tobin.

See: www.law.unimelb.edu.au/melbourne-law-school/community/our-staff/staff-profile/username/john%20tobin

“Children’s rights are important but their scope is contested.”

13

HOW DO COMPUTERS kEEP UP with the constant evolution of human language? New words are coined every day and established words are commonly used with new meanings. Computer scientist Dr Paul Cook, Research Fellow at the Department of Computing and Information Systems, is working in the field of computational linguistics to make it easier for computers to interpret the language we use.

Dr Cook researches computational linguistics with a focus on slang and neologisms. Slang is a form of language usage that tends to act as a marker for different social groups and neologisms are new words or new meanings of words.

Dr Cook, who hails from Canada, joined the Department of Computing and Information Systems after receiving a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellowship to pursue his research at the University of Melbourne.

His research considers neologisms and slang from both aspects of computational linguistics – i.e. that is, it considers computational systems that do tasks related to language (like Google Translate), and how computational methods can be applied to study language in new ways.

For example, words like ‘complisult’ (‘compliment’ + ‘insult’) and ‘globesity’ (‘global’ + ‘obesity’) are referred to as lexical blends. During his PhD, Dr Cook built a computational model to automatically determine the words that form a given lexical blend. The model can be used by another language technology system to process blends more intelligently, but also gives insight into factors that enable humans to interpret blends.

Computer systems that do tasks related to human language often rely on a computational lexicon, which is like a dictionary for computers. Because languages change over time, computational lexicons can quickly go out-of-date. When words or word-senses are missing from a computational lexicon, the performance of a system using that lexicon will suffer.

“By building methods to automatically discover information about words that are not available in a computational lexicon, we can potentially build better applied language technology systems,” Dr Cook says.

For example, a massive number of tweets are sent every day, and automatic analysis of this data can be used for positive social applications such as coordinating responses to natural disasters and identifying outbreaks of disease. The large number of non-standard usages on Twitter (e.g. ‘tmrw’ for ‘tomorrow’) makes automatic processing of the data more difficult. Building an automatic language technology that could quickly and accurately interpret these messages has the potential to save lives.

Recently, Dr Cook has been working on automatically identifying words that have taken on a new sense. For example the word ‘cloud’ has taken on a new sense meaning ‘Internet-based computational resources’. Dr Cook’s team has developed a method to automatically identify such new senses based on differences in the contexts in which a word occurs in more-recent texts, versus older texts.

“The method could have applications in helping to keep dictionaries and computational lexicons up-to-date.”

Dr Cook aims to improve the quality of applied language technology systems through his research and hopes that the methods he is developing for automatically inferring information about words may be applied to build new types of dictionaries in the future.

“Other potential outcomes of the research could be discovering previously undocumented differences between dialects, which could improve dictionaries and lead to the development of new language technology tools such as spelling checkers that are better suited to particular dialects,” Dr Cook says.



14

Using slang linguistics to make the message clear

“Building an automatic language technology that could quickly and accurately interpret these messages has the potential to save lives.”

15

Canadian-born geologist Dr Mark Quigley recently received the New Zealand Prime Minister's Science Media Communications Prize for his informed analysis of the Canterbury earthquakes. Dr Quigley received his PhD from the University of Melbourne and has extensive experience monitoring Indo-Australian tectonic plate movements.


16

A SERIES OF EARTHQUAkES have recently hit New Zealand with the Canterbury earthquake in 2010 measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale and more recently, a 6.3 magnitude event devastating the city of Christchurch in February 2011.

Researchers are investigating these events to help better understand their cause and recurrence.

Geologist Dr Mark Quigley, a postgraduate alumnus of the University of Melbourne School of Earth Sciences and now based at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, is focusing on understanding the country’s history of fault lines and the geological sources of earthquakes. He has recently given his 50th lecture since September 2010 on the Canterbury earthquake and its fault lines and is regarded as an earthquake expert.

“Earthquakes pose an incredibly difficult and unresolved problem as there is still no reliable short-term prediction scheme,” says Dr Quigley (pictured left).

“But there are many important things we can do in the earthquake-hazard field of research that impact directly on society.”

These include: understanding where active faults are located; the potential earthquake magnitudes they might generate; how often they do so; and the effects that the seismic energy would have on our cities.

“This is all fundamental information that helps us to develop seismic hazard models that are used to inform our building codes,” says Dr Quigley.

“The work is so important, and never-ending, particularly in a place like New Zealand.”

Dr Quigley is currently directing several research programs focused on understanding aspects of the Christchurch earthquakes.

According to Dr Quigley the obvious question for a geologist is: ‘Can we see evidence for prehistoric earthquake sequences such as events like the Canterbury–Christchurch earthquakes in the geologic record?’ His team is digging trenches one to two meters deep through waterlogged sands and silts to see if evidence for past liquefaction events in Christchurch can be found. Liquefaction is the shaking-induced transformation of saturated sands to behave like a liquid. The research team is also trying to get an idea of how frequently the area has experienced similar liquefaction events.

In a similar vein Dr Quigley and his team are attempting to date prehistoric rock falls using cutting-edge geochemical techniques to determine rock fall recurrence intervals, post the Canterbury earthquake.

Most of Dr Quigley’s research is focused on combining new technologies, such as airborne laser

scanning (making 3D images to map faults underneath thick vegetative cover), with traditional field-based approaches to better understand the behaviour of New Zealand’s active fault lines.

Dr Quigley says he is particularly interested in how earthquake activity impacts on how landscapes evolve. He works frequently with GNS Science, a government crown research institute in New Zealand, and in Australia with colleagues from the University of Melbourne and ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation). He has worked in Iran, Mexico, USA and Tibet on similar studies on active fault systems.

Regarding the future, he wants to build the Active Tectonics research program at the University of Canterbury to the stage where it is globally regarded as one of the best places in the world to study paleo-seismology.

“I’ve always been very interested in geomorphic expression, why landscapes look the way they do, and in their tectonic activity, and then communicating that to the broader community,” says Dr Quigley.

“I hope my research makes a real impact for the people who live near earthquake fault lines, as a lot of the communities do in New Zealand.”

See: www.drquigs.com

melbourne alumnus leads the way in understanding earthquakes

17

PARENTS ARE ENTITLED TO PARENT without interference from other people or the state. But when it comes to medical decision making, the scope of this entitlement is far less clear.

Entering this minefield of ethics is Dr Rosalind McDougall from the Centre for Health and Society, who, thanks to a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) from the Australian Research Council (ARC), has embarked on researching the question ‘when should health professionals override parents’ decisions about a child’s medical treatment?.’

The DECRA funding offers Dr McDougall a unique opportunity to work with additional flexibility. A new scheme of the ARC, it was initiated in recognition of statistics indicating the low success rate for early career women gaining post docs. She is pleased to be in the first cohort of this scheme so she can continue to work part-time and be a parent to her young family.

Dr McDougall is looking at the rights and obligations of parents and health professionals and how they interface. We start from a common premise: both parties care deeply about the child’s wellbeing. Sometimes however, conflict arises. A key aim of the project is to produce guidelines for paediatric health professionals about ethical issues to consider when dealing with conflict in their practice.

Parents’ medical decisions for their children can be overridden through legal action by hospitals and it is not uncommon for parents and health professionals to disagree. What is the extent of parents’ decision-making entitlements? What are the ethical responsibilities of health professionals to the children they treat? How should this type of conflict be resolved? In Australia, there are currently over half a million hospital admissions for children under the age of fifteen annually. The vast numbers of families interacting with paediatric hospitals means that opportunities for conflicts about parental decisions to arise with hospital staff are potentially extensive.

Working with the Children’s Bioethics Centre at the Royal Children’s Hospital and the Centre for Health and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr McDougall believes that her research can help create a framework that can inform and guide the ethical issues that emerge in a care situation.

“I am interested in practical medical ethics and how to deal with the issues from the ground up. I am equally interested in ethical issues around parenthood. I hope my work will deliver social benefits to the Australian community by facilitating ethical health care practice and contributing to avoiding friction between parents and health professionals in the already stressful environment of paediatric health care,” says Dr McDougall.

In the first year of the project, she will analyse real-life instances of paediatric professionals disagreeing with parents’ medical decisions. She believes that storytelling is a valuable tool for communicating in ethics. “The richness that comes from real people’s stories is more insightful and reflective of real life. Stories have a role to play in ethical analysis and can transport you directly to an issue.”

Three years of funding spaced over six years gives Dr McDougall a chance to learn, discover and contribute to this important debate.

“In the end, both parents and clinicians bring great expertise, and at the core of this, is caring for children.”

See: www.chs.unimelb.edu.au

Navigating the road to medical ethics

“In Australia, there are currently over half a million hospital admissions for children under the age of fifteen annually.”


18

Talkin’ ’bout my generation

“How young people experience educational and social inequalities is a persistent problem for educational policy, practice and research.”


20

A STUDy OF yOUTH IDENTITy and educational change in Australia since the 1950s will investigate how the ideas and experiences of young people have changed in this country across the 1950s, 70s and 90s.

The study, titled ‘Youth identity and educational change in Australia since 1950: digital archiving, re-using qualitative data and histories of the present’, is led by ARC Future Fellow, Professor Julie McLeod, from the Melbourne School of Graduate Education.

“How young people experience educational and social inequalities is a persistent problem for educational policy, practice and research, and it is a fundamental question underpinning my research agenda,” says Professor McLeod.

“The study investigates the changing forms and experience of youth inequality and educational change since the 1950s, and associated expert knowledge, educational discourses and policy responses,” she says.

“It seeks to better understand the different ways in which problems about young people and their education have been formulated and addressed, from the time of the expansion of secondary schooling in the 1950s to the present day.”

Professor McLeod was inspired by oral histories she had undertaken on people’s memories of schooling and she wanted to know more about the relationship between educational changes and the shaping of people’s lives, and how this compared in different historical periods. She was also motivated by what she sees as a need to renew and develop historical studies of education, which she believes have been somewhat neglected in recent years.

Professor McLeod, a successful mid-career researcher, applied for and was awarded a four-year $742,377 ARC Future Fellowship to complete the study.

Her study combines historical research, including re-analysis of earlier empirical studies of young people, with a new ‘born digital’ qualitative longitudinal study of young people living in contrasting locations, as they move through senior schooling and into the world beyond. A digital archive of the study will be created for future researchers.

Professor McLeod is working with colleagues at Manchester, Sussex and Leeds Universities in the UK and with the UK Data archive of qualitative studies, Qualidata, at Essex University. She also has research links with colleagues at Teachers College, Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. These involve her in conversations with leading scholars in her field, helping to generate comparative understandings and seed new ideas.

Professor McLeod’s field of research is socio-cultural studies of education, and her specific areas of expertise are youth identity, gender, and social inequalities and differences in relation to processes of educational change.

“This work has investigated pressing social issues concerning young people’s pathways through school, their social values and navigation of future roles and identities, citizenship and social inclusion, changes in gender relations and educational reforms to redress inequalities,” she explains.

Since being awarded a PhD in 1996, Professor McLeod has consistently held externally funded and competitive research grants. She has won grants from the ARC, the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (CSSHRC), the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and competitive tenders from the former Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

Professor McLeod believes successful research thrives on one being clear about the problems that matter, and about what one can and cannot do, including being confident enough to follow your hunches. The challenge is always to balance the time required for research and the time for your own life.

See: www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/cgi-bin/public/staff_profile.cgi?id=13955

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“Our regulations have so far tended to look at the source of the fire being the forest, rather than the building, and our current regulations do not fully take this into account.”


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A RESEARCH PROJECT conducted at the University is examining Australia’s traditional response to bushfires and is seeking to promote an integrated approach, which will help make Australia a world leader in this form of fire prevention.

Bushfires are a common feature of Australian life and the devastating impact of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria will remain permanently etched in the psyche of the nation. Seeking to ensure Australia learns from its experiences with natural disasters, the Office of the Emergency Services Commissioner provides funding through the Natural Disaster Resilience Grants Scheme (NDRGS) to research conducted in this sphere.

Dr Alan March, a mid-career researcher from the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne, and his team composed of members from CISRO and RMIT were the recent recipients of a $192,000 research grant for a project titled ‘Suitability indices for human settlement fire prevention’. The project is examining the way that fires progressed from the bush through to urban areas and what factors influenced the progression of these fires.

“We have tended in Australia to see the bushfire as something beyond our control, a force of nature, and we have to just take our chances,” says Dr March.

“This is a common misconception in the area of disasters generally but it doesn’t match the reality of what can actually be done to reduce these risks.”

The research project team is using empirical data from the 2009 bushfires and examining the urban edges of Melbourne and regional cities in Victoria.

“When a fire progresses to a human settlement, essentially the last part of its energy is expended at the urban edge,” Dr March explains.

“That energy could be huge if it’s a heavily vegetated forest, but if you are able to stop that energy being converted into fire at the urban edge, then you have been successful.”

Dr March and his team are looking at factors that can assist in stopping the spread of bushfires through urban areas. These factors include the quality of building materials, the nature of fences, garden plants, and the use of parks and nature reserves. According to Dr March, our regulations have so far tended to look at the source of the fire being the forest, rather than the building, and our current regulations do not fully take this into account. “This research feeds into attempts to improve our regulations to account for fire progression within settlements,” says Dr March.

In recent years there has been a growing recognition that an integrated approach to reducing the spread of bushfires is highly important.

“Previously we had the forest managers looking at the forest, planners looking at planning controls and the builders looking at the structures,” Dr March explains.

“The people who work in this area understand these aspects are related but the way in which they integrated wasn’t particularly good.

“What we have now is an important transition stage in our policy environment where the planning and building controls are being improved so that they are integrated.”

The research by Dr March and his team is seeking to provide more evidence to support that integration to include elements that have previously been ignored.

Australian researchers are now world leaders in this area. It will continue to be important to meet this ongoing threat, even though, Dr March observes, it is the nature of natural disasters that people tend to forget about them.

“This project works hard to keep momentum going,” he says.

See: http://ndmri.research.unimelb.edu.au/

The reality of reducing fire risks

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Unravelling the complex issues around freshwater supply


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IF IT WERE NOT FOR a chance visit to China 15 years ago, geographer Michael Webber would have had a very different research career. He now divides his time between Australia and China, trying to understand the issues around the supply of freshwater – our most important natural resource.

The relationship between humans and their environment is a complex interaction, which has fascinated Professor Michael Webber during his 45-year research career.

Based in the Melbourne School of Land and Environment at the University of Melbourne, Professor Webber has now assembled a multidisciplinary, international team to identify the multiple drivers of risk to freshwater supply in Shanghai, opportunities for adaptation to sustain that supply, and the barriers and limits to these adaptations.

“I first became interested in China when encouraged by one of my graduate students to visit there 15 years ago,” says Professor Webber.

“I previously worked on US and Australian industrial economic geography, but my work in China has expanded my research to include more physical geography due to the importance of understanding how human actions affect rivers and vice versa.”

Professor Webber is now in the first stages of an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, which began in 2011 and will finish in 2014, with collaborators Professor Jon Barnett, Associate Professors Brian Finlayson and Mark Wang and Professor Zhongyuan Chen. They were awarded $534,000 over four years for the project entitled ‘Adapting to climate, management and policy driven risks to freshwater supply in Shanghai’.

The research team is currently trying to understand the ways in which people’s actions have modified the physical characteristics of the Yangzi River.

“By volume, the Yangzi River is the third largest in the world,” Professor Webber explains. “But it is now running into induced shortages in supplying Shanghai’s 23 million people with water.”

The river management issues include a sea level rise (due to climate change) that brings in more salt water to Shanghai’s freshwater estuary, the modification of flow by dams along the river, and the diversion of water to northern China through the south–north transfers.

“Like the Murray-Darling River system in Australia, the Yangzi is affected by policy decisions in different locations along its course,” says Professor Webber.

“These decisions are taken by many different bodies, at different levels of government, and cumulatively, they have enormous effects on the river.

“Our work will hopefully provide an understanding of social and environmental relationships in a complex political environment, which is a common situation in so many nations.”

The next phases of the research project concern what can be done to secure a water supply for Shanghai, and the social and political barriers to achieving those solutions.

The international research team meet weekly over Skype to discuss the project and Professor Webber visits China three times a year, providing him with intensive practice to speak and read the Mandarin language.

Reflected in his international and interdisciplinary research, Professor Webber believes the key to a successful research career is openness to new experiences, adaptability and the ability to see the long view of research when writing grants.

“It also helps to find a great team of friends to work with, and my interesting graduate students do keep teaching me new things. I have now worked on a couple of research projects with the student who first took me to China.”


“Our work will hopefully provide an understanding of social and environmental relationships in a complex political environment, which is a common situation in so many nations.”

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“The award will support research into the factors which influence doctors’ decisions on how many hours to work, where they work, and when they will retire.”


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THE UNIVERSITy can further develop its research into the working practices of doctors thanks to a new award of $2.5 million from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) for the Centre for Research Excellence in Medical Workforce Dynamics.

Professor Anthony Scott, who has devoted his research career to looking at efficiency in healthcare systems, leads the Centre.

He and his team will use the award to support an additional five waves of The Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) longitudinal survey of doctors.

The award will support research into the factors which influence doctors’ decisions on how many hours to work, where they work, and when they will retire.

In 2005, Professor Scott was appointed as a Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Institute for Applied Economic and Social Research, where he leads the Health Economics Research Program.

Professor Scott’s interest in efficiency in healthcare began at the University of York in northern England, where he studied health economics.

After completing a PhD at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, Professor Scott moved to senior research roles at the Universities of Aberdeen, Newcastle in (northeast England), Sydney and York.

Shortly after joining the University of Melbourne he was awarded an ARC (Australian Research Council) Future Fellowship, a scheme created by the Australian Government in 2008 to promote research in areas of national importance by giving researchers incentives to conduct their research in Australia, and to attract and retain the best career researchers.

Working alongside professors from Monash University, Professor Scott leads a team in research areas which he says are vital for looking at efficiency in healthcare systems.

“The Centre provides much-needed evidence on the factors that influence doctors’ decisions; in turn these decisions have important effects on the population’s access to healthcare, costs, and health outcomes,” Professor Scott explains.

“The research is also examining rural medical workforce supply, including factors which contribute to the retention of general practitioners in rural and remote areas,” he says.

The recent award by the NHMRC builds on other recognition for Professor Scott’s work. Last year he received an ARC Discovery Grant for a three-year project to look at the determinants of prices charged by doctors, focusing on the role of competition and the individual doctor and practice characteristics.

Professor Scott says funding of this type has been instrumental in allowing for research capacity to be developed at the Centre so that researchers can provide work of the highest international quality.

Since the development of the MABEL project in 2008, more than 10,000 doctors have been surveyed to gather information on their decision-making.

Professor Scott says this response has been key to producing research that is policy-relevant and high quality.

“This data provides a key national resource for those conducting research on the medical workforce, with de-identified data available for others to use,” says Professor Scott.

“We very much appreciate the commitment shown by those completing the survey each year. We hope they will stay with us as MABEL enters this new phase. This recent award would not have been possible without the hard work of our research team in analysing the data and turning it into policy-relevant evidence that is beginning to be used to inform medical workforce policies.”

See: www.mabel.org.au

Healthcare efficiency under the microscope

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RESEARCH NEWS‘Spooning’ wins science to art award

Four researchers affiliated with the University have been recognised in the 2012 Premier’s Award for Health and medical Research

Bio21 Institute Electron Microscopy Unit Facility Manager and Senior Research Fellow Dr Eric Hanssen has been awarded the 2011 National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) Science to Art Award for his image, ‘Spooning’.

The Award recognises outstanding examples of the art which can arise from the research funded by NHMRC. Winners were announced at the NHMRC’s 75th Anniversary Scientific Symposium on 29 November. Dr Hanssen is internationally recognised in the field of high resolution imaging of the malaria parasite.

He said he entered the competition because he already had the images on his computer, and decided since he did all the work, it was worth spending five minutes sending one to the NHMRC.

“I think it was my best work so far, not necessarily in scientific terms, but more on the 3D graphics and rendering side of things. I was quite happy with the metal look – I usually find a lot of flaws in my renderings, but not this time.”

Dr Stefan Gehrig has been awarded the prestigious 2012 Premier’s Award for Health and Medical Research, for a discovery into a potential treatment for muscular dystrophy. The three commendations all went to other University of Melbourne researchers.

Dr Gehrig’s award recognises achievement by Victoria’s early career health and medical researchers. The Department of Physiology, where Dr Gehrig conducted the research, also received the $30,000 Jack and Robert Smorgon Families Award.

“Many of the past winners have gone on to have highly distinguished careers in medical research and I hope I can follow in their footsteps,” said Dr Gehrig (pictured below).

The three University applicants who received commendations for their work were each presented with $8,000 for their outstanding contribution in the field of health and medical research:

Dr Sophie Valkenburg, a PhD student at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, was awarded for her research on the role of T-cells in recognising and protecting against different influenza viruses.

Mr Michael Livingston, a researcher with Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, was recognised for his work on the availability of alcohol and its effect on consumption, health and social problems. His research has led to changes in alcohol regulation in Victoria. Mr Livingston undertook his PhD at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Health and Society.

Dr Elena Tucker, a researcher with the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, was commended for her work into mitochondrial disease – characterised by an inability to generate the energy required for normal bodily functions and often with fatal consequences. Dr Tucker undertook her PhD at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute through the University of Melbourne’s Department of Paediatrics.


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Jumping fish to save the salmon industry millions of dollars

Scientists have shown for the first time that salmon can be artificially stimulated to leap through the surface of water, opening the door to effective sea lice treatment. Sea lice infection costs the global industry more than $500 million each year.

Dr Tim Dempster from the University of Melbourne and researchers from the Institute of Marine Research in Norway have demonstrated that by keeping salmon away from the water’s surface with a net barrier for a day, more than 90 per cent of salmon would jump several times through the surface in the two hours following the barrier’s removal.

In the 1990s, scientists trialled a

de-lousing method where a thin layer of oil containing a sea lice treatment chemical was added to the water’s surface in the hope that salmon would jump through and coat themselves in the treatment. However, the trials revealed that salmon didn’t jump frequently enough and the chemical would break down in the sunlight, rendering the method ineffective.

“In response to this problem, our study has demonstrated a way to induce salmon jumping behaviour so that it is frequent and predictable, therefore ensuring the surface treatment method is effective in de-lousing salmon,” Dr Dempster said. The research is published in the latest edition of the Journal of Animal Science.

Veterinary vaccines found to combine into new viruses

Research from the University of Melbourne has shown that two different vaccine viruses – used simultaneously to control the same condition in chickens – have combined to produce new infectious viruses.

The vaccines were used to control infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT), an acute respiratory disease occurring in chickens worldwide. ILT can have up to 20 per cent mortality rate in some flocks and has a significant economic and welfare impact in the poultry industry.

The research found that when two different ILT vaccine strains were used in the same populations, they combined into two new strains (a process known as recombination), resulting in disease outbreaks.

Neither the ILT virus nor the new strains can be transmitted to humans or other animals, and they do not pose a food safety risk.

The study was led by Dr Joanne Devlin, Professor Glenn Browning and Dr Sang-Won Lee and colleagues at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health at the University of Melbourne and NICTA’s Victoria Research Laboratory and was published in July 2012 in the international journal Science.

Dr Devlin said the combining of live vaccine virus strains outside of the laboratory was previously thought to be highly unlikely, but this study shows that it is possible and has led to disease outbreaks in poultry flocks.

“We alerted the Australian Pesticide and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) to our findings and they are now working closely with our research team, vaccine registrants and the poultry industry to determine both short and long-term regulatory actions,” she said.

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University researchers named winners of Pm’s Science Prize

Professor David Solomon has been awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science for his role in revolutionising polymer science.

Professor Solomon, a Professorial Fellow in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering was joint winner of the $300,000 prize with Professor Ezio Rizzardo from the CSIRO.

Professor Stuart Wyithe received the $50,000 Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year for his work on the physics of the formation of the universe.

Professors Solomon and Rizzardo devised a means of custom-building plastics and other polymers for tasks at the cutting edge of technology. Their revolutionary chemical theories and processes are used in almost every university chemistry department and in the laboratories and factories of up to 100 companies.

Professor Solomon said he was delighted to have won this prestigious award. “I pay tribute to my co-recipient Professor Ezio Rizzardo and the entire research team,” he said.

Theoretical Physicist Professor Stuart Wyithe will use his prize money to tackle big problems which can now be explored using a new, multi-billion-dollar generation of telescopes including the Giant Magellan Telescope.

Australian scientist wins major international awardAn Australian paediatric neurologist is one of five international scientists to win the prestigious L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science Award for her groundbreaking research into epilepsy.

Professor Ingrid Scheffer has been awarded the title of Laureate for the Asia-Pacific region and is only the third Australian to receive the award. Professor Scheffer holds a chair at the University of Melbourne, is a senior principal research fellow at Florey Neurosciences Institutes and is a paediatric neurologist and epileptologist at Austin Health and the Royal Children’s Hospital.

Professor Scheffer has devoted the last 20 years to clinical research focused on epilepsy. She has identified many new forms of epilepsy and, together with molecular science collaborators, discovered multiple genes that cause seizures.

Professor Scheffer’s clinical research has focused on the genetics and different types of epilepsies, and on novel antiepileptic therapies. For 20 years she has led the field of epilepsy genetics research, collaborating with colleagues to identify the first known epilepsy gene and 13 of the 23 genes currently known.


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The IBm Blue Gene/Q, the world’s greenest supercomputer and one of Australia’s fastest supercomputers

The University’s Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative (VLSCI) will be home to one of Australia’s fastest supercomputers and the world’s greenest supercomputer, the IBM Blue Gene/Q. The acquisition of the IBM supercomputer is the second stage of an agreement between IBM and the University to provide next generation computational capacity for life sciences research within the VLSCI in conjunction with the IBM Research Collaboratory for Life Sciences – Melbourne.

The Victorian Government and the University established the $100 million VLSCI to strengthen the research capabilities and outcomes of Victorian life sciences research. The VLSCI has drawn computation and biology experts from around the world to manage the supercomputer resource and provide training and support to researchers unaccustomed to working at this scale.

The IBM supercomputer will provide 836 teraflops of processing power – the equivalent computing power of more than 20,000 desktop computers – making it one of the fastest supercomputers in Australia, based on the Top 500 list (www.top500.org), and the fastest supercomputer dedicated to life sciences research in the southern hemisphere.

Professor Jim McCluskey, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), said the machine’s gigantic capacity would assist life sciences researchers to fast-track solutions to some of the most debilitating health conditions.

“Through this supercomputer, scientists will be able to advance their work in finding cures and developing improved treatments for cancer, epilepsy and other devastating diseases affecting the lives of Australians and people worldwide,” Professor McCluskey said.

Celebrating the 2012 mckenzie fellows

The 2012 McKenzie Fellows were officially welcomed to the University at a lunch with senior staff and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor James McCluskey, and internationally renowned geneticist Professor John McKenzie, whom the fellowships honour.

Established in 2008, the fellowships are post-doctoral awards made to outstanding recent doctoral graduates from universities outside the University of Melbourne. Fellows are selected for their potential to build and lead cross-disciplinary collaborative research activities within and across faculties.

Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Lyn Yates said the McKenzie scheme complements other forms of recruiting, and signals strongly to the international community the University’s research commitments and interest in attracting the best scholars of the next generation.

The 2012 McKenzie Fellows are: Abigail Albright, PhD (Arkansas); Scott Flower, PhD (ANU); Emily Forbes, PhD (Oxford); Jessica Gerrard, PhD (Cambridge); James Hullick, PhD (RMIT); Xu Li, PhD (Monash); Lim Chee Liew, PhD (UTas); Maja Lovric, PhD (La Trobe; Ranjith Rajasekharan Unnithan, PhD (Cambridge); Bridget Vincent, PhD (Cambridge); Lesley Pruitt, PhD (UQ); Jonathan Roffe, PhD (UTas); and Elizabeth Taylor, PhD (RMIT).

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Smart and Deadly: a DVD resource covering sexual health topics

Strategies needed to improve Vitamin D awareness

Respectful relationships, sexual health and feeling proud to be an Aboriginal teenager are some of the topics covered in a new DVD resource created by young people in Northeast Victoria through the University’s Centre for Excellence in Rural Sexual Health (CERSH).

The DVD and YouTube clip, called Smart and Deadly, is a guide for professionals and organisations wanting to collaborate with Aboriginal communities to deliver sexual health promotion to rural Aboriginal youth.

Following the journey of a year-long project with an Aboriginal community in Northeast Victoria, the DVD illustrates the key principles that guide respectful

and inclusive partnerships with Aboriginal communities.

This project was coordinated and funded by CERSH at the Rural Health Academic Centre and by the Department of Health, Victoria. The Hume Region in Northern Victoria has the largest regional Aboriginal community in Victoria.

CERSH worked with 20 local and statewide Aboriginal organisations, health and community services and educational institutions, using the principles of community development and Aboriginal health promotion practice.

See: www.youtube.com/user/ smartanddeadlykoori?feature= results_main

Almost one-third of adults over the age of 25 have a vitamin D deficiency, a new study evaluating the vitamin D status of Australian adults has found.

The paper is the largest study of its kind, drawing on 11,218 people from the AusDiab Study and includes Australians from Darwin to Hobart. Professor Rob Daly, Chair of Exercise and Ageing at Deakin University, honorary fellow at the University of Melbourne and the study leader said the findings showed strategies were now needed to improve vitamin D awareness.

The overall prevalence of vitamin D deficiency was 31 per cent, with women being more commonly affected (39 per cent vs 23 per cent in men, overall). When evaluated by season and latitude, 42 per cent of women and 27 per cent of men in southern Australia during summer/autumn had deficient levels, which increased to 58 per cent in women and 35 per cent in men during winter/spring. This indicated that late winter and early spring were the best times to measure vitamin D levels in the blood to detect deficiency.

Vitamin D is necessary for optimal health. Those at greatest risk for vitamin D deficiency included women, the elderly, the obese, those not meeting the current physical activity guidelines of more than two-and-a-half hours a week, and those of non-European descent. Professor Daly said vitamin D deficiency was recognised as a global public health problem, but the population-based prevalence of deficiency and its reach in Australia had never previously been properly examined.


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World-first study uses vineyard records to link early grape ripening to human-induced climate change

By using decades of vineyard records, scientists have for the first time been able to attribute early ripening of wine grapes to climate warming and declines in soil water content. The study reveals that management factors have also influenced the shift, offering hope for growers to develop adaptation strategies.

The study is published in the journal Nature Climate Change and was conducted by scientists from the University of Melbourne and the CSIRO. Climate scientist and viticulturist Dr Leanne Webb, based at the Melbourne School of Land and Environment and CSIRO, said that while trends towards earlier ripening have been widely reported, a detailed study of the underlying causes of these shifts has not been previously undertaken.

“Changes to the timing of biological phenomena such as flowering and emergence of butterflies have been noted on many continents over recent decades. In some wine-growing regions such as southern Australia, grape maturation dates have advanced about eight days per decade, with earlier maturing potentially impacting wine-grape quality and regional branding,” Dr Webb said.

“This has been a study of potential influences on wine-grape maturity trends on a continental scale. On average, over the period 1985–2009, early ripening of Australian wine grapes are equally attributable to climate warming, declines in soil water content, and lower crop yields. An additional influence from changing management practices is also likely.”

Australian scientist awarded a Royal medal from the Royal Society london

Internationally recognised chemist Professor Andrew Holmes has been awarded the 2012 Royal Medal – the only Australian in 10 years to receive the award.

Three Royal Medals, also known as the Queen’s Medals, are awarded annually for the most important contributions in the physical, biological and applied or interdisciplinary sciences. Former recipients include Charles Darwin, Francis Crick and Suzanne Cory.

Professor Holmes is a University of Melbourne Laureate Professor of Chemistry at the Bio21 Institute, a CSIRO Fellow and a Distinguished Research Fellow at Imperial College London.

He is recognised for his contributions at the interface of the materials and biological sciences that will lead to outcomes that will benefit society. He played a pioneering role in the field of applied organic electronic materials.

In the late 1980s he established a collaboration with University of Cambridge physicists that in 1990 led to the discovery of light-emitting polymers. Professor Holmes led the chemistry team in that collaboration for 14 years. These polymers have applications in solid state (LED) lighting, flat panel displays, transistors and solar cells.

In Australia Professor Holmes leads the Victorian Organic Solar Cells Consortium involving the University of Melbourne, CSIRO, Monash University and industry partners. The Consortium, which benefits from a strong collaboration with the Imperial College Doctoral Training Centre in Plastic Electronics, aims to deliver efficient flexible printed solar cells for low-cost applications in electricity generation.

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AT A GlANCEFacts and figures about research at the University of melbourne

VISION

To be a globally engaged, comprehensive research-intensive university uniquely positioned to respond to major social, economic and environmental challenges.

HISTORy

The University of Melbourne has been a centre of learning since 1855. The main Parkville campus on the edge of Melbourne’s CBD is a focus of the city’s ‘Knowledge Precinct’ and the prestigious medical research ‘Parkville Precinct’.

Melbourne is a leading research university, widely renowned for its teaching, research achievements, and social and economic contributions. National and international ratings confirm the University as a leader across a broad range of fields.

RANKINGS

Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)

The University of Melbourne claimed the top spot in Australia and was ranked 57th worldwide in the 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities. Melbourne climbed three places internationally in the most highly regarded academic rankings of the world’s top universities, collated by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

The University has also improved its ranking by 35 places since the rankings began in 2003. The ARWU compares 1,000 higher education institutions worldwide on a range of criteria including staff and alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers and articles published in Science and Nature and science citation indices, as well as academic performance in relation to the university’s size.

Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2012–13

See: www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/

World rank 28 Region rank 1

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QS World University Rankings by Subject

The QS rankings emphasise reputational parameters with a particular focus on teaching and learning strengths. Some highlights for the University of Melbourne include:

+ 1st in Australia and 25th in the world in English Language & Literature + 1st in Australia and 21st in the world in Computer Science + 1st in Australia and 27th in the world in Electrical Engineering and Mechanical + 1st in Australia and 15th in the world in Medicine + 1st in Australia and 24th in the world in Biological Sciences + 1st in Australia and equal 15th in the world in Psychology + 1st in Australia and 20th in the world in Chemistry + 1st in Australia and 20th in the world in Physics & Astronomy + 1st in Australia and 16th in the world in Accounting & Finance + 1st in Australia and 20th in the world in Statistics and Operational Research + 1st in Australia and 8th in the world in Law

For the complete top 200 QS World University Rankings by Subject,See: www.topuniversities.com/#slide-one

LOCATIONS

Main campus: Parkville.

Other campuses: Austin and Northern Hospital, Western Hospital and the Eastern Hill precinct including St Vincent’s campus and The Royal Eye and Ear Hospital, VCA and Music campus at Southbank, Burnley, Creswick, Dookie, Hawthorn, Shepparton, Wangaratta, Ballarat, Werribee.

RESEARCH PARTNERS

Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria; Austin Health; Australia and New Zealand School of Government Limited; Australian Antarctic Division; Australian Centre for Post Traumatic Mental Health; Australian College of Optometry; Australian Institute of Family Studies; Bionics Institute; Bureau of Meteorology; Burnet Institute; Cancer Council Victoria; Centre for Eye Research Australia; CSIRO; Epworth Health Care; Florey Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute; Goulburn Valley Health; Grattan Institute; Howard Florey Institute; Institute of Postcolonial Studies Limited; Institute of Postcolonial Studies; Leo Cussen Institute for Continuing Legal Education; Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research; Marine and Freshwater Resources Institute; Melbourne Business School Limited; Melbourne College of Divinity; Melbourne Health; Murdoch Childrens Research Institute; Museum Victoria; National Ageing Research Institute Incorporated; Northern Health; O’Brien Institute; Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute; Royal Botanic Gardens Board; Royal Children’s Hospital; Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital; Royal Women’s Hospital; Skin and Cancer Foundation Incorporated; St Vincent’s Health; St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research; Tasman Institute Limited and Tasman Asia Pacific Limited; Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine; Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research; Zoological Parks and Gardens Board of Victoria.

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RESEARCH CENTRES

The University of Melbourne has 11 discipline-specific faculties, and is affiliated with many independent medical research institutes, teaching hospitals and other institutions like the Melbourne Business School. The University is also a leader in cultural, environmental, legal and social research. Among the many specialist centres are:

Cooperative Research Centres (CRC)

The Australian Government’s CRC program delivers social, economic and environmental benefits by encouraging collaboration between research institutions and industry, with a strong commercialisation focus. The University of Melbourne is involved with 15 CRCs. For further information see www.unimelb.edu.au/research/research-institutes-centres.html

Australian Research Council (ARC) Centres

The ARC’s Centres of Excellence program maintains and develops Australia’s international standing in the Commonwealth Government’s designated priority areas of research. The ARC also funds Special Research Centres on the basis of research excellence and potential to contribute to the economic, social and cultural development of Australia. The University of Melbourne is involved with two special centres: the ARC Special Research Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, and the ARC Special Research Centre for Particulate Fluids Processing.

The University of Melbourne is the lead participant in four centres of excellence: ARC Centre of Excellence for Free Radical Chemistry and Biotechnology; ARC Centre of Excellence in Coherent X-ray Science; ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems; and ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Tera-Scale.

Melbourne is also a key collaborator and partner in a further 12 centres: ARC Centre of Excellence in Design in Light Metals; ARC Centre of Excellence in Ore Deposits; ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research; ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computer Technology; ARC Centre of Excellence for Kangaroo Genomics; ARC Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology and Development; ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Wall Biology; ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology; ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science; ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics; ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions; and ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions.

National Health and Medical Research Council Centres and ProgramsThe National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is Australia’s peak body for supporting health and medical research. NHMRC Program Grants provide security of funding to teams of researchers over a five-year period. The University of Melbourne is currently involved with: the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Medical Workforce Dynamics; the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Clinical Science in Diabetes; the National Health and Medical Research Council Centre of Research Excellence for Translational Neuroscience: A Modular Platform for Translating Discovery into Health Outcomes; and the National Health and Medical Research Council Centre of Research Excellence for Translational Pathology Research and Training.

900

800

700

600

500

400

300

200

100

02007* 2008 2009* 2010 2011*

Research Expenditure ($ million)

*Note: As formal analysis is undertaken biennially for the Australian Bureau of Statistics data collection, results for odd years are estimates.

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Facts and Figures

CATEGORY 2010 2011

Median ENTER 93.9 93.1Student enrolmentsTotal load 49,972 50,214#

Research higher degree 4,822 5,029Postgraduate coursework 14,520 16,006Undergraduate 30,630 29,179% Female enrolment 55.7% 55.8%International load 12,285 12,326% International 24.6% 24.5%DIISRTE Funded (incl RTS) 29,360 29,719Award completionsResearch higher degree (excl Higher Doct) 727 776 (est)Graduate coursework 4,440 6,155Undergraduate 7,726 8,566Total 12,893 15,497Staff (FTE) (at 31 March, including casuals and excluding TAFE)Academic (all) 3,405 3,417Professional (all) 3,913 4,210Total 7,318 7,627Student:staff ratioT&R faculty staff 18.4 18.7All academic faculty staff 10.9 11Research expenditure ($ million) 812.9 844.0 (est)Research performance indicatorsResearch income ($ million) 357 375.2 (est)Research publications 4,271 4,300 (est)Research load (EFTSL) 3,216 3,119Research completions (eligible)* 727 776

* 'Eligible completions' means those included in RTS formula; excludes Higher Doctorates by publication.# includes part-time students

Melbourne’s Performance Against Key National Research Indicators

RESEARCH INCOME RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS

DOCTORATES & RESEARCH MASTERS COMPLETIONS (ELIGIBLE)*

$ million National Rank DEST Weighted Score Number National Rank

2011 376.5 n/a 4,572 776 (est) n/a2010 357 1 4,319 727 22009 337 1 4,517 775 12008 382.5 1 4,325 720 12007 309 2 3,909 732 1

* ‘Eligible completions’ means those included in the RTS formula; excludes Higher Doctorates by publication.

Melbourne Research Institutes

These are University-constituted institutes that draw together the breadth of our research activity across faculty and discipline boundaries to tackle complex global issues and respond to major social, economic and environmental challenges.

Our current institutes are: + Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society + Melbourne Energy Institute + Melbourne Materials Research Institute + Melbourne Neuroscience Institute + Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute + Melbourne Social Equity Institute

See: www.ri.unimelb.edu.au

GRADUATE RESEARCH TRAINING

As members of one of Australia’s largest research institutions, graduate research candidates at the University of Melbourne work on projects spanning emerging fields as well as the full range of traditional academic disciplines. The researchers who supervise and mentor our graduate research candidates are among the world’s finest and work at the forefront of international scholarship.

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www.unimelb.edu.au/research

RR_2012

Documents

Transcript of RR_2012