ANU Colleges of Physical & Mathematical Sciences Medicine, Biology & Environment

S C I E N C E , E N V I R O N M E N T , M E D I C I N E & H E A L T H

C O N T E N T S

Introduction 2

How we work together 4

Strong international connections 6

World-class facilities 8

Our alumni 10

Excellence in teaching 12 and learning

Undergraduate studies 14

Postgraduate coursework 16

Postgraduate research 18

Astronomy and 20 astrophysics The giant eye on the sky

Biology 22 The future of food

Chemistry 24 Saving lives with chemical Lego

Earth sciences 26 Winds of change

Environment and society 28 A tale of two cuties

Mathematics` 30 From the primordial soup to the salon

Medical research 32 A medical revolution of mice and men

Medicine 34 Looking good, baby

Physics 36 One small wave, one very big deal

Population health 38 Hearing the voiceless

Psychology 40 The power of belonging

Science communication 42 When the Science Circus came to Africa

Science, environment, 44 medicine & health under the microscope

Contact us Back cover

“The universe does what it wants, and I’m just here to figure out what it’s doing.”Professor Brian Schmidt

ANU Vice-Chancellor and Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics 2011

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Our students learn from these world-class researchers, as do Australia’s policy-makers, with our expertise and influence extending to our Canberra neighbours—leaders in government and industry—and beyond.

We are proud of our standing, our history and our achievements. In the past 70 years we have produced four Nobel Laureates, some of Australia’s most pre-eminent scientists and thousands of graduates with a world-class education in science, environment, medicine and health.

But nothing excites us quite as much as our future, beginning now.

Our academics produce

research that changes lives, and life as we know it. Inside a protective suit on the front line of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone.

On a tree branch in the Tasmanian wilderness, peering into a parrot’s nest.

Among the life-support machines of the neonatal intensive care unit.

In the path of a westerly gale on the Antarctic Peninsula.

At a lab bench, and in front of the classroom.

You’ll find our researchers at the forefront of scientific practice and discovery, wherever it may be.

Befitting the Australian National University’s place among the top 20 universities on the planet, our academics produce research that changes lives, and life as we know it. We are committed to solving problems through big picture and applied scientific research, to improving health outcomes for people around the world, and to the sustainable, secure and equitable use of global resources.

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How we work togetherResearch and teaching in science, environment, medicine and health at ANU is delivered by two colleges, linked by joint administration and interdisciplinary programs.

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Research School of Earth Sciences

Centre for Advanced Microscopy

Mathematical Sciences Institute

Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics

Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science

Research School of Chemistry

Energy Change Institute

Research School of Physics & Engineering

Fenner School of Environment & Society

Medical School

Research School of Biology

John Curtin School of Medical Research

Research School of Psychology

Research School of Population Health

ANU College of

Physical and Mathematical

Sciences

ANU College of

Medicine, Biology and Environment

5

North America

4025

South America

723Africa

304

UK

2001

Asia

2428

Oceania

485

Europe

6763

From working with Indonesian government and technical agencies on understanding earthquakes, to forming a joint Australian-Chinese research centre for personalised immunology, to consulting with multinational oil and gas companies on a multimillion-dollar high-tech start-up, we bring Australian knowledge, research and innovation to the world stage.

Alongside our collaborative research, we also have education partnerships with leading institutions around the world, including a dual PhD program with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a joint undergraduate and Master’s degree program with the National University of Singapore.

Strong international

connections

Graphic: The size of the green circles indicates the number of ANU science, medicine and health publication collaborations by region, 2010-2015

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World-class facilities Our new $240-million science

precinct on the ANU campus has state-of-the-art biological and chemical research laboratories, as well as a teaching hub.

The Sensitive High Resolution Ion Microprobe (SHRIMP) for analysing geological materials was designed and developed at ANU.

We have a ten per cent share in the Giant Magellan Telescope under construction in Chile. When completed, it will be the world’s most powerful telescope.

ANU is home to the fastest super computer in the southern hemisphere at the $50-million National Computational Infrastructure.

Our partnership with the Mulloon Institute has allowed ANU students and researchers to study ecological farming principles at Mulloon Creek Natural Farms in Bungendore, NSW for the past 20 years.

The $30-million Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre at our Mount Stromlo Observatory is a world-class facility for developing space instruments.

In partnership with the ACT Government and CSIRO, we are working to improve biodiversity at the “outdoor laboratories” of Mulligans Flat and Goorooyarroo Nature Reserves in the Canberra Nature Park.

The 348-hectare ANU Kioloa Coastal Campus on the south coast of New South Wales is one of Australia’s premier field stations, used for research and fieldwork training.

Our Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility is the one of the largest in the world, supporting Australia’s only experimental nuclear physics program.

The ANU Siding Spring Observatory in north-west New South Wales is Australia’s premier optical and infrared observatory, housing the state-of-the-art SkyMapper telescope.

The Australian Plant Phenomics Facility at ANU is the only place in the world that provides high-calibre public sector access to infrastructure and expertise on crop performance.

The Australian Plasma Fusion Research Facility is a uniquely versatile resource for developing fusion energy.

The Australian Phenomics Facility at ANU specialises in mouse models of human disease and is one of Australia’s foremost genomics and bioinformatics capabilities.

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Motivator Robert Wiblin: BSc 2012, BEc (Hons) 2012

Executive Director of the Centre for Effective Altruism in Oxford, a leading organisation in the philanthropic sector, and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community.

TrailblazerProfessor Mary O’Kane: PhD (Physics) 1982

NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer, and pioneer in the field of automatic speech recognition. She is also a senior figure in research policy and higher education in Australia.

LeaderJane Halton AO PSM: BA (Hons) (Psychology) 1982

Secretary of the Australian Department of Finance and one of the most senior female public servants in Australian history. She is also a Fellow at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

InventorProfessor Paul Sanberg: PhD (Behavioural Biology) 1981, DSc (Neuroscience) 1998

Neuroscientist and inventor with over 100 patents, a number of which have been licensed. He is the author of 14 books and President of the American National Academy of Inventors.

EntrepreneursPhillip Williamson: BSc (Hons) 1988 and Michelle Melbourne BSc 1991

Founders of software company Intelledox, a BRW “Fast 100” company. They have attracted more than one million users around the world to their document digitisation software product, Infiniti.

Our alumni have

global impact in science and beyond. CEO

Dr Cheong Choong Kong: MSc 1966, PhD (Mathematics) 1968, HonDSc 2002

Dr Cheong was named by Fortune as “Asia’s Businessman of the Year” during his time as CEO of Singapore Airlines. He is also a prominent community leader and distinguished mathematician.

ActivistRosie Sheb’a: BSc (Hons) 2010

Founder of Sustainable Menstruation Australia, which advocates for greater awareness of the environmental, social, and financial impact of menstruation.

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Professor Malcolm Sambridge, Dr Michelle Salmon and Dr Natalie Balfour

ANU Research School of Earth Sciences

Winners of The Australian Innovation Challenge for Education

Professor Sambridge, Dr Salmon and Dr Balfour developed the Australian Seismometers in Schools Network, which installed 40 seismometers in schools around the country with financial support from the National Collaborative Infrastructure Strategy. The participating schools are able to view seismic waves recorded from local and distant earthquakes, and share research-quality data with the seismological community.

We are dedicated to providing unparalleled excellence in research-led education.

Over half of the University’s Australian Awards for University Teaching in the last three years have been awarded to educators from science, environment, medicine and health, reflecting our innovative and resource-rich teaching and learning environment.

Our highly collaborative and intensive research culture means that our students are provided with a world-class education from high-calibre academics who, in turn, are offered opportunities for development and are recognised for their successes.

Distinguished Professor Chennupati Jagadish AC

ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering

Winner of the Companion of the Order of Australia for eminent service to physics, engineering and education.

Distinguished Professor Jagadish is the recipient of more awards than we could list. During his 25 years at ANU, he has mentored 40 PhD students and 44 post-doctoral research fellows, and has created an endowment to support students from the developing world to undertake research at ANU.

Professor Joe Hope

ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering

Winner of the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence

For his theoretical physics course, Professor Hope adopted blended learning techniques to “flip” his classroom, replacing all of his lectures with hand-developed online materials, allowing the three hours of lecture time to be spent on student activities and small-group and individual instruction.

Associate Professor Katrina Anderson

ANU Medical School

Winner of the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence

Associate Professor Anderson teaches across the ANU Medical School curriculum and is a national leader in the vertical integration of medical teaching and clinical supervisor training, focusing specifically on communication skills, self-care and reflective practice — lifelong skills that are applicable to all students and doctors.

“We often meet students who want to be astronauts and engineers but few who want to be Earth scientists. The big question is how do we attract these students to the Earth sciences? To start with, we can educate students that Earth science is not just about exploration and rocks and that there is a diverse market of jobs that involve training in Earth science; even some astronauts and engineers are trained in the Earth sciences.”

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U N D E R G R A D U A T E S T U D I E S

At ANU, we give our students the right start, with access to world-leading scientists and researchers. And with Australia’s best student to staff ratio of 10:1, it’s no wonder they leave as the most employable graduates in the country.

A range of undergraduate study programs are available.

Rebecca DaviesRebecca Davies is a Bachelor of Philosophy (Honours) student at the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Despite being an undergraduate, she has published three first-author papers, is about to submit two more and is co-author on another three published papers. She has also spoken at seminars at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Her honours research is on how star populations within galaxies are affected by massive black holes.

“So much of what I’ve achieved, I owe to my supervisor. She realised I have potential and invested in me and I’m really grateful for that. I had never imagined I could publish something as an undergrad, but my supervisor encouraged me to, and hearing that from her motivated me to keep going. That was the start of everything for me.

“At ANU, the small number of undergrads and the large number of academics really helps because each student has much more opportunity to be exposed to research at a higher level. The professors are so open. They basically beg PhB students to come and do research with them! If you’re interested in research, coming to ANU is definitely the best move you can possibly make. I’m not overselling it—that’s really what I think. Being at ANU is definitely the most amazing opportunity I ever could have had.”

PhB program

For intellectually ambitious students we offer the prestigious Bachelor of Philosophy (Honours) program in science. The PhB allows students to explore their interests, develop their research skills and be mentored by leading academics through individually-tailored advanced studies.

Areas of study

> Astronomy and astrophysics

> Biology

> Chemistry

> Earth and marine sciences

> Environment and sustainability

> Mathematics

> Medical and health sciences

> Physics

> Psychology

> Science communication

Single degrees

Our suite of bachelor degrees covers the breadth of scientific endeavour from astronomy to zoology and everything in between. Students are able to choose a specialised degree program—in medical science, psychology or forestry, for example—or pursue their broad scientific interests with a Bachelor of Science. An advanced Bachelor of Science is also available to high-achieving students as a pathway to Honours.

Double degrees

Our flexible double degree program allows students to combine two degrees, creating their own unique undergraduate experience. Science students are free to combine their program with complementary degrees outside of science, such as law, philosophy, arts, music or engineering, for a well-rounded and marketable education.

In partnership with the University of Canberra, we also offer a vertical double degree, the Bachelor of Science/Master of Teaching, allowing ANU science students to fast-track their entry into the teaching profession.

Our undergraduate students are destined to make the discoveries that will define Australia’s future.

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P O S T G R A D U A T E C O U R S E W O R K

Medical and health sciences

Graduate students learn from our active researchers. We have more than 200 scientists at work in the life sciences, 100 research staff working in neuroscience, and one of the most research-intensive schools of ANU—the Research School of Population Health.

> Graduate Certificate of Applied Epidemiology

> Master of Neuroscience

> Master of Public Health

Medicine

The Doctor of Medicine and Surgery is a comprehensive four-year degree for students looking to enter medicine. It aims to produce graduates who are committed to compassionate, ethical health care and the expansion of medical knowledge through research.

> Doctor of Medicine and Surgery

Psychology

Our popular Master program provides students with postgraduate clinical training to practise in a range of clinical settings such as hospitals, community health centres and private practice, while giving them a strong foundation for life-long professional learning.

> Master of Clinical Psychology

> PhD (Clinical Psychology)

Physics

Our graduate program gives students the unique opportunity to study both the fundamentals and applications of nuclear science, including studies in materials analysis, dating techniques, nuclear medicine and nuclear energy and provides access to state-of-the-art equipment.

> Master of Nuclear Science

Science communication

Our graduate programs in science communication are internationally well-regarded qualifications, and are unique in the world. Our education experiences are hosted at Questacon and ANU, based on cutting-edge research in science communication.

> Master of Science Communication Outreach

> Master of Science Communication

Astronomy and astrophysics

Astronomy and astrophysics students have access to one of the highest concentrations of experts in the field, as well as to some of the world’s best observing facilities. Graduates of the program are found in many of the world’s major astronomical centres.

> Master of Astronomy and Astrophysics (Advanced)

Biology

The biological research community in Canberra is unique in Australia, combining world-leading expertise and facilities with a broad spectrum of topics including evolution, ecology and genetics, biomedical and biochemical research, and plant science.

> Master of Biological Sciences

> Master of Biotechnology

Earth, marine and planetary sciences

Graduate students have access to one of the highest concentrations of Earth sciences experts in Australia, as well as some of the world’s most advanced and innovative equipment. The proximity of Geoscience Australia and CSIRO adds to students’ research potential.

> Master of Earth Sciences (Advanced)

Environment and sustainability

Drawing on our expertise in the management, science and policy of environmental issues and resource use in Australia, our graduate programs in environment and sustainability have strong links to government, industry and community groups.

> Master of Energy Change

> Master of Environment

> Master of Environmental Science

> Master of Forestry

Mathematical and computational sciences

Our graduate program prepares students for further study of mathematical sciences or upgrades their quantitative skills in areas such as the biological sciences and computational science. These areas are rapidly becoming more reliant on advanced techniques from the mathematical sciences.

> Master of Mathematical Sciences (Advanced)

The intensive research culture in science, environment, medicine and health at ANU, combined with a relatively small student population, gives our postgraduate coursework students the opportunity to work closely with leading researchers on work with real world implications.

Our postgraduate coursework students are innovative, creative and take risks.

We offer a number of internationally recognised postgraduate coursework programs, with many also available as advanced programs.

Tom Shaw, Master of Neuroscience (Advanced)“I’ve just started my research project, using neuroimaging to look at whether poor cardiovascular health affects a loss of myelin in the brain, and vice versa. In the future I’d like to go into research on Alzheimer’s or abnormal brain functioning.

“I moved to Canberra because of ANU. Looking at these amazing facilities, and the research that’s going on here, it’s definitely been worth it.”

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P O S T G R A D U A T E R E S E A R C H

Research areas

> Astronomy and astrophysics

> Biomedical science and biochemistry

> Chemistry

> Culture, health and medicine

> Earth, marine and planetary sciences

> Environment and resource management

> Epidemiology and population health

Pengxiang HuPengxiang Hu has just completed her PhD as a joint student of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, thanks to the close partnership between the Paleomagnetism Lab at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Black Mountain Environmental Magnetism Lab at ANU. Her thesis looked at how past climate conditions, such as rainfall and temperature, influence the magnetic properties of soils developed in a past geological age.

“ANU has an amazing academic atmosphere and advanced scientific instruments. The top scientists in environmental magnetism are also located here. Not only was I able to collaborate with them on academic papers, they also helped me to adjust to the new culture in Australia.

“I love the teaching style here, which is lively, concise and easy to understand. It’s a relaxing and warm environment, where students are always free to ask questions at any time. A lot of academic and social seminars are also organised at the University, in which the latest developments in science, along with valuable experiences, are shared.

“I’ve been offered a position as a Research Fellow at ANU, which I’m very excited about. I love Canberra and ANU, and would like to work and live here as long as possible.”

There are over 1,000 students enrolled in our postgraduate research programs in science, environment, medicine and health, including the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Master of Philosophy (MPhil) and professional doctorates, across a wide range of discipline areas. This number represents almost half of all postgraduate research students on the ANU campus, making the science, environment, medicine and health student body a vibrant and dynamic community.

We are well connected internationally through our alliances with top universities in the world and our students regularly travel and work with research groups that are at the forefront of emerging research.

We offer the opportunity to work with world-class academics in world-class facilities.

> Evolution, ecology and genetics

> Mathematical and computational sciences

> Medical science and neuroscience

> Physics

> Plant sciences

> Psychology

> Science communication

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A S T R O N O M Y A N D A S T R O P H Y S I C S

“We are one of the pioneers in making this happen, right up there with the best universities in the world.”

It was Professor Brian Schmidt who received a Nobel Prize for discovering that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, but it was technology, he says, that facilitated the discovery.

“Astronomy is powered by technology. My discovery was a combination of the advent of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Keck 10-metre telescope and new digital cameras.”

So imagine then, the possibilities of the Giant Magellan Telescope. When completed, it will be the most powerful telescope in the world, producing images up to ten times sharper than Hubble.

Professor Schmidt, from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and now Vice-Chancellor (President) of the University, says “big discoveries” are in store.

“Whether it be perhaps finding evidence for life on nearby planets, finding the first and earliest stars in the universe, or figuring out how essentially the universe went from nothing to its current vibrant self, these are all the big things we’re going to be doing with the Giant Magellan Telescope.”

The giant eye

The University is a founding partner in the Chilean facility with a ten per cent stake, and scientists from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics are also involved in the design and manufacture of cutting-edge new instrumentation for the telescope.

“We are one of the pioneers in making this happen, right up there with the best universities in the world,” Professor Schmidt says.

“This investment is essentially a way of ensuring that we remain at the forefront of the world’s research community and of empowering the future of astronomy in Australia.”

Despite the telescope not being forecast for completion until 2024, Professor Schmidt says he’s already thinking how he can harness the telescope’s potential.

“Our research at ANU will be focused on how to get the most out of this telescope because it gives us the ability to do things that no-one else does.”

And our researchers can’t wait to get started.

The ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics operates Australia’s largest optical observatory and has access to the world’s largest optical telescopes.

Our staff and students have made major contributions to astronomy, mapping the structure and formation of the Milky Way, discovering planets orbiting other stars, measuring dark matter both within our Galaxy and in the wider Universe, and discovering the accelerating expansion of the Universe.

Our astronomers include winners of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science and the Nobel Prize.

on the skyPhoto: Giant Magellan Telescope Organization

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The future of food

By 2050, the population of the world will reach nine billion. That’s a lot of mouths to feed.

With more than 850 million people already going hungry each day, and two-thirds of the world’s cultivated land currently at risk of degradation, food security is an increasingly urgent issue.

At the ANU Research School of Biology, scientists are working on solutions by improving on nature.

Plant scientists at the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre for Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis are turbocharging photosynthesis to increase crop yield.

“The photosynthetic process is a fairly inefficient one,” explains Professor Murray Badger.

“If we look at sunlight falling on a leaf as being 100 per cent of what’s available to be converted into useful biomass and sugars, then only about four to six per cent of that incident light energy is converted through to those final sugars. So, small changes made in improving the inefficiencies of various aspects of photosynthesis can make big differences.”

The “translational” aspect of the Centre’s research refers to the application of these findings from the lab to the field, potentially resulting in a new agricultural revolution.

“This will deliver outcomes for both Australian and international agriculture, world food security and for collaboration with appropriate industry partners.”

It’s a real-world outcome that PhD student Florence Danila understands better than most.

Working at the Centre under the supervision of experts from ANU, CSIRO and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Florence is trying to compare photosynthesis transport mechanisms between different crops.

But while she is at work in the lab, Florence’s parents are at work in the rice fields in her home country of the Philippines.

“My interest in plant science research probably began with them,” she says.

“To me this research is fascinating, but knowing that it could also contribute a solution to how we will feed all the people sharing this planet is also very rewarding.”

“We could contribute a solution to how

we will feed all the people sharing

this planet.”

The ANU Research School of Biology is internationally recognised for its high-impact research in plant sciences, evolution, ecology, genetics, parasitology and biotechnology. Our researchers work on issues of global importance, including food security, new treatments for cancer and type 2 diabetes, and fighting malaria drug resistance.

The School houses two ARC Centres of Excellence, and the ANU/CSIRO Centre for Biodiversity Analysis. It has state-of-the-art facilities for a wide range of research projects.

In 2015, the School’s Professor Graham Farquhar was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science.

B I O L O G Y

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C H E M I S T R Y

Saving lives

It might be hard to believe, but scientists currently rely on one type of coral found in one place only—the Bahamas—as a source of the ingredients to make important anti-cancer and anti-malaria drugs.

It’s much easier to believe that the process of extracting this compound is labour-intensive, time-consuming and expensive.

But who needs the Bahamas when you have Canberra?

Scientists from the ANU Research School of Chemistry have developed a revolutionary new way to manufacture this natural chemical in the lab. And as a result, life-saving drugs for treating cancer and malaria can be made more cheaply and more readily available to those who need them.

“Ours is an empowering technique, allowing a smarter and faster way to make important substances,” says Dr Chris Newton.

The process began as blue-sky research, with chemists trying to work out how to make supposedly impossible molecules by running simulations on Australia’s most powerful supercomputer, located at the National Computational Infrastructure at ANU.

“We took small molecules and clipped them together like Lego,” says lead researcher Professor Michael Sherburn.

“The building blocks are carefully designed in such a way that the first reaction generates a product perfectly primed for the second. It’s quite magical. This means you can efficiently build large and complex molecules.”

The result of this “Lego” construction is manufactured pseudopterosin, a powerful anti-inflammatory and analgesic drug.

“The pseudopterosin synthesis is the tip of the iceberg,” Dr Newton says. “We are well on the way to efficient syntheses of other important drugs.

“There is potential for industrial-scale manufacture too. That will take the pressure off species that are currently being harvested for drugs.”

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The ANU Research School of Chemistry has an enviable reputation as a powerhouse of chemical research, attracting leading chemists from around the country and overseas. Supported by world-class equipment and laboratories housed in a state-of-the-art new building, we conduct pioneering research across the breadth of chemistry, biochemistry and materials science.

Our research has had widespread international impact and has led to applications in the agricultural, biotechnological, pharmaceutical, materials and polymer industries.

All of our academics are involved in our undergraduate teaching program and in supervising post-graduate students.

with chemical Lego“Drugs for cancer and malaria can now be made more cheaply and more readily available.”

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E A R T H S C I E N C E S

On James Ross Island, off the northern Antarctic Peninsula, Dr Nerilie Abram from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences stands in the path of the battering westerly gales, and collects an ice core.

Surrounded by snow, ice and wind, Dr Abram is there to understand a weather phenomenon that seems very far away: the pattern of devastating heat and droughts in southern Australia.

The core Dr Abram collected was, she says, “the missing piece to the puzzle” of understanding the increasing number of droughts in Australia, and also, why Antarctica is not warming as much as other continents. The answer lies in that westerly wind.

“We studied the ice cores, and also tree rings, to build up a picture of how the westerly winds have changed over the last 1,000 years,” she explains.

“Greenhouse warming is changing the winds to the south of Australia and that means Antarctica is actually stealing more of Australia’s rainfall. Some years, the winds are drawn in closer to the Antarctic continent so less storms come up and hit Australia.

“This is why Antarctica really bucks the trend of the rest of the continents. Whereas everywhere else on the Earth has been warming over the last century, some parts of Antarctica don’t show that trend yet and we can explain that through the stronger winds, tying the cold air closer to Antarctica.”

Like so much of the work at the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, Dr Abram’s findings have significant policy implications, and without reductions in our greenhouse emissions, it’s not good news for Australia.

“All of the latest climate models predict that as greenhouse gases continue to rise this century, we can expect the westerly winds to draw even closer to Antarctica. This means we’re likely to get less of those storms being chased up into Australia, and the rainfall will decline.”

Meanwhile, the James Ross Island ice core is helping to solve other puzzles of human-induced climate change. Dr Abram is now leading an international team that will use it alongside hundreds of other past climate records from all over the world to learn more about climate warming since the start of the industrial revolution.

The ANU Research School of Earth Sciences is Australia’s leading academic research institution for Earth sciences, home to the largest concentration of Earth scientists in Australia, and ranked 12th in the world for Earth and marine sciences (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2016).

We take a broad view in addressing the big challenges of Earth sciences, seeking to answer questions ranging from the origins of the Earth, to understanding climate change. We have a reputation for international leadership and innovation, focused on developing new methods, whether experimental, analytical or computational.

Windsof change“It’s bad news for Australia: Antarctica is actually stealing our rainfall.”

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A tale of two cuties

This is the story of a little green parrot and a fluffy sugar glider with beautiful big brown eyes.

Or, as researchers from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society tell it, this is the story of forests scattered with dead parrots and the “deceptively cute” sugar gliders eating them into extinction.

With a plot like that, it’s no wonder this gruesome tale has attracted a huge amount of public attention.

But first, back to the beginning, when Dr Dejan Stojanovic was in Tasmania studying the breeding biology of the endangered swift parrot for his PhD.

“Swift parrot nesting habitat has been deforested for agriculture, urban development and logging,” Dr Stojanovic says. “Birds looking for a place to nest are squeezed into remaining habitat where they are vulnerable to other threats.”

One of these threats is the sugar glider, or, as Dr Stojanovic calls them, “sweet possums with a savoury tooth”.

“I discovered that gliders are the cause of breeding failure for the swift parrot. Gliders kill and eat the female parrot while she incubates her eggs, or return over several nights to feast on helpless nestlings. In some small patches of nesting habitat, gliders can eat up to 100 percent of swift parrot nests.

“These parrots could be all but gone within 16 years, largely through being eaten by sugar gliders.”

In response, Dr Stojanovic and his colleagues from the Fenner School launched a crowdfunding campaign to develop nesting boxes that will help to keep swift parrots, as well as orange-bellied parrots and forty-spotted pardalotes, off the sugar glider’s menu.

After only three days, the campaign reached its fundraising goal of $40,000. By the end of the campaign, Dr Stojanovic had raised almost twice that to build and install 1,000 glider-proof boxes.

“The speed and scale of the public response has been incredible,” Dr Stojanovic says.

“It can be pretty bleak walking around in the forest for days at a time looking at dead parrots, so the support has been heartening.”

Dr Stojanovic’s team are now scaling trees to install the boxes. For the swift parrot, it might just be a happy ending.

The ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society is one of the few places where economists and hydrologists, historians and ecologists, foresters, geographers, political scientists and climatologists work together on the environmental challenges and opportunities facing us.

Ranked 24th in the world (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2016), we are a major focus for integrated environmental research and training. Through links to other ANU schools, external research organisations and the policy community, we bring our skills and perspectives to bear on issues such as biodiversity loss, water, energy, drought and climate change.

E N V I R O N M E N T & S O C I E T Y

“These parrots could be all but gone within 16 years, largely because of sugar gliders.”

Photo: Dejan Stojanovic

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M A T H E M A T I C S

While studying the question of how life on Earth began, a mathematician found an answer in a most surprising place: the hairdresser’s.

“The energy in hydrogen peroxide—commonly used as hair bleach—could have powered the living world before cells evolved,” says Associate Professor Rowena Ball, from the ANU Mathematical Sciences Institute and the ANU Research School of Chemistry.

Associate Professor Ball used mathematical modelling to show that chemical reactions of hydrogen peroxide and thiosulfate, which occurred in the ancient oceans more than 3.7 billion years ago, set up exactly the right temperature and pH cycling to allow molecules called RNA to replicate.

“Hydrogen peroxide and thiosulfate undergo a reaction in which heat and acidity cycle back and forth every couple of minutes, providing the perfect conditions for early life to evolve,” Associate Professor Ball says.

“These oscillating reactions have been studied for years as a curiosity, but nobody realised that their fluctuating acidity and heat could have powered early life before DNA and proteins evolved.”

What’s more, the bleach caused RNA to replicate imperfectly, creating variation among the molecules and allowing natural selection and evolution to take place.

“Hydrogen peroxide has just enough oxidising power to cause mutations every now and then, which would drive evolution,” Associate Professor Ball says.

“This humble, deceptively simple molecule can also provide an answer to a biological mystery that has intrigued scientists for generations—the existence of key biological molecules in only one mirror image form.”

Associate Professor Ball’s research was based on findings from organic chemistry and chemical engineering, which she used to create a computer model with a number of highly non-linear equations, taking months to solve.

But after 3.7 billion years, a few months doesn’t seem too long to solve one of the greatest mysteries on Earth.

The ANU Mathematical Sciences Institute is ranked number one in Australia for maths teaching and research (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2016) and our staff include some of the best mathematicians in Australia.

We fulfil both a national and international role as a “research institute” in the mathematical sciences, working cooperatively with the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) and a number of international centres.

We offer researchers up-to-date computing facilities, including access to the National Computational Infrastructure supercomputer.“The chemical in hair bleach could have

powered the living world before cells evolved.”

to the salonFrom the primordial soup

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M E D I C A L R E S E A R C H

A medical

revo ution

“Now we are starting the research with a specific patient, sequencing their genome and looking at the many mutations that a patient has to see which one is the cause for the disease.

“We can then edit the DNA to easily generate a precise mouse model that replicates the specific mutations that the patient has.”

Treatments can be trialled on the real disease in the mouse, until an effective one is identified and applied not just to the specific matching patient, but to all patients who have the same molecular markers.

“It’s a huge conceptual advance,” she says. “Instead of mouse to human, it’s human to mouse to human.”

Professor Vinuesa attributes the success to an “extraordinary” set of circumstances: advances in DNA technology, the world-leading work in immunology and bioinformatics at ANU, as well as access to the University’s supercomputer.

“I’ve spent my life looking at lupus in mice,” she says. “I never had the feeling that anything we were doing was really going to translate into better therapies.”

“With this, I am. And I’m excited.”

Five per cent of the Australian population suffer from autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis and lupus. These diseases are chronic, incurable and, being varied and complex, have not been well understood.

For patients, this means poor treatment. Professor Carola Vinuesa describes a scenario with which many sufferers will be familiar.

“What happens is that patients are diagnosed with, for example, lupus and because doctors are unclear on exactly how that lupus comes about in that patient, the patient goes down the pathway of being treated with one drug after another until one, by some chance, might work.

“Each of these treatments is extremely expensive, toxic, and chances are, some patients will never respond.”

The Centre for Personalised Immunology at the ANU John Curtin School of Medical Research has now made advances that have revolutionised this hit-and-miss approach.

“We previously focused on mice to start the research, but because we didn’t have mice that had the precise disease we find in humans, none of those mouse models really had the same diseases we would find in patients. So this hasn’t translated into better drugs.

The ANU John Curtin School of Medical Research is Australia’s national medical research institute. We excel in multidisciplinary, translational medical research in fields including immunology, cancer, genomics, neuroscience, mental health, infectious diseases, obesity and metabolic disorders.

In 2015, the School’s Professor Carola Vinuesa was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and Professors Simon Foote and Chris Parish became Fellows of the newly established Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.

Three of our researchers have received Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine for work conducted in the School.

of mice and men“We can edit DNA to generate a mouse model that replicates specific disease mutations.”

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M E D I C I N E

Looking good, baby

The ANU Medical School is dedicated to producing doctors equipped to meet tomorrow’s national and global health challenges.

Our world-class program offers students a personal, supportive environment to develop the skills necessary to deliver quality, effective, compassionate care. Our partnerships with ACT Health and Calvary Health Care, together with our Indigenous, GP and community partners and rural healthcare programs ensure our students graduate well-prepared to improve health outcomes for the people they will serve, as well as upholding the standing of ANU as a leading contributor to national health policy and medical research.

Among the tubes, wires and beeping machines of the neonatal intensive care unit at the Canberra Hospital, there’s a simple piece of technology that has changed the lives of thousands of families: webcams.

Streaming direct from the cribs, the webcams allow parents to watch their newborn from home, and even share the link with friends and families. It’s an innovation that uses technology to bring out the human side of medicine. The cute little human side.

Called NICUCAM, the award-winning program was designed by Professor Zsuzsoka Kecskes from the ANU Medical School, who says its implementation has been “such a benefit to families.”

“Not every parent can come to the hospital every day to see their baby. Being able to see their baby online reassures the parents, who get to know their baby and, of course, show them off to relatives.”

Professor Kecskes was named 2014 ACT Australian of the Year for her pioneering work with NICUCAM and also for including families in the design process of the new Centenary Hospital for Women and Children at the Canberra Hospital.

“It’s important to include the family in projects like these,” she says. “Neonatology is a young discipline, we are still learning how important families are for the health of the baby.”

Alongside her expertise in transforming hospital systems and processes to improve the quality of patient care, Professor Kecskes is widely respected as an outstanding clinician. Through the ANU Medical School’s partnership with the Canberra Hospital, she is training the next generation of doctors in neonatal care and in professionalism and leadership.

“It’s a big step from being a student to being a doctor. I want to give them the tools and the resilience to survive and become the kind of doctors we want them to be,” she says.

With Professor Kecskes as inspiration, their futures are looking good.

“Being able to see their baby online reassures parents.”

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P H Y S I C S

one very big deal

Experimental physicist Dr Bram Slagmolen has created a tool that measures with unimaginable precision.

But when it comes to his feelings on the recent success of his work, he’s anything but measured.

“It’s absolutely amazing. It’s fantastic, it’s brilliant. I’m ecstatic.”

Dr Slagmolen has reason to celebrate. Together with 11 colleagues at the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering, and over 1,000 scientists around the world, he has made a critical contribution to what is being hailed as the scientific breakthrough of the century: the detection of gravitational waves.

“It is a massive thing. I would say you won’t see anything bigger in your lifetime,” he says before remembering his scientific restraint. “Actually I suppose I shouldn’t say that, because I guess, you never know, there could be something.”

The headline-grabbing gravitational waves recently detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in the USA were generated by two black holes colliding, the most violent event ever recorded.

But while this event was huge, the signals it generated were incredibly small, requiring measurements of something 10,000 times shorter than the width of a proton.

To capture these signals, laser interferometers at LIGO measured the precise distance between a system of mirrors located four kilometres apart. Any change in the distance would mean a gravitational wave passing through.

The problem with this technique, however, was how to bring the mirrors to their ideal operating position, defined to atom-level precision, in a repeatable way.

Physicists from ANU resolved this with an Arm Length Stabilisation System, used to lock and calibrate the position of the mirrors while being able to accommodate a disruption like an earthquake.

“Getting LIGO to operation point happened much faster because of our Arm Length Stabilisation System,” Dr Slagmolen explains.

“As a result, the testing process to get the interferometer to the required sensitivity went from taking years to taking only months.

“And we can say that was thanks to ANU.

“To design something, build it, install it, and then see it actually used for this monumental result, makes us all very proud.”

The ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering constitutes Australia’s largest university-based physics research activity, incorporating major national facilities, national networks, a significant technical manufacturing and prototyping capability, as well as an innovative teaching program.

Our research activity includes nonlinear and quantum optics and quantum systems engineering, soft and hard condensed matter physics, III-V semiconductor physics, nano-engineered and meso-scale materials, nuclear physics, novel imaging technologies and plasma science.

We foster the development of novel technologies and have seen a number of successful spin-out companies go global.

“It is a massive thing. I would say you won’t see anything bigger in your lifetime.”

One small wave,

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P O P U L A T I O N H E A L T H

Hearing the

For most people, working as a doctor in humanitarian crises would be enough. That would be making enough of a difference to the world. But Dr Kamalini Lokuge wanted to do more.

“I loved being a doctor in the field,” she says. “But what I realised is that as a doctor, if you don’t understand the lives of your patients, you don’t give them good care.”

“Knowing they’ve got diarrhoea is not enough. You need to understand where they get their water supply, what they’re eating, how they’re living. Unless you then take that knowledge and find a way to advocate for a policy to support services that address those gaps, you’re not doing your job as a doctor.

“That’s why I became an epidemiologist and came to the ANU Research School of Population Health. Because I believe evidence-based advocacy is the way to make change.”

Dr Lokuge still works in humanitarian crises and what she understatedly refers to as “complex settings”, but she now brings a unique view of “understanding by doing”.

Working in collaboration with Médecins Sans Frontières to address problems on the ground, and supported by the resources of the ANU Research School of Population Health,

Dr Lokuge can learn from individual cases in the field and “provide a voice” for them where it needs to be heard.

“One of the first patients I saw during the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone was a nine year-old boy,” she explains. “His whole family had died, and he came to our treatment centre, and died two days later.

“How will he ever have a voice? Unless his experience contributes to change, we will continue to make the same mistakes. And that’s not right.

“Being based at ANU, I work with statisticians, other epidemiologists and anthropologists, researchers with really world-class expertise. I can bring the problems my implementing colleagues are encountering in the field and utilise the research resources here to fix those problems.

“I can do what I think is needed for that little boy and bring that knowledge back to a setting where it can be potentially translated into something that’s going to have benefit at a population level.

“That’s the power of the research I do.”

At the ANU Research School of Population Health, we are committed to training the next generation of researchers and population health practitioners, who will improve the population’s mental and physical health through discovery, education and the translation of research into effective health policy and practice. Our work spans the full range of population health research.

ANU is the only Australian university rated “well above world standard” for public health and health service research in all three of the Excellence in Research for Australia evaluations (2010, 2012 and 2015).

voiceless

“If you don’t understand the lives of your patients, you don’t give them good care.”

Photo: UNMEER on flickr

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P S Y C H O L O G Y

When you’re at your local multicultural festival, wandering from the falafel stand to the noodle stall, are you undergoing a shift in your fundamental mindset? Or just filling up on ethnic cuisine?

This is the question the ANU Research School of Psychology is seeking to answer through an Australian Research Council Linkage Project with the Australian Government.

“We’re working with the Department of Social Services, looking at what works in building social cohesion in Australian communities, and why,” says Professor Kate Reynolds.

“We have identified research sites—including a drama workshop in Queensland, a rugby youth program in Western Sydney, and a multicultural festival in Victoria—and are studying their impact on participants’ tolerance, willingness to stand up against discrimination and interest in having contact with people of different ethnic groups.”

The research might start on the rugby field or the amateur stage, but the findings have implications for the hugely significant, hot-button issue of national security.

“A sense of alienation and lack of cohesion, and a lack of a sense of belonging, have been directly connected to something preoccupying a whole range of government minds, which is an openness to being radicalised,” Professor Reynolds says.

“Social cohesion builds resilience in the community so whatever the shocks might be—unemployment, or radicalisation, or instances where tensions within communities do rise—they will be less severe.

“Community cohesion really does give huge returns.”

Professor Reynolds says this project is the first time anywhere in the world that social psychology, which has a long history of examining prejudice and conflict between groups, has married with a federal department to conduct joint research.

It’s a marriage, she says, that makes perfect sense.

“This project translates the work we’ve been doing in the laboratory, and allows it to be put into practice by the government. It really has been an interface between social psychology and public policy.”

The ANU Research School of Psychology is ranked 29th in the world (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2016). We conduct world-class research into behaviour, emotions, human factors, perception, the brain and the thinking mind that impacts on applications in areas such as wellbeing, the management of chronic illness, understanding and treating mental health, forensic psychology, ageing, social cohesion, human resources and organisational performance.

We collaborate with governments, foundations and service providers, as well as leading researchers across the world.

The power of

“Social cohesion builds resilience in the community, and gives huge returns.”

belonging

Photo: Bro. Jeffrey Pioquinto, SJ on flickr

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S C I E N C E C O M M U N I C A T I O N

Dr Graham Walker has just returned from 11 weeks in Africa, where his Science Circus Africa education outreach program was seen by a staggering 41,000 people across five countries.

There were rockets propelled by bicarb soda, levitating beach balls, and many things set on fire, but the memory that sticks with him is the humble magnet.

“I get tingly just talking about it,” he says.

“These kids—and even some of the teachers—have learnt the idea of magnetism, and they’ve done exams on magnetism, but they’d never held a magnet until we gave them one.

“Can you imagine holding two magnets together for the first time, experiencing magnetism?”

Dr Walker and teammate Joe Duggan lugged the magnets and other everyday items to be transformed into science experiments on their Science Circus tour of Mauritius, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Malawi.

“These kids have done exams on magnetism, but they’d never held a magnet until we gave them one.”

Science Circuscame to Africa

When the

The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at ANU was the first science communication centre in Australia and is now the most diverse of its kind in the world.

We are global leaders in our field, developing methods to encourage informed decisions about the big scientific issues.

We are an accredited Centre for the Australian National Commission for UNESCO, and boast partnerships with the Alan Alda Centre for Science Communication at Stony Brook University in New York and Shell Australia amongst many others.

The project, funded by the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Questacon and ANU, resulted in 162 local African staff being trained to perform their own science shows and other programs.

“We give them the skills, the resources, the training, and hopefully we’re planting the seeds so it can grow into local, home-grown science communication – and we’re already seeing those results,” Dr Walker says.

“In the long term, it’s going to generate a better economy and drive productivity at a systemic level for these countries.”

Dr Walker says Science Circus Africa is the result of the unique environment fostered by the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at ANU.

“It’s not a place where people are sitting in ivory towers, stroking their chins,” he says. “They actually get out there and do prolific science communication.

“I’m rapt to be at an institution where you can propose a fairly out-there plan like this and get support for it. It’s a credit to ANU that they’ll back something that no one has ever done before.”

Photo: Bro. Graham Walker

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S C I E N C E , E N V I R O N M E N T , M E D I C I N E & H E A L T H U N D E R T H E M I C R O S C O P E

Total annual income

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Undergrad students

Alumni

Nobel Prize winners

Student to staff ratio

Academic staff

Undergraduates continuing

to further study

Visiting fellows and honorary adjuncts

Average postgraduate full-time starting salary

Percentage of students who

are international

Full time employed graduates in higher educationPostgraduate research

students

Figures from 2015 data

44 45

C O N T A C T U S

ANU College of Medicine, Biology & EnvironmentANU College of Physical & Mathematical SciencesThe Australian National University Building 42, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia

T +61 2 6125 2809 E science@anu.edu.au W science.anu.edu.au

ScienceANU

@scienceANU

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