Australian Academy of Science's New Victorian Fellows and Award Recipients Symposium

Victorian Symposium for New Fellows & Award Recipients. Hear from the newest Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science. Listen to the winners of the Academy’s Medals.
4:00 – 6:30 pm Thursday 15th August 2024
ATC101 lecture theatre, Hawthorn Campus, Swinburne University

Swinburne University is excited to host this year's Australian Academy of Science's New Victorian Fellows and Award Recipients Symposium. This will be a series of short (10 min) talks given by some of Australia's most distinguished scientists who have either been recently elected as Fellows of the Academy or received their various prestigious awards. The talks will cover a broad range of topics and research areas, including medical research and immunology, genetics, environmental science and climate change, ecology and measurement theory. Details of the speakers, their topics, and the times of their talks are attached.

All staff and students welcome!

Official Proceedings:

4:00pm - Welcome - Prof. Warrick Couch FAA
4:05pm - President introduction: Prof. Chennupati Jagadish

Honouring long-standing Fellows
4:15pm – Prof. Bill Moran FAA – elected 1984
University of Melbourne
“Don't Count Your Chickens”
William Moran is distinguished for his work over a broad range of harmonic analysis. He has made significant contributions, both alone and in collaboration, to our knowledge of measure theory on topological spaces, concrete properties of distributions on the circle, and analysis of non-abelian groups and their representations.

4:25pm – Prof. Graham Mitchell FAA – elected 1988
Foursight Associates Pty Ltd
“A Pilgrim’s Progress around Parkville!”
Graham Mitchell is distinguished for his major contributions to the immunology of parasitic diseases of medical and veterinary importance. He has used a combination of techniques in molecular and cellular immunology, in immunogenetics and in epidemiology to characterise antiparasitic immune responses and the mechanisms of parasite evasion, and to identify genetically based variations in host resistance. He was the first to demonstrate the power of monoclonal antibodies in the development of new immunodiagnostic tests. His work has made immunoparasitology a major field in biomedical research with good prospects for the early development of protective vaccines.

New Fellows (10 minutes talks each)
4:25pm - Prof. Rachelle Buchbinder FAA
Monash University
“Optimising health for people with arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions”
Rachelle Buchbinder is a rheumatologist and clinical epidemiologist who is recognised for her contributions in the musculoskeletal health field. Her works include evaluation of a world-first mass media campaign that successfully shifted misconceptions about back pain.

4:37pm - Prof. Roslyn Gleadow FAA
Monash University
"Hot, Dry and Hungry: crop growth and nutritional value in a changing world"
Roslyn Gleadow is a leader in the field of cyanogenesis, the process of cyanide release from stable bioactive compounds in plants in response to herbivory. Her work explains why so many crop plants are cyanogenic and helps predict changes in nutritional value of plants in response to environmental challenges.

4:49pm - Prof. Madeleine van Oppen FAA
The Australian Institute of Marine Science & University of Melbourne
“Harnessing microbial symbionts of corals for reef conservation”
Madeleine van Oppen is an ecological geneticist and expert on microbial symbiosis and climate change adaptation of reef corals. Her l research has revealed several mechanisms by which corals adapt or acclimatise to environmental change, including those mediated by their microbial symbionts.

5:01pm - Prof. Michael Kearney FAA
University of Melbourne
“Forecasting climate change effects on animals with physics and physiology”
Michael Kearney is an ecologist, renowned for his work in forecasting the future and fate of biodiversity through his development of mechanistic species distribution modelling. Kearney’s work has influenced biodiversity forecasting globally, delivering significant benefits to fundamental and applied biology.

AWARD RECIPIENTS (7 minutes talks each)
5:30pm - Prof Eric Chow - Gottschalk Medal
Monash University
“The silent gateway to gonorrhoea: When a kiss is not just a kiss”
Eric Chow’s work in the area of gonorrhoea transmission has identified kissing as the major means of transmission – rewriting 100-year-old paradigms. This finding will drive changes in future sexual health education programs relating to safer sex.

5:39pm - Prof. Andrew Steer – Gustav Nossal Medal 
Murdoch Children’s Research Institute 
“Scratching an itch: control of neglected tropical diseases”
Andrew Steer’s research has established global community-based treatment programs for tropical skin infections, influenced vaccine development for Strep A disease, and introduced diagnostic technologies and control programs for rheumatic heart disease.

5:48pm - Dr Andrew King – Anton Hales Medal
University of Melbourne
“Extreme weather on a warning planey”
Andrew King’s work is focused on climate extremes and climate risk with a series of studies on climate change projections. He has been very active in the public discourse on climate change through frequent opinion pieces based on his research and interviews in newspapers, TV and radio

5:57pm - Dr. Hamish Clarke – Frederick White Medal
University of Melbourne
“Towards a Shared Understanding of Future Fire”
Hamish Clarke’s research ranges from the drivers of fire (think fuel, dryness, weather and ignitions), to impacts on people, property and the environment, to prescribed burning. His research shows that the increasing fire weather conditions we currently see could be a prelude to something much worse without strong climate change action.

6:06pm - Dr. Stephin Vervoort - Gani Medal
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
“Discovery and targeting of transcription cycle checkpoints”
Stephin Vervoort’s approach to understand RNAPII regulation uses genome-wide analyses paired with computational methods. His work has resulted in discoveries of fundamental regulatory mechanisms of RNAPII-driven gene expression, uncovering how these are dysregulated in cancer.

6:15pm - Ms. Aviya Naccarella - Max Day Fellowship 2024
Deakin University
“Fungi the missing puzzle piece: how fungus-feeding mammals can contribute to ecosystem function and restoration”
Aviya Naccarella, an early career ecologist at Deakin University with an interest in restoration ecology, will use translocations in Victoria to assess how digging, mycophagous mammals contribute to ecosystem function and what role these mammals can play in restoration.

Enquiries
Jamie Rossjohn: jamie.Rossjohn@monash.edu
Rachel Webster: r.webster@unimelb.edu.au