UWA NEWS21 April 2008 Volume 27 Number 4

In this issue P5 Outback Explorers P8 A University for all abilities P12 UWA student takes on UN

continued on page 2

by Lindy Brophy

At the heart of the

Data shows the relative predictions before the ships were found

HMAS Sydney was a stronger, faster, better equipped ship than the Kormoran, says a UWA academic and others involved in finding the shipwrecks.

Professor Kim Kirsner, a cognitive scientist whose work with UWA colleague John Dunn, pinpointed the site of the sunken ships, said that if the captain of the Sydney had realised that the Kormoran was a ‘raider’, he would have remained at long range, and retained his technical edge.

“Presumably the Captain of Sydney assumed that Kormoran was a supply ship, and so had no qualms about sailing closer,” Professor Kirsner said.

“With every kilometre however, HMAS Sydney increased the risk to herself.”

Professor Kirsner began reading naval history as a seven-year-old, and his interest was further sparked by a family museum that included WWI memorabilia.

“About 1991, I read two books about the mystery surrounding HMAS Sydney: one by the navigator’s son, Michael Montgomery, who believed that a Japanese submarine might have been involved in the disaster; and another by former UWA historian Barbara Winter.

“I thought then that oceanographers could be brought in to help find the

… if the captain of

the Sydney had

realised that the

Kormoran was a

‘raider’, he would

have remained at

long range, and

retained his

technical edge. searchProfessor Kim Kirsner: psychology was just as important as oceanography in the end

““

2

wrecks. Surely it would be easy, I thought. How wrong I was!”

Professor Kirsner and Dr Mike McCarthy of the WA Maritime Museum invited oceanographers to participate in a workshop to mark the 50th anniversary of the tragedy.

Subsequently, Professor Kirsner and Professor John Dunn, now at the University of Adelaide, used their expertise as cognitive scientists to reconstruct the uhrtexts or original texts of strings of reports from the survivors.

“The best of these sources was Bunjes, a Captain in the pre-war German merchant navy,” Professor Kirsner said. “A lot of Bunjes’ comments were crossed out owing to his anti-Nazi sympathies, but this only added to the validity of his reports, and the accounts provided by the other survivors.”

They then developed a mathematical analysis consistent with the assumption that the survivors told the truth about the position of the battle, and integrated evidence from several sources to predict the location of Kormoran.

HMAS Sydney Search, the successful

The words aerial and archaeology might almost be an oxymoron.

But aerial archaeology is the best way to find out about ancient civilisations.

Unfortunately for those interested in the Graeco-Roman ruins of the Middle East, only one country in the area, Jordan, allows aerial archaeology.

UWA’s Roman archaeology expert, Professor David Kennedy, said the reluctance was usually a misplaced sense that aca- demics flying over their lands would comprise a security risk.

Professor Kennedy frequently researches from light planes and helicopters over Jordan but until now has had only ground-level access to other countries.

“I was on study leave in Turkey recently, on the west coast which is very popular with tourists,” he said. “I noticed that micro light aircraft were doing sight-seeing trips along the coast for tourists. So I asked them if they could fly me over some ruins and they agreed.

“Now I’ve discovered these micro lights, they open an exciting possibility.” Professor Kennedy said flying over sites helped put them into context. “For example, from the aircraft, I could see an ancient silted-up harbour, about five miles from the

Up in the air over ruins

A rare view: Graeco-Roman amphitheatre and ancient tombs in Turkey

coast. Plodding around on the ground, you just don’t get the big picture.”

He said there were ruins of Graeco-Roman cities about every five kilometres along the west coast of Turkey. “They are some of the best sites of that period, around the sixth century BC.”

He photographed an early amphitheatre and tombs carved into a cliff that would be around 2,600 years old. And he is planning to return to Turkey — in the guise of a tourist — again soon.

search company and fund-raiser, adopted the analyses prepared by Professors Kirsner and Dunn, and successfully advanced their arguments to governments and private funding bodies.

An exciting aspect of the project was that the academics had to assume that the discovery of the wrecks would confirm (or not) their analyses.

“Cognitive Science rarely offers the possibility of such an unambiguous outcome,” Professor Kirsner said. “Whereas the 1991 forum was unable to provide a specific target to within 60 nautical miles, and subsequent argument by Lindsay Knight, Warren Whittaker and Glenys McDonald placed the battle and the wrecks more than 100 nautical miles away, the analysis adopted by HMAS Sydney Search specified Kormoran’s position to within three nautical miles.”

Professor Kirsner briefed search coordinator and international shipwreck hunter David Mearns during a visit to Perth in 2004, and gave him the correct location of the wrecks.

“Interestingly, David had always maintained publicly that the search

continued from page 1At the heart of the search should be conducted in another area, 20-30 nautical miles to the west of the wreck of Kormoran. But the day before he launched the search last month, he distributed a map with an appropriate search area, and found the wrecks where we had predicted,” he said.

“More than a dozen Australians made a significant contribution to the search definition. Through years of debate and argument we eventually gave David a search square that had Kormoran in the middle, and a specific target just two nautical miles from the position of the wreck. In the excitement following the discovery, these facts have not always been clearly acknowledged.

“Mention should be made of the contributions by UWA graduates Ray Steedman and Barbara Winter, as well as Ian Anderson, Richard Goldsmith, Reg Hardstaff, Peter Hore, Sam Hughes, the late Gordon Laffer, M. McCormack, Ean McDonald, Wes Olsen and Geoff Vickridge.”

Professor Kirsner and Professor Dunn are developing a website describing the history of the search for Kormoran and Sydney.

UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 The University of Western Australia2

A Stanford University project is using the US radio transmitter at Exmouth and UWA’s Gingin Observatory to help protect the world’s satellite systems.

Robert Marshall, a Stanford PhD candidate from Canada, was a recent guest of Professor David Blair and the staff at the Gingin Observatory during experiments that are part of his electrical engineering research.

He is part of the Very Low Frequency research group in the Space, Telecommunications and Radioscience Laboratory (STARLab) at Stanford and he is hoping to be able to clear the plasmasphere of high energy particles that are damaging satellites.

The plasmasphere extends from 6,000 to 60,000 kilometres above the Earth’s surface. It is the layer above the ionosphere, which in turn is outside the atmosphere (extending from 60 to 400 kilometres above the Earth).

“The plasmasphere is primarily made up of low-energy electrons and ions,” Robert said. “But there are also high-energy particles which can come from a variety of sources, including naturally-occurring solar flares, and it is these particles that are causing damage to satellites.”

In previous decades, this was not such a big problem, as there were very few man-made satellites in existence. “Now, in 2008, some estimates say there are close to 10,000 active satellites, on which our whole communication systems are reliant. So it is really important that they are protected. This is why we needed to find a way to remove these particles from the plasmasphere,” Robert said.

He explained that electromagnetic waves could be sent up into the plasmasphere by a transmitter such as the one at Exmouth, and these would bring down the high-energy particles into a neutral atmosphere where they could no longer cause any damage.

Cleaning up the

Very Low Frequency phenomena that Robert Marshall is studying include optical flashes in the upper atmosphere or sprites (left) and flashes in the ionosphere or elves (above)

“The transmitter is used to communicate with US submarines so most of its energy gets sent out low over the Earth. But some of the radiated energy goes up into space and can cause some high-energy electrons to come down. We are not messing with the natural plasmasphere, just getting rid of the damaging high-energy particles,” he said.

Part of the energy that will rain down will be transformed into flashes of light from the transmitter, but Robert said they could not be seen with the naked eye.

“We are observing them from Gingin,” he said. “The transmitter sends up the waves but particles don’t come down in the same place. They are predicted to come down 1,000 kilometres away, so Gingin is an excellent place from which to observe the experiment.”

Robert said he would leave the experiment running remotely for an indefinite period of time. “If it is eventually agreed that this is a good method of protecting satellites, then more transmitters could be built around the world to help clear up the plasmasphere.

“Or a transmitter might be built on a plane which could be sent to the most effective location for removing these particles. A long trailing wire from the tail of the plane would take the place of the tall antennae on a land-based transmitter.”

Professor Blair said he was delighted the Gingin Observatory could be part of important research that was in a field outside its usual sphere.

Robert Marshall, using the Gingin Observatory to monitor experiments at Exmouth

… there are close to 10,000 active satellites, on which our whole communication systems are reliant.

“ “plasmasphere

The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 3

One of the big issues we will need to face during this year will be our University’s response to the Review of Australian Higher Education, and more specifically the issue of ‘funding compacts’ proposed by the Federal Government.

The review provides a real opportunity for the Government to translate its rhetoric into tangible support for the nation’s universities and compacts have the potential to do this.

Compacts have been described as university-specific performance-based funding agreements. They have the potential to form a sound basis for helping institutions to be competitive in their own mission-specific areas of competitive advantage, while protecting the public good element of all higher education through appropriate regulation and funding.

Our Registrar, Peter Curtis, and others already are working on a UWA response and I was able to present our early views in a Group of Eight presentation to a recent higher education conference in Sydney.

As always, striking the right balance between competition and regulation is the key to an effective higher education policy. There is no doubt that the Government and the universities need to work together in a partnership. Government needs to recognise and respect institutions’ autonomy to set their own missions and institutions must respect the need to be accountable for public funds received.

Accountability should be valued, rather than compliance; and policy settings should allow institutional responsiveness and flexibility rather than be the tools of tight regulation.

And there may be a valuable role for an independent, expert advisory body for tertiary education in helping a smooth transition to a more sensitive and sustainable policy environment for achieving quality through diversity and in negotiating compacts.

Our University supports a number of underlying principles which would form the framework for compacts. They are:

Autonomy

Universities need greater operating autonomy in order to function effectively and competitively in local and international markets.

Fitness for purpose

Public funding should assist each university to pursue its distinctive mission and to excel in what it does best.

Accountability for outcomes

Universities have a reciprocal responsibility to explain their purposes, and to report publicly on how well they have performed against their own goals and the performance standards expected of them.

Simplicity

Compacts, including associated performance reporting, will be agreed in relation to block grants on a broad not detailed basis, will involve less regulation and will lead to a reduction in the current administrative and reporting burdens.

Transparency

Decision making will be open to external scrutiny, and based on a fair application of consistent rules.

Predictability

Compacts will provide the capacity for universities to plan ahead, being resourced according to published criteria and known parameters.

It is my firm belief that first and foremost, a compact system of funding must be part of a national strategy of international competitiveness and quality in which education and research is valued as public good.

And I think that compacts offer very real potential for progress if they have clearly defined objectives, are professionally developed according to clear principles, actually increase university operating flexibility, and are adequately funded.

To effect sustainable improvement in quality, responsiveness, diversity and cost effectiveness across the sector, compacts will need to operate in a context of significant additional public funding and a student-driven approach to higher education financing.

The principles for new funding arrangements

Alan Robson Vice-Chancellor

UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 The University of Western Australia4

Navigating a hidden Pilbara gorge at dawn in a bush-pig sounds a little too Indiana Jones to be true, but UWA’s botany students are about to do just that – on a Rio Tinto Iron Ore (RTIO) exploration site.

Australian Vegetation is a hands-on Botany unit, and in July, 25 students will go on an eight-day field trip into the State’s north, to learn about assessing plant communities on potential future mining-sites. The bush-pig is the all-terrain vehicle that will take them.

This will be the second year that a student trip is taken into the Pilbara – the outcome of a long-standing relationship between RTIO and UWA, who have been working together for more than 12 years doing research in plant ecology and ecological sustainability.

The 3rd and 4th year botany students will make the two-day road trip north to join a team of RTIO botanists,

Outback explorersgeologists, and environmental staff as they research and record plants in the Koodaideri region, north-west of Newman. Collating the information will help identify areas of conservation significance that may need protecting if a mine-site were established and will provide much-needed information of the distribution of different plant communities in the Hamersley Ranges.

The students will then work with the Western Australian Herbarium to document the species, and to compile a coursework report also to be submitted to RTIO.

Dr Pauline Grierson, a senior lecturer in the School of Plant Biology, who leads the Ecosystems Research Group and coordinates the unit, says the program is a great opportunity for students to work alongside industry experts, and also gives them the chance to present themselves to a prospective employer.

“For many students who have been urban-based, the vast, rugged Pilbara region is quite a revelation. It’s a lifestyle that may not be for everyone, but many love it and come away wanting to take their careers there,” Pauline says.

Natural Resource Management student Travis Doehring, who took part in the first trip into the Pilbara last year, said the UWA team he joined surveyed more than 200 plant species in the Koodaideri region.

“A highlight for me was finding two priority [endangered] flora amongst the many plants we discovered,” Travis said.

Ashleigh Chapman, who is currently doing her Botany Honours project in the Pilbara and who also participated in last year’s trip, says the experience presented her with the bigger picture on working in the mining industry. She said although it was hard work at times, it was also a lot of fun, especially the evenings together around the campfire.

A water hole in Karijini National Park was the last stop for the 2007 group, ending the field trip on high, and refreshing, note. The 2008 outback botany explorers have a lot to look forward to.

The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 5

Andre Antoine, down from Derby to graduate with WA’s first child protection professionals

Working in the field of child protection in Derby might seem to some to be one of the hardest jobs in the State.

Several hours of soaking rain followed by one of the most important football events of the year did not deter more than 800 parents of new students from coming to the Parents Welcome.

The 10th annual Parents Welcome, co-ordinated by Ian Lilburne from Public Affairs, rolled out its wet weather contingency plans but, by the time the guests arrived on campus, the sun was shining brightly.

While the Eagles and the Dockers fought it out at Subiaco Oval, close to 100 staff volunteers talked to parents about their adult children’s courses, expectations and responsibilities, answered their questions and showed

Undaunted by Derby and downpour

Arming the protectorsBut Andre Antoine, who was born and raised in the town and has spent all her working life there, maintains a calmness and serenity that helps her to keep going, and to work effectively for the Department of Child Protection.

“Most of our time is spent talking to people and a lot of those people are angry, so you have to stay calm. It is essential to be able to engage with people,” said Andre, who was one of 24 social work professionals to graduate recently from UWA’s first child protection course.

The Graduate Certificate in Child Protection Practice was developed by Social Work lecturer Dr Brenda Clare. She said it was an important contribution to the development of child protection services in WA.

Andre Antoine said the most important aspects of child protection were education, information and knowledge. “These are the tools for fixing the problems,” she said “And what we have learnt through this 12-month course is exceptional.”

She said her biggest problems were not related to her clients and their families,

but the turnover of staff in the area.

“Our work is all about building relationships. You’ve got to engage with people. With new staff all the time, it’s hard to do this. How do we establish relationships with our clients when we don’t even know our colleagues?”

But she said she felt that she and the three other field staff, who look after the 5,000-strong-population of Derby as well as communities along the Gibb River Road, were doing a good job, “given our resources.”

“I think everybody involved in child protection should do this graduate course, if they take their work seriously,” Andre said.

The 24 graduates of the course examined issues such as working with reluctant and involuntary clients, statutory practice when parents have a mental illness or are abusing drugs and alcohol, and working to achieve long-term positive outcomes for children and families beyond a forensic focus on immediate risk and ‘child rescue’.

them around the campus before afternoon tea in Hackett Hall.

“With all our events, we try not to clash with football fixtures,” said Ian Lilburne. “But venues like Winthrop Hall (where

the Parents Welcome starts) are so heavily booked, that we have to choose a date 12 months in advance. We can’t wait until October when the fixtures for the following year are published.”

Jenni Wallis (Life and Physical Sciences) and Jon Stubbs (Student Services) show a group of parents around the campus

6 UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 The University of Western Australia

The phrase the blind leading the blind leaps to mind. But this time, it doesn’t have the negative connotations it usually does.

Greg Madson, a receptionist and administrative officer in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, lost his sight as a young man. After battling his way through an information technology course at TAFE that had no resources for him, Greg began working for what is now the Future Farm Industries CRC and the Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture.

That was seven years ago and it was his first job since losing his sight. He quickly became an asset to the office, with his quick mind and his exceptional computer skills.

Over the past summer, Greg has been passing on those skills to Suzi Westwood, a high school student who has been legally blind all of her life. Through a State Government program, Structured Workplace Employment and Training, Suzi spent one day a week for 15 weeks with Greg, and his guide dog Pollock, learning how to scan mail and other documents using talking software, and how to use screen-reading software to do the myriad talks required of an office administrator.

“The skill is not so much in learning how to use the software but in learning what to listen to, so you can quickly pick up the information you want, rather like a sighted person briefly scanning something and being able to identify the key points,” said Greg.

While passing on his experience to the 17-year-old Leeming Senior High School student, Greg wondered about the possibility of further work for Suzi at UWA and contacted Equity and Diversity manager Beverley Hill about the possibility of a traineeship.

At the same time, David Faithfull, operations manager for the School of Biomedical, Biomolecular and Chemical Sciences, was thinking about traineeships.

“We’re very keen to secure traineeships in our workshops for Indigenous people,” David said. “But all of a sudden recently, we’ve had big staff turnovers in our administrative area, so when I heard that Suzi was ready for a traineeship, it seemed like a perfect solution for everybody.”

David said he went to see Greg Madsen and was very impressed with what he had done in his position.

Suzi began her traineeship in the Molecular and Chemical Sciences building in the first week of April. She is currently playing golf in Japan, but will return to eight hours a week learning reception and administrative work for 12 weeks.

“After that, she will do a TAFE course and her hours with us will increase,” David said. “We hope Suzi will be the success that Greg has been for Natural and Agricultural Sciences.”

See pages 8 and 9 for more on how UWA is embracing people of all abilities.

Suzi Westwood learns valuable skills from Greg Madson, while Pollock keeps an eye on them both

Sharing skills leads to career path

The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 7

About 800 students register each year with UniAccess, asking for help with disabilities, both big and small; obvious and invisible.

And for staff with ‘unmet needs’ the Equity and Diversity Office is the first port of call. Manager Beverley Hill prefers to use this all-encompassing term rather than ‘with disabilities’ to describe the people she and her staff help and support every day.

Both groups are pro-active, continuously working to improve conditions and anticipate situations, to the extent that UWA is a leader in this State and an advocate for anybody who needs extra support to do a job, study a course or just get around the campus.

A current student had been at another university when she developed a disability and was told by that university that they were no longer able to cater for her needs. She transferred to UWA and Deborah Allen, a disability officer with UniAccess, said her faculty had done a brilliant job of supporting the student and helping her to complete all facets of the course.

A staff member who has been at UWA for four years enrolled as a part-time student last year and was so impressed with the help and support she received from UniAccess with her bi-polar disorder that she decided she no longer needed to hide her condition from her colleagues.

universityfor all abilities

She wrote to Bev Hill that she had previously met with prejudices about her condition but “at UWA the staff have been very supportive and understanding and I no longer feel that condition is something to be hidden.”

At the recent UWA Senior Leadership Retreat, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education), Professor Don Markwell reflected that, typically, top 50 universities placed considerable and increasing emphasis on connecting to the world … increasing focus on active equity and access agendas.

To reach UWA’s top 50 objective, Professor Markwell said we needed to show the community that “while elite in quality, we are inclusive rather than elitist in our approach to attracting and supporting students from diverse backgrounds to share in the world-class education we offer.”

The UWA Disability Access and Inclusion Plan for 2007 to 2011 lists six objectives to ensure equitable access to education, employment, cultural and recreational opportunities at UWA for people with a disability. They are: to ensure that policy, planning and resource allocation support the plan; to increase the capacity of staff to create a welcoming and inclusive environment; to continue to improve physical access and way finding; to provide a flexible teaching and learning environment; to provide information technology equipment

a

ABOVE: Arts student Stephen Bebbington can easily use the new automatic doors and the lift in the arts building RIGHT: Bev Hill, manager Equity and Diversity

8 The University of Western Australia

and services that meet the needs of staff and students with a disability; to work towards an equitable representation and distribution of staff with a disability.

This plan was implemented last year but most of the objectives were already in practice.

Improving physical access has always been on the agenda for UniAccess. Deborah Allen is particularly proud of amendments to the entry to the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

“When they renovated the faculty office several years ago, they installed some beautiful heavy glass doors. They looked great, but people in wheelchairs, on crutches, pushing prams or even with heavy loads in their arms couldn’t open them. We arranged to have them changed to automatic sliding glass doors, which now give 24-hour access to the lift,” she said.

Ms Allen and colleague Barbara Levit are conducting an audit of all major teaching venues on campus, ensuring that all people, regardless of their capabilities, can ‘get in, move around and get out’ of them easily.

The UWA-Perth International Arts Festival has also improved access for people with previously unmet needs. Julian Donaldson, PIAF’s general manager, said they had provided captioning for people with hearing impairment at three productions, Blackwatch, Trad and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as two sessions of the writers’ festival.

“There were seats allocated at the three venues for people who requested captioning, so they could easily see the screen, and every captioned seat for every production was sold,” Mr Donaldson said.

A woman in a wheelchair wrote to the Festival saying that Don’t Look Back, a piece of promenade theatre where patrons followed the action around the old Treasury building, was the best wheelchair theatre experience she had ever had.

“When services are provided for people with unmet needs, they usually end up being good for everybody,” said Bev Hill, after hearing that some audiences at Trad, where the actors had heavy Irish accents, were delighted to be able to use the captioning service when they couldn’t understand the actors’ brogues.

Lectopia is another great example of services designed to meet special needs that benefit everybody. The award-winning lecture capture system is used by huge numbers of students who cannot access traditional lectures for many reasons:

some of those have disabilities but others have simply missed a lecture through work or family commitments.

“We can’t rely on UniAccess to help all students who have particular needs because not all of them register,” Ms Hill said. “That’s where systems like Lectopia are great: the support is there even if you haven’t asked for it.”

Ms Allen said there was always something new to stretch the UniAccess staff’s initiative. “For example, we have two students studying music, who both have vision impairment, but their needs are entirely different, even though they are doing some of the same units.

“We have helped their teachers to prepare materials suitable for these students, to choose alternative methods of presentation and also assessment techniques. One of them has a sight-reading component in an assessment and we are trying to work out a way the student can do this and not be disadvantaged,” she said.

Ms Allen said she was not aware of a single case where the University had told a student he or she could not study a particular course because of a disability. “Some of them make their own choices to change courses, but we have never told a student that a course was impossible.”

She said the growing area of disability among students was mental health. One in five Australians will have a mental health issue at some time in their lives and students are at risk because of their youth and the stress of studying and exams.

UWA was the first university in WA to start running mental health First Aid training, to raise awareness of symptoms, to help people respond to mental health problems and to encourage discussion of mental health issues. More than 300 staff and students have attended training.

Averil Riley from the Safety and Health Office, has recently run youth mental health First Aid training at Currie Hall, and Tricia Wylde from the Medical Centre at Student Services has run them at Trinity and St Catherine’s.

The revamp of the University’s Web pages has also come under the Disability Access and Inclusion Plan. Grant Malcolm, Manager UWA Website project, said that, for the first time, official UWA Web pages are meeting international accredited standards, linked to the plan.

“We are using universal design principles to ensure that everything on the new website meets those standards,” he said.

“We are designing our pages so that they are accessible to everybody and we have a line at the bottom of each section saying that if you are experiencing difficulties accessing information, please contact us so we can help you.”

New signs, maps and ramps around the campus, supported teams of employees with disabilities, traineeships, the use of universal design principles: all of these are at work every day to unsure that UWA is a university for all abilities.

While elite in quality, we are inclusive rather than elitist in our approach to attracting and supporting students from diverse backgrounds.

“ “

PIAF’s production Don’t Look Back provided at least one patron with “her best wheelchair theatre experience ever”

9UWA NEWS 7 April 2008

High school students in Perth took control of the Parkes Radio Telescope recently, from their base in the new Centre for Learning Technology in UWA’s Physics building.

The 15 students were the third group of budding Australian astronomers to use the telescope, which cemented its reputation as an Australian icon in the movie, The Dish.

PULSE@Parkes was part of the Out There! Exhibition, created by UWA to highlight the Square Kilometre Array project.

The Centre for Learning Technology (CLT) established a direct link to astronomers in the telescope tower and live footage of the dish. Students communicated with astronomers via webcam, selected a pulsar and then remotely controlled the dish to allow for observation of the star. They studied pulsars in the Milky Way including GLAST pulsars which are a focus of NASA gamma ray studies.

The downloaded data was analysed by students who calculated distances to the pulsars. Their data will contribute to

Now that Stewart Candlish is retired, he is getting his own back.

The former professorial fellow in Philosophy has become the first Western Australian editor of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, ranked among the world’s top 10 international publications in its discipline.

The AJP receives about 400 submissions a year from all over the world. Only about 30 of them are published. “So much of my job consists of dispensing disappointment,” Professor Candlish said. “I’ve discovered that I possess unsuspected reserves of brutality!

“It’s been continually published since 1923 but never had an editor west of Melbourne,” he said. “I still find it hard to believe that it’s been entrusted to me.”

He finds he is working on the quarterly journal all week and into the weekends. “I had more chance of taking a holiday before I retired,” he said. “Now my days range from repunctuating a very clever but semi-literate author to turning down a paper from a famous but prickly academic.”

The AJP was originally published by Oxford University Press and moved to Routledge in 2005. It is heavily cited, which Professor Candlish puts down to hard work and constructive refereeing.

“We have a big team of referees including senior professors from Cambridge, Harvard, London and Princeton. A submission from the US may be evaluated in Iran, one from Israel in Sweden, on from China in Brazil.”

So in what sense is it distinctively Australasian? “That is due, at least in part, to the 30 solidly Australasian associate editors,” Professor Candlish said. “Such has been the historic strength of the discipline in Australia and New Zealand that is has been possible to find a large team of internationally acknowledged experts in a comparatively small pool of candidates.”

A thoughtful editorThe publishers threw a party to welcome new editor Stewart Candlish and the VC ceremoniously cut open the first issue under his direction

Professor Peter Quinn explains the Pathfinder telescope to Education Minister Mark McGowan, Director-General of Education, Sharyn O’Neill and Professor Alan Robson at the opening of the CLT (Photo by Paul Ricketts, DUIT Multimedia)

Stirring the Dishwith SPICE

ongoing pulsar research and the search for gravitational waves in space.

The PULSE@Parkes project paves the way for students to use the Australian SKA Pathfinder telescope, which will be built by CSIRO, UWA and other partner institutions in WA by 2012.

The CLT, funded by UWA, provides a home for the SPICE program. SPICE is a partnership between the Department of Education and Training and UWA that supports secondary science teachers to stimulate students’ interest in science.

“The key to nurturing scientific imagination lies in fostering positive learning environments in our schools and universities where high-quality teachers and academics can work in the knowledge they have the support of government and the community,” said Professor Alan Robson, at the opening of the centre last month.

The Centre for Learning Technology was formed in 2000 and is nationally recognised for its development of award-winning education programs, professional learning technology services and teaching resources.

UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 The University of Western Australia10

Beth is ready to take on the world

Beth Shaw is Australia’s newest and young politician.

The final year Law student has been chosen to represent young Australians at the United Nations this year.

The 24-year-old arts graduate from Melbourne University chose UWA for her Law studies and has made an indelible mark on the faculty and the campus.

A former editor of the student newspaper Pelican, Beth was elected President of the Blackstone Society, the UWA Law Students’ Society, in 2006.

She developed free workshops for students to give them practical skills in negotiation, advocacy and client interviewing; initiated a mentor scheme for female students and women in the profession; developed a volunteer database, matching community organisations with students; and sat on every Law School committee to represent students.

Beth was one of three WA law students (all from UWA) who were offered work in the State Solicitor’s Office, so she is completing her law degree part-time. But now, with her position as youth ambassador to the UN, she has had to resign from her job.

Beth is clearly excited about her new role and says it is a great time to be representing young Australians.

“We have a new Labor government which I feel is offering more support for young people. Kevin Rudd is keen for Australia to get a seat on the UN’s Security Council, and I support him in

that. And with the US elections playing out while I’m in New York, I feel that this year is going to be an excellent one for increasing our engagement with the UN and so increasing our effectiveness in the years to come.”

She said the Rudd government had increased youth representation at the UN to two this year. Her counterpart is Melanie Poole an Arts/Law student from the ANU.

Together, they will travel to each Australian state and territory to meet young people and discuss their needs. They will meet other youth representatives in Europe in August.

From September to December Beth will be working in New York as a fully

accredited member of the Australian delegation to the UN. She will address the General Assembly on behalf of Australia and work with the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee of the General Assembly.

“But right now, I’m working full-time seeking sponsorship. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is paying for our apartment in New York but we have to organise our own sponsorship for air fares, other accommodation and expenses.”

Beth said that Family and Community Services for Indigenous Australians was sponsoring the delegates’ trip through the Northern Territory.

“I’m very keen to engage with rural Australia,” she said. “I think it will be very powerful for young people in the bush to know that we can take their concerns and

points of view to the world.”

She said it was essential for young people to be engaged with the community at an early age.

“When I was at school at Wesley College in Melbourne, I chose to do the International Baccalaureate, which I think creates well-rounded individuals who engage internationally,” she said.

Beth said the Vice-Chancellor had given her fantastic support. Anybody interested in sponsoring Beth can visit the website www.youthrep.org.au Beth will be keeping a blog on this site, detailing her travels through Australia and her work at the UN.

The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 11

A private collection of nearly a century of Australian women’s art that any gallery nationwide would be anxious to get their hands on has been donated to UWA.

To the untrained eye, Joy Hester’s 1957 melancholy painting Girl in Corner casts a lonely shadow at UWA’s Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, but to art collectors around the world, it marks the birth of what became an exciting new WA treasure – the multi-million dollar Cruthers Collection.

Girl in Corner was the first piece of female art acquired by Lady Sheila Cruthers in New York and, almost three

decades later, she and husband, former Channel 7 and Sunday Times chairman Sir James Cruthers, had expanded their passion to form one of Australia’s largest and most significant displays of women’s art.

The decision to solely seek out the work of women artists was made by Lady Cruthers in the 1970s, primarily due to the affordability of the paintings in comparison to those created by the renowned Heidelberg School.

But it wasn’t only value for money that motivated the collection: Lady Cruthers felt women artists were being overlooked, and needed to be celebrated.

Many paintings later, and keen to share their collection with the wider public, Sir James and Lady Cruthers last month generously donated the Cruthers Collection to the University – an honour that Gallery Director John Barrett-Lennard says the University will carry proudly.

The Cruthers Collection contains more than 400 works by 155 Australian female artists, including Grace Cossington Smith, Margaret Preston, Susan Norrie, Tracey Moffatt, Joy Hester, Rosalie Gascoigne and Julie Dowling.

Ranging from the 1890s to the present, the many paintings include self portraits by each artist represented in the collection, as well as works on paper, craft objects, sculptures and installations. Collection themes embrace birth, children and family life, the home, women’s bodies, the

environment, issues of identity.

The Cruthers Family have also established the Cruthers Art Foundation to maintain the collection, purchase new works and support women’s art through scholarships.

With a few pieces currently on display at the Gallery, visitors can catch a glimpse of a national treasure that is hoped to soon be on display in its own dedicated exhibition space.

Celebrating women’s art

Joy Hester’s Girl in Corner, part of the extensive Cruthers collection

by Natali Morgan

UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 The University of Western Australia1212

PROFESSORProfessor Tim Mazzarol (UWA Business School)

Professor Mazzarol’s research is in the field of entrepreneurship and small business management. His work has been published in both English and French language journals and he has been appointed as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Burgundy School of Business’s Centre for Business Research (CEREN) which has adopted his models of entrepreneurial management.

Professor Mazzarol has been Director of CEMI since its formation. He has been principal organiser of a consortium of academic researchers in 14 countries that are engaged in a study of innovation in small firms. This will form the basis of both a research book and a new approach to teaching MBA students in innovation management.

Professor Robert Stamps (School of Physics)

Professor Stamps’ particular area of expertise is in magnetic and dielectric properties of matter, with emphasis on material magnetism in thin films and nanostructures. He is well recognised in the materials and condensed matter physics community and works closely with leading experimental groups in Europe and the USA.

He plays an active role in developing an innovative curriculum in Physics. He has helped to establish double badged degrees with the Universities of Louis Pasteur and Paris.

Professor Stamps participates regularly on advisory panels, conference organisation and is an active participant in Australian and European research networks such as the Australian research network for Advanced Materials (ARNAM).

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORDr Christoph Hinz (School of Earth and Geographical Sciences)

Dr Hinz’s research is internationally known, presenting at AGU (American Geophysical Union) in San Francisco and the EGU (European Geoscience Union) in Vienna.

His area of research is on a better understanding of threshold processes in natural systems that will enhance our ability to predict abrupt changes in the environment often induced by rapid changes of climatic and weather conditions.

Dr Hinz makes a significant contribution to collaborative teaching across a wide range of core units in Soil Science, and Land and Water Management.

Dr Jishan Liu (Centre for Petroleum, Fuel and Energy Research, School of Mechanical Engineering)

Dr Liu has established an international reputation with his research program: Coupled Multiphysics in Fractured Rocks: Active Experimentation, Real-Time Imaging, and Modeling. The primary objective of this program is to address the common scientific issues for a host of reservoir engineering phenomena, including enhanced oil recovery, CO2 geological sequestration and wellbore stability. His contributions to the understanding of coupled processes in porous media is of particular significance as is the development of techniques to incorporate CT data in numerical computation of transport processes in porous media.

Dr Liu plays a substantial role in the Faculty’s engagement with China.

SENIOR LECTURERDr Stephen Dobbs (Asian Studies, School of Social and Cultural Studies)

Dr Dobbs’ research is on Southeast Asian social and maritime history, Singapore’s history and role as a global maritime hub and trading centre, and Islam in Southeast Asia.

He has taught courses ranging from Asian identities to ethnicity, culture, religion, politics, business and culture. He took over the role of Discipline Chair of Asian Studies in 2007. Dr Marie-Eve Ritz (Linguistics, Graduate School of Education)

Dr Ritz’s primary area of research is formal semantics. Her work has broadened to include contributions to several sub-disciplines of linguistics including language variation, historical linguistics and pragmatics. She is recognised both nationally and internationally as one of the leading scholars in the area of tense, aspect and language change.

Dr Joey Wenling Yang (Financial Studies, School of Economics and Commerce, UWA Business School)

Dr Yang’s area of research is financial market microstructure, investment fund management, derivatives hedging, and corporate finance.

Her teaching philosophy is aimed at motivating students to impart independent learning and critical thinking skills. She is conscious of student diversity and its impact on curriculum design and learning outcomes.

RESEARCH FELLOWDr Deirdre Gleeson (School of Earth and Geographical Sciences)

Dr Gleeson’s main area of research is to link microbial community structure with function. It is focused on the use of molecular approaches to study a variety of natural and agricultural communities and she is currently working on a project to determine the contribution of the microbial processes of nitrification and denitrification to nitrous oxide emissions in WA.

Dr Alexandra Suvorova (Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation and Analysis)

Dr Suvorova’s area of research is in electron microscopy and microanalysis techniques and their application to solve semiconductor materials problems. She has collaborated with researchers in Germany, France and the United States on semiconductor nanostructures

SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOWDr Sue Byrne (School of Psychology)

Dr Byrne’s research interests lie in the area of eating and weight disorders. At Oxford University, she was a member of one of the foremost research groups in the world in this area. Since her return to UWA in 2002 she has been awarded a UWA Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and an NHMRC Fellowship to continue to conduct research into the causes and treatment of eating and weight disorders.

The quality of Dr Byrne’s research has been recognised by several awards, including the Tracey Goodall Award for research and clinical innovation that has been made an outstanding contribution to cognitive behaviour therapy in Australia.

Anna Ferrante (Crime Research Centre)

Ms Ferrante joined the University with a strong quantitative background in mathematics, statistics and computing and used these skills to develop the Integrated Numerical Offender Identification System (INOIS) in 1993.

This system remains the most sophisticated criminal justice data linking model in Australia, providing accurate and detailed data for the long term study of ‘criminal careers’ and the evaluation of criminal justice programs. She has a national reputation for the work she has done on Indigenous offending, and contact with the criminal justice system and her research on the extent of domestic violence in Western Australia has set the benchmark for all subsequent work on this issue.

Dr David Preen (School of Population Health)

Dr Preen’s current research activities focus on aspects of health care that are of national and international significance, and include health service utilisation in the WA diabetic community, therapeutic poisoning in older Australians, chronic disease management, clinical interventions for obesity, the health of adult criminal offenders, methodological advances using medical record linkage, and psychostimulant prescribing of the treatment of ADHD.

Dr Preen is currently Director of the Centre for Health Services Research in the School of Population Health.

Dr Min Zhang (School of Population Health)

The major focus of Dr Zhang’s research over the last decade has been to identify modifiable factors associated with cancer incidence and survival, namely, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and adult leukaemia.

She is the principal investigator of a significant green tea study in China which has led to extensive research networks and collaborations between two Chinese provinces and UWA. These collaborations have paved the way for research links between China and the School of Population Health.

PROMOTION BRIEFSProvided by Elizabeth Hutchinson, Executive Officer, Promotions and Tenure Committee, Human Resources

PROMOTION BRIEFS continued next page

The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 13

RESEARCH GRANTS AND CONTRACTS

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Australian Research Council Linkage Projects, Council Of Grain Growers Organisation, Research Institute For The Semi Arid TropicsA/Prof Timothy Colmer, Dr Pooran Gaur, Prof Kadambot Siddique, Dr Vincent Valdez, Dr Rajeev Varshney, Prof Dr Timothy Flowers, Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, Plant Biology, External, Natural and Agricultural Sciences: ‘Physiological and Molecular Characterisation of Salinity Tolerance in Chickpea’—$665,723 (2007-10)

PRINCIPAL RESEARCH FELLOWDr Sue Fletcher (Centre for Neuromuscular and Neurological Disorders)

Dr Fletcher’s area of research is Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), the most common serious neuromuscular condition affecting children and caused by mutations in the dytrophin gene.

She has been instrumental in identifying effective antisense compounds to treat DMD and has made significant contributions to the field of DMD research in taking a concept to Phase 1 clinical trials in a little over seven years. The major objective of the group Dr Fletcher is a part of is to undertake research to develop treatments to reduce the severity of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Dr Deborah Trinder (School of Medicine and Pharmacology) Dr Trinder has made outstanding contributions to the scientific literature in the fields of iron metabolism and haemochromotosis. She is the leader of the highly successful Iron Metabolism Laboratory in the School of Medicine at Fremantle Hospital. She participates in scientific and clinical research projects examining the role of iron in other diseases such as colorectal cancer, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis , liver disease, renal disease, viral hepatitis and exercise induced iron deficiency.

PROMOTION BRIEFScontinued from page 13

UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 The University of Western Australia14

REDUNDANT EQUIPMENTCONDITION refers to the general condition of the item (1=as new, 2=good, 3=serviceable, 4=unserviceable). AGE refers to the nearest year.

Schools are reminded that all university equipment available for sale must be advertised in UWA NEWS. Receipts should be PeopleSoft account coded 490 (computing with barcode), 491 (non-computing with barcode) or 493 (items with no barcode). If equipment has an existing barcode please contact extension 3618/2546 for details. Preference will be given to School bids. Please identify your bid as School or private.

Aaron Thomas, Dentist, Primary, Aboriginal and Rural Health CareChristopher Tonkin, Lecturer, MusicJane Tucker, Assistant (General), UWA Business SchoolEdilbert Ty, Security Systems Administrator, Facilities Management, SecurityHana Vuko, Administrative Assistant, Office of DevelopmentNatalie Westcott, Administrative Assistant, Facilities Management, AdministrationRaymond White, Librarian 1, LibraryDr Helen Willcox, Senior Lecturer Primary, Aboriginal and Rural Health CareAlicia Wilson, Training Dental Clinic Assistant, Oral Health Centre of WAShannon Wrensted, Training Dental Clinic Assistant, Oral Health Centre of WAChoong Wai Yew, Research Associate, Paediatrics & Child HealthKate Zabiela, Training Dental Clinic Assistant, Oral Health Centre of WAAlicia Zablah, Administrative Assistant, Vice-Chancellery

NEW STAFFWelcome to the following people who have joined the University since December 2007

STAFF ADSClassified advertising is free to staff. Email staffads@uwa.edu.au

ITEM PRICE AGE COND SECTION CONTACT

NOTICES

Centre for Integrated Human StudiesPublIC SemInar

Wednesday 30 april 5.30–7pm

Keeping the arts and culture alive in an economically booming Australia

Chaired by Martin Forsey

Panellists include Dennis Haskell and Vivienne Glance

Seminar Room 1.81, School of Anatomy and Human Biology

Enquiries to Karen Connolly kconnolly@anhb.uwa.edu.au

FOR SALETOYOTA RAV 4 5-door hatch, 1999, white, manual, very low 55,000 km, service records. New tyres, tow bar, roof rack, tinted windows, registered to December. One owner, accident free, immaculate condition. $15,500. Contact: 0405 353 251 or 9383 4187.

TO LETBUSSELTON: “Driftwood Cottage”. New holiday house right in town. Only 250m to the beach or town centre, but quiet and secluded under big peppermint trees. Sleeps 8, with big spa in main bedroom, fully self contained and you only need to bring linen. 10% discount for UWA staff. Can be viewed at http://www.stayz.com.au/29356 Contact Nick Gibson on 0413 622 269, 9305 9059, or nick.gibson@uwa.edu.au for more details.

UWA medical students need your help!If you are 18+ years of age and have any of the following medical conditions then you are invited to attend a two hour session (Wednesday - Friday between 9am - 4pm) during which you will be examined by a supervised medical student in a clinical setting at The University of Western Australia (Crawley).

Musculoskeletal (e.g., rheumatoid or osteoarthritis)

Neurological (e.g., stroke, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis)

Respiratory (e.g., asthma, emphysema, cystic fibrosis, asbestosis)

Cardiovascular (e.g., heart failure, ischemic heart disease, heart attack, hypertension, heart transplant, valvular disease, peripheral vascular disease)

Gastrointestinal/Renal (e.g., hernia, chronic liver disease, kidney/liver transplant, polycystic kidney, enlarged liver/spleen, renal failure)

Haematological (e.g., anaemia, lymphoma, leukemia, thalasaemia)

Thyroid problems (e.g., goiter, hyper/hypothyroidism)

Chronic diseases (e.g., diabetes)

The examination will be conducted purely for teaching purposes. No treatment etc. will be offered. All tests are non-invasive (e.g., blood pressure). Travel reimbursements are available.

To register your interest or for further information please contact Dr Nicole Koehler on 9449 5179 (Tue, Wed or Thurs morning) or e-mail Nicole.Koehler@uwa.edu.au

Sharp AR-163 Photocopier (B/W) $250 7 3 Scholars, Reid Library kmau@library.uwa.edu.au

Fax Machine Panafax UF-885 $30 8 2 Library Administration kmau@library.uwa.edu.au

IBM Netvista Model No. 6826-11M Quantity - 70 $75/ea 4 2 Medicine, Dentistry Sunarhadi@uwa.edu.au, Intel Celeron 1.7GHz (128KB), 512MB, 40GB 7200RPM and Health Sciences 9346 4066 IDE HDD, PCI Small Form Factor (2x3), Intel Extreme Graphics, CD Writter Lite-On LTR48246S, Intel Pro 10/100 Ethernet, SoundMax Integrated Digital Audio, Win XP Pro

IBM Netvista 6826-A5M Quantity - 10 $75/ea 4 2 Medicine, Dentistry Sunarhadi@uwa.edu.au, Intel Celeron 2.0GHz (128KB), 512MB, 40GB and Health Sciences 9346 4066 7200RPM IDE HDD, PCI Small Form Factor (2x3), Intel Extreme Graphics, CD Writter Lite-On LTR48246S, Intel Pro 10/100 Ethernet, SoundMax Integrated Digital Audio, Win XP Pro

Fax Machine Panafax UF-885 $30 8 2 Library Administration Ext 1904 or kmau@library.uwa.edu.au

Sharp AR-163 Photocopier B/W $250 7 3 Library Administration Ext 1904 or kmau@library.uwa.edu.au

Infant Fish Oil Supplementation StudyAllergic diseases (asthma, hay fever, eczema, food

allergy) are becoming more common.

Babies are at risk of developing allergic disease (60-80%) if one or both parents have an allergy

Fish oil has been shown previously to modify allergic immune responses in pregnant women

Aim: To prevent the development of allergy in newborns by dietary supplementation with fish oil or placebo for the first 6 months of life

Eligibility criteria: pregnant non-smokerhistory of allergic diseaseconsuming <1000mg of fish oil daily

IF interested please contact PMH on 9340 8834 or provide details on clipboard

The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 15

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EDITOR/WRITER: Lindy Brophy, Public Affairs Tel: 6488 2436 Fax: 6488 1020

Email: lindy.brophy@uwa.edu.au

Director of Public Affairs: Doug Durack Tel: 6488 2806 Fax: 6488 1020

Designed and printed by UniPrint, UWA

UWAnews online: http://uwanews.publishing.uwa.edu.au/

UWA NEWS

It is widely acknowledged that postgraduates face a variety of potential stressors during candidature.

To help them overcome these barriers and to retain students and hasten completion rates, a range of support is provided, including advice about navigating relations with supervisors, assistance with negotiating a work-life balance and strategies for tackling procrastination and self-sabotage.

But do we prepare students for potential stresses related to the nature of the topic being researched?

As a Holocaust historian, I studied the dark side of humanity for close to a decade and have been forever changed by that knowledge. In this column I will use my experience as a lens through which to explore this often overlooked aspect of postgraduate studies.

It is difficult to accurately assess the extent to which scholars are exposed to potentially traumatic material but an idea can be gauged from a perusal of current and past research projects in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (FAHSS), which reveals projects ranging from child sexual abuse and spousal homicide and familicide to the Stolen Generations and memories of the Armenian genocide. In the discipline of Social Work and Social Policy alone there are currently 15 PhD students researching topics which have the potential to traumatise.

And this is not a problem for FAHSS alone. Researchers in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences studying palliative care, depression, suicide, or substance abuse, and graduate students in the Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences’ Centre for Forensic Science researching the effects of drugs on road safety or the relationship between child sexual abuse and adult psychopathology may also be affected. Yet, universities do not have formal mechanisms to identify and prepare scholars of potentially traumatic topics for possible adverse effects of the material they study.

There are specialised training programs across the mental health professions to support therapists who work with trauma survivors. Indeed, vicarious traumatisation — defined as the impact on the therapist of repeated exposure to traumatic client imagery and material — is widely recognised as an inevitable occupational hazard for mental health professionals working with severely traumatised people. Is it then not likely that the same will be true for scholars of natural, technological and human-induced catastrophes? Perhaps more so, as it is the nature of academic life that one’s research topic tends to become all-embracing. As we know, academics do not have nine to five jobs but tend to live research which knows no boundaries.

The dark side of a higher degreeDr Judy BermanSenior Research Development Officer

Have we really paid enough thought to how those researching traumatic events — from family violence, sexual abuse, and suicide through life-threatening illnesses and tsunamis, to child soldiers, terrorism, genocide and refugees — cope with their disturbing subject matter?

Does their research — whether it is exposure to literature, oral testimony, artefacts or archival material — affect their lives and if so, in what ways? Does their research topic have a cumulative transformative effect on their identity, worldview, life choices and relationships or do they separate their daily lives from their research, and if so, how is this achieved?

Of course, it is not inevitable that all researchers of traumatic topics will suffer adverse effects from the material they study. That may depend on characteristics intrinsic to the individual such as personality, personal history and current personal circumstances. It is not uncommon for academics to be drawn to research topics which are close to the heart and which may help them make sense of their past or present personal circumstances. It is plausible that scholars researching potentially traumatic events will be particularly vulnerable to vicarious traumatisation when they are new to research (most PhD students) and when their own personal histories intersect with their research topic.

I have raised this as an issue for the UWA community to consider as I believe that it is important, both for the benefit of individual researchers and society more broadly. From a narrow economic-efficiency perspective, implementation of additional support for students studying potentially traumatic topics should impact positively on completion times and retention rates. From a broader perspective, failure to identify and provide ways for researchers to work through trauma could not only have detrimental effects on their mental health but could also jeopardise the study of catastrophic events and in turn the lessons we learn from them which can have implications for the future of humankind.

UWA NEWS 21 April 2008 The University of Western Australia16