Director's Message
Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue32 1–30 September 2022
A number of important ARC announcements were made this past month...
First, big congratulations to Mark Krumholz, who has been awarded an ARC Laureate Fellowship. These 5-year Fellowships are the top awards from the ARC and recognise the most significant researchers in Australia, with just 16 awarded in 2022. There were just two awards to ANU, although three of the 16 awards went to astronomy (Tim Bedding at U.Sydney and Simon Driver at UWA were the other two astronomers). Mark’s award of $2.6M will expand his research group with two additional postdocs and two postgrad students, and also upgrade RSAA’s AVATAR compute cluster with GPU nodes. The goals of this research are summarised in his proposal as follows...
This project seeks to resolve an outstanding problem in the formation of cosmic structure: what is the nature of galactic winds, and what physical mechanisms are responsible for driving them? Answering these questions requires computer simulations of greater resolution than have previously been possible, coupled to next- generation telescopic observations. This research aims to develop novel methods to enable the required simulations, leveraging new hardware architectures at Australian supercomputer facilities, and to use these approaches to solve a major open problem in astrophysics, open new frontiers in simulation, and multiply the return on Australia's investment in both computer facilities and telescopes that will study galactic winds.
Congratulations also to Joice Mathew, who has been awarded an Emerging Space Leader (ESL) award by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). IAF has selected 30 space enthusiasts from around the world through a competitive process for the ESL award. As a part of this award, IAF will support the awardees' travel to Paris in September 2022 to participate in the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) and they will have the opportunity to extend their network, gain knowledge and meet space experts. We look forward to hearing back from Joice on what he learnt at the IAC in due course!
Continuing the grants and awards theme, the ARC has finally released the guidelines and timescales for its Industry Fellowships, which provide early-career, mid-career and Laureate fellowships (roughly similar to the existing DECRA, Future and Laureate fellowships) to support academic researchers in establishing careers in industry, and industry-based researchers to work in university settings, with the aim of increased two-way mobility and skill-building in research collaboration, translation and commercialisation. I think this will be of particular interest to academics in the AITC, though anyone can of course apply. If you are interested please let me know (and also Celine D'Orgeville if you are in the AITC).
In further ARC news, Jason Clare, the Minister for Education, has sent a new ‘letter of expectations’ to the ARC. This addresses a number of issues of importance to Australian researchers: streamlining grant processes; fixed grant outcome dates; a simplified National Interest Test (and perhaps its removal for DP proposals); a ‘pause’ on the Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) round for 2023 (probably to be replaced by something simpler); and a review of the role and function of the ARC. Sweeping stuff, and generally welcomed by the research sector!
In the coming month, there are important telescope proposal deadlines for…
AAT observing in semester 2023A, both reserved time (15 September at 17:00 AEST) and shared time (17 October at 17:00 AEST)
ESO Period 111 Call for Proposals (Tuesday 27 September 2022 at noon CEST = 20:00 AEST).
Regarding AAT time, the only ANU reserved time proposals will be for the Hector and GALAH surveys; all other ANU-based proposals will need to seek shared time. The ANU will be contributing at least 30% of its partner time (‘base allotment’) to the ATAC shared-time pool, so that all ANU proposals will be ’shared time eligible’ under the new time allocation process rules.
Regarding ESO proposals, I strongly encourage RSAA astronomers to submit proposals for time on the ESO facilities at La Silla and Paranal Observatories. Note that there will be an on-line ESO proposal writing workshop on Thursday, 8 Sep, 12:00-14:30 AEST. Topics to be covered include: the Observing Programmes Committee process; a summary of current and imminent ESO instrumentation; and the Dual-Anonymous Proposal & Distributed Peer Review processes; followed by a round-table discussion involving a panel of major users of ESO and past OPC members about what makes a compelling proposal, and common mistakes to avoid. Participants will have the opportunity to pitch ideas for proposals to the panel for helpful feedback. Don’t forget to register on the workshop webpage!
Matthew Colless
