In recognition of outstanding achievements in community outreach to physics, the AIP NSW Branch congratulates Dr Devika Kamath, Senior Lecturer in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Macquarie University on winning the 2022 NSW Community Outreach to Physics Award.

About Devika's work:

Dr Devika Kamath is a Stellar Astrophysicist and a Senior Lecturer at Macquarie University (MQ). She is internationally recognised for her work on observational studies of dying stars and was awarded the ARC DECRA fellowship (2019) for tackling a long-standing question in astrophysics: ‘How are chemical elements in the Universe produced?’. Devika is a vigorous leader in STEM outreach who uses her research and physics background as a pathfinder to encourage young people into STEM careers.

Her outreach activities are interdisciplinary and focus on various age groups. They are based not only on her research (e.g., “Romancing the Stars”, Live for Vivid Sydney – ABC Ockham’s Razor 2019; The night sky with Sydney Observatory 2019-present) but also on fields such as modern physics (e.g., her piece on “How time is relative” for ABC Science 2020, 626K views), and big-data-sciences (e.g., her involvement as panellist for the Big-Data-Science webinar for Australasian Leadership Computing Symposium).

When events such as Vivid Sydney and National Science Week were compromised due to COVID (2020/2021), Devika initiated “MQ Space Travels” - a new Live Streaming Series intertwining astronomy with state-of-the art technology and story-telling. This event not only engaged the community, locally and globally, but also provided students with experience in science communication and outreach, reflecting on Devika’s inclination for mentoring and promoting students.

Physics and astrophysics struggle to advance gender and cultural equity. Devika has made notable impacts by leveraging her research to improve student uptake of STEM subjects via dedicated outreach and mentoring events targeted at primary/high school students. One of her initiatives includes designing (from scratch) a collaboration with the Girls’ Day by Goethe- Institut-Australien (years:7,8), which provides students from several schools in NSW with the opportunity to visit MQ for one day to ‘experience University’ and research oriented- STEM activities, and to interact with female STEM leaders.

She also strives to bring a taste of ‘university’ to regional areas by engaging with students and families from low socio-economic backgrounds. A highlight includes her lead role in the NSW Upper Hunter Region roadshow (Nov 2019), where they engaged with ~1000 people over five days, including students, teachers, parents, the community and local politicians. Devika has established connections with Aurora College – the NSW Department of Education’s virtual school, providing students in rural and remote communities with the opportunity to connect locally and learn globally. A highlight includes 5 Aurora College Masterclasses in Astronomy and Astrophysics (May 2021, years:7-12).

Currently, as a 2022 Sydney Observatory Resident (one of the 8 out of ~110 applicants), Devika has initiated a new project: ‘Seeing Our Universe Through Cultural Lenses’, which brings to the forefront modern scientific breakthroughs in astronomy and astrophysics that hold interesting nexuses to ancient cultures. Outcomes will be presented through talks and visual mediums, thereby celebrating cultural diversity in science.

The above represents only a fraction of her dedication to outreach and community engagement. Her passion for her subject is instantly apparent in every presentation she delivers. Young women (and men) considering science careers could not have a stronger role model.

Dr Devika Kamath contributions and passion for physics makes her a very worthy recipient of the 2022 NSW Community Outreach to Physics Award from the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Institute of Physics.

The award will be presented on 8 November at the 2022 NSW AIP Awards Ceremony. 

All are welcome to attend: 

Date: Tuesday 8 November 2022

Venue: Concord Golf Club, 190 Majors Bay Road Concord, NSW

Postgraduate Nominee presentations from 10.00am

Presentation of Postgraduate Award winner, Royal Society of NSW Jak Kelly Prize, and Community Outreach to Physics Award from 1.00pm

This event is proudly sponsored by the Australian Institute of Physics NSW Branch, The Royal Australian Chemical Institute and The Royal Society of New South Wales.

Members of the Tasmanian Branch of the Australian Institute of Physics are invited to attend the upcoming Annual General Meeting on Thursday 24 November at 5pm, Physics Lecture Theatre 1, University of Tasmania.

The AGM will be followed by a public lecture at 6pm. The public lecture will be delivered by Professor David Jamieson (University of Melbourne) and is titled "Physics of life: what do the laws of physics say?" 

The public lecture will be followed by the annual dinner. Members and partners are warmly invited.

RSVP to krzysztof.bolejko@utas.edu.au by Friday 18 November.

Early detection of Alzheimer’s, exploring the invisible, extreme time-domain phenomena, and more

The NSW Australian Institute of Physics Branch would like to congratulate the 2022 postgraduate nominees on their accepted presentation titles and abstracts for the upcoming Annual AIP NSW Postgraduate Awards event on Tuesday 8 November 2022 at the Concord Golf Club, 190 Majors Bay Road commencing from 10 am sharp.

Each presenter will have the opportunity to compete for the AIP NSW Postgraduate Medal and the Royal Society of NSW Jak Kelly prize. Everyone is welcome to attend the free event to support the presenters.

The awards program includes abstracts and times of all the presenters for the upcoming event. The presenters are asked to make a 20-minute presentation on their postgraduate research in Physics, and the presentation will be judged on the criteria (1) content and scientific quality, (2) clarity and (3) presentation skills as included in the judges’ criteria.

The Postgraduate Award nominees are:

Saurabh BHARDWAJ, Macquarie University, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Femtosecond laser inscribed point-by-point Bragg gratings in few- mode optical fibre

Yuanming WANG, University of Sydney, School of Physics

Studying extreme time-domain phenomena with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder

Giovanni PIEROBON, University of New South Wales, School of Physics

Exploring the invisible: axion dark matter in the galaxy

Shankar DUTT Australian National University, Research School of Physics

Sensing one molecule at a time: A pathway to personalized healthcare and early detection of Alzheimer’s and MS

Ivan ZHIGULIN, University of Technology Sydney, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Revealing the nature of blue quantum emitters in hexagonal Boron Nitride via the Stark effect

Levi MADDEN, University of Wollongong, School of Physics

Optical dosimeters for radiotherapy with MRI-LINACs

Event Schedule:

Date: Tuesday 8 November 2022

Venue: Concord Golf Club, 190 Majors Bay Road Concord, NSW

Postgraduate Nominee presentations from 10.00am

Presentation of Postgraduate Award winner, Royal Society of NSW Jak Kelly Prize, and Community Outreach to Physics Award from 1.00pm.

All welcome.

This event is proudly sponsored by the Australian Institute of Physics NSW Branch, The Royal Australian Chemical Institute and The Royal Society of New South Wales.

What is expanding space?  What came before the big bang?  Is there an edge to space?  What’s beyond the horizon of a black hole? What can the amazing images from the James Webb Space Telescope tell us?

Join Professor Tamara Davis, astrophysicist at the University of Queensland (and AIP’s 2011 Women In Physics Lecturer) to discuss these questions and more at her upcoming public lecture Cosmological Conundrums and the Dark Side of the Universe, delivered as part of the 2022 AIP Congress in Adelaide.

“When I'm having a chat with family and friends these are the questions I’m asked.  So, upgrade your repertoire for cocktail party conversation by learning about these and other cosmological conundrums,” says Professor Davis.

In this talk, you’ll dive deeply into the foundations of our cosmological model, and hear the latest updates on dark energy, black holes, and gravitational waves.

12 December 7:30-8:30 PM, Adelaide Convention Centre. Register via Eventbrite.

The program for the 24th AIP Congress – 11 to 16 December at the Adelaide Convention Centre – is now live on the Congress website.

Have you registered your spot at the Congress yet? Registrations are open until Friday 2 December 2022.

Register here.

We have a full schedule, with 10 plenary talks across the five days from high-profile speakers spanning the broad interests of the Congress, two poster sessions, and public lecture by Tamara Davis Cosmological Conundrums and the Dark Side of the Universe on Monday evening.

Plus, plenty of networking opportunities including a Congress dinner on Wednesday evening, a diversity breakfast on Tuesday morning, and a high tea focused on physics education.

Three sessions targeted to high-school teachers are also included in the program.

See the full program for further details. The program will continue to be updated over the coming weeks.

First Australian recipient

The prestigious Blaise Pascal Medal for Physics 2022 has been awarded to Distinguished Professor Susan Scott FAIP of ANU for her work over three decades, including discoveries in general relativity, cosmology and gravitational wave science.

Reporting on the Award, Marion Rae from Australian Associated Press, wrote:

‘A theoretical physicist who studies ripples in space that span billions of years is the first Australian to be awarded the prestigious Blaise Pascal science medal.

The Australian National University’s Susan Scott has won the 2022 medal for physics from the European Academy of Sciences, which recognises the work of the world’s best scientists.

“I am the first Australian, and Australian woman, to be awarded this medal, so this is a tremendous honour,” Professor Scott said.

Her work is spurring powerful advances in quantum, laser and optical technology.

She said she hopes the award inspires the next generation of women scientists in Australia and internationally.

“Throughout most of my career, in general relativity theory and gravitational wave science, there have been so few women, particularly in Australia,” Prof Scott told AAP from Brussels.

“We really need to change that because we’re just missing out on so much talent.”

She wants women and girls to know they can follow their dreams of being scientists and making discoveries.

“It’s an incredibly fulfilling thing to do and it’s very important to me that I do have this mentorship role – for young women scientists and generally to our students and early career researchers,” she said.

Prof Scott was part of an international team that detected gravitational waves, proving Albert Einstein’s theory on general relativity.

“At the time, many people thought Einstein’s theory of general relativity from 1915 was very esoteric and would probably never have any use or purpose,” she said.

“Now we all use GPS in everyday life – I was using it yesterday to navigate around Brussels. It’s taken 100 years, but it’s a flow-on effect from his theory.”

The academy citation recognises her “ground-breaking discoveries in general relativity, cosmology and gravitational wave science” spanning more than three decades.

“She played a leading role in Australia’s participation in the first detection of gravitational waves in 2015 and the development of the field of gravitational wave science in Australia following on from that discovery,” the academy said.

Gravitational waves are ripples in space and time caused by massive cosmic events, including the collisions of black holes.’

Read the full story as reported by Marion Rae, Australian Associated Press

On 14th of September Prof Michael Brunger FAIP passed away. His friends, colleagues and the College of Science and Engineering have received this news with great sadness.

Prof Michael Brunger has been a valued member of Flinders University for four decades, having completed his Bachelor of Science at Flinders in 1981, followed by Honours (1st class) in 1982 and later his PhD in 1988.

Michael had an esteemed academic career, starting as a Rothmans Foundation Research Fellow at ANU from 1989-1991. Michael then took up a QEII Fellowship at Flinders in 1991, where he moved through the ranks to become Professor of Physics for the past 15 years, retiring only recently. Michael’s contributions both to Flinders University and the wider research community were recognised last week when he was awarded the prestigious title of Emeritus Professor.

Michael specialised in atomic and molecular physics, where he focused on electron and positron collisions and their applications. He was a highly regarded international researcher, having published more than 350 refereed papers, and being recognised through Fellowships of the Australian Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society and the Institute of Physics (UK).

He also served our community on the Australian Research Council College of Experts and as a member of the ARC ERA research evaluation committee for several rounds. He has mentored numerous PhD students, many of whom have gone on to receive prestigious international fellowships and positions around the globe. Michael has had a significant impact on Flinders, through his high-quality research, administration, and service, and as a proud Union member, being NTEU Flinders University Branch President.

Michael will be remembered by his smile and humour, his sharp thinking and pointed comments as well as his enthusiasm, kindness, generosity, and friendliness, and last but not least, his hat and sneakers. Michael will be missed by his many friends and colleagues.

This tribute was written by his colleagues:
Prof Stephen Buckman
Prof Igor Bray
Prof Sarah Harmer
Dr Darryl Jones
Dr Laurence Campbell
Prof Gunther Andersson.

Photo credit: supplied by the authors.

As reported by NASA.

• Women in Physics Lecturer Associate Professor Katarina Miljkovic is a co-author on a recently published paper on impacts by meteroids crashing on Mars as detected by the NASA InSight lander.

NASA’s InSight lander has detected seismic waves from four space rocks that crashed on Mars in 2020 and 2021. Not only do these represent the first impacts detected by the spacecraft’s seismometer since InSight touched down on the Red Planet in 2018, it also marks the first time seismic and acoustic waves from an impact have been detected on Mars.

A new paper published Monday 19 Sep in Nature Geoscience details the impacts, which ranged between 53 and 180 miles (85 and 290 kilometers) from InSight’s location, a region of Mars called Elysium Planitia.

The first of the four confirmed meteoroids – the term used for space rocks before they hit the ground – made the most dramatic entrance: It entered Mars’ atmosphere on Sept. 5, 2021, exploding into at least three shards that each left a crater behind.

Then, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter flew over the estimated impact site to confirm the location. The orbiter used its black-and-white Context Camera to reveal three darkened spots on the surface. After locating these spots, the orbiter’s team used the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, or HiRISE, to get a color close-up of the craters (the meteoroid could have left additional craters in the surface, but they would be too small to see in HiRISE’s images).

“After three years of InSight waiting to detect an impact, those craters looked beautiful,” said Ingrid Daubar of Brown University, a co-author of the paper and a specialist in Mars impacts.

“Impacts are actually a really beautiful way of validating our previous guesses about the make-up of the interior of Mars, because we can tell how big the rock was that created that impact, so we know how much energy it would have had on impact,” said AIP Women in Physics lecturer, Associate Professor Katarina Miljkovic, who is a co-author on the paper and the only Australian working on the NASA InSight mission.

“And then we can connect the dots about the material that must be under the surface which the seismic waves passed through, to give us a greater insight into the structure of Mars.”

Read the full NASA media release here.
Read more about Prof Miljkovic’s participation in an SMH article here.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Tech/University of Arizona.

As reported by the University of Melbourne.

Located one kilometre underground in the Stawell Gold Mine, the first dark matter laboratory in the Southern Hemisphere is preparing to join the global quest to understand the nature of dark matter and unlock the secrets of our universe.

Officially unveiled on 19 August, the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL) will be the new epicentre of dark matter research in Australia. The Stawell laboratory will be managed by SUPL Ltd., which is co-owned by the University of Melbourne, ANSTO, the Australian National University, Swinburne University of Technology, and the University of Adelaide.

Lead researcher on the project University of Melbourne Professor Elisabetta Barberio said dark matter has been eluding scientists for decades.

“We know there is much more matter in the universe than we can see,” Professor Barberio said.

“With the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory, we have the tools and location to detect this dark matter. Proving the existence of dark matter will help us understand its nature and forever change how we see the universe.”

With Stage 1 now complete, the lab is ready to host the experiment known as SABRE South to be installed over the coming months, which aims to directly detect dark matter.

SABRE South will run in conjunction with the complementary SABRE experiment taking place in Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy. These experiments are designed to detect Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), one of the likely forms for dark matter particles.

Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) at the University of Melbourne Professor James McCluskey said universities are places of deep discovery supported by global partnerships in advancing the frontiers of knowledge.

“Research which is needed to address the great unanswered questions – such as ‘what is dark matter?’ – is nearly always done in collaboration," Professor McCluskey said.

“Working with our partners and sharing our collective knowledge and expertise, the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory will facilitate experiments which are critical in the global search for dark matter.’’

Read the full media release here.

Photo: PhD student Madeleine Zurowski with lead researcher Professor Elisabetta Barberio in the Stawell Underground Physics Lab. Credit – Olivia Gumienny/University of Melbourne.

As reported by the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney.

UNSW Sydney Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Attila Brungs has announced Scientia Professor Sven Rogge as the new Dean of UNSW Science.

Prof Rogge is an internationally recognised expert in condensed matter physics and quantum information science. He has held several research and leadership positions at UNSW since joining from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands in 2011.

Prof Brungs congratulated Prof Rogge on his appointment and highlighted his strong track record as a leader in both academic research and administration.

“Prof Rogge will bring enormous experience to his role as faculty dean. Since joining UNSW, he has successfully steered the School of Physics and the Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research portfolio. His research on condensed matter physics, in particular quantum electronics, spans the full funding pipeline from blue sky basic research through to translational applications,” Prof Brungs said.

“I look forward to working with him as he leads the Science faculty in an exciting time ahead, as innovative technologies and other scientific solutions are developed to address challenges in an uncertain and rapidly changing world.”

Prof Rogge grew up in Germany and a fascination with science from an early age led him to study Physics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He then went on to obtain a PhD in Physics from Stanford University in 1997.  He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the President of the Australian Institute of Physics, and a program manager at the Australian Research Council’s Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology.

As an experimental physicist, his research focuses on quantum systems in a solid-state environment and their translation to applications in quantum materials and technology. His work on gaining atomistic insight into the interactions of quantum objects, such as atoms and qubits, is a key component in Australia’s world-leading progress in quantum physics.

Prof Rogge said he was honoured to be appointed Dean of Science.

“UNSW is one of Australia’s leading universities for science education and research. Our staff and students learn and specialise in a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines as they strive to help overcome many of the most pressing challenges facing our world today,” Prof Rogge said.

“I look forward to continuing my work on the University leadership team as the Dean of Science. I think the role of the faculty is to educate students in critical thinking and give them a toolbox of analytical skills that will ready them for a diverse and rewarding career. We also have a responsibility to drive research that will guide Australia into a sustainable future with new insights from ageing well to quantum technologies.”

Prof. Rogge will start in his new role on 10 October 2022.

 

Read the full media release here.

Photo credit: UNSW Sydney.