School Director Update
Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue59 1–28 February 2025
February proved to be a busy start to the year. Mount Stromlo hosted the 2025 annual Australian National Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (ANITA) workshop and summer school on Computational Multiphysics Hydrodynamics, a major success. Well done to Mark Krumholz and colleagues.
Also this month, Mount Stromlo welcomed the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor and University Council for their annual planning day. Dr Jamie Soon, who had received his PhD from the Chancellor just the week before, led a tour of AITC and the Optical Ground Station. He was warmly applauded a second time.
Following an EoI process, Professor Rob Sharp has been appointed to the position of Head of AITC. Please join me in congratulating Rob on this important role within the School and ANU. I am looking forward to working with Rob and the academic and technical leadership teams within AITC towards its continued success.
Some good news following uncertainty in 2024 is that RSAA can now publish in MNRAS without an author charge or waiver. The new CAUL agreement with OUP for Australian Universities covering 2025 and subsequent years initially did not include fully Gold Open Access titles, including MNRAS, meaning that an author publication charge (APC) was levied. However ongoing negotiations and advocacy has led to an optional addition to the agreement for RAS journals (including MNRAS), which ANU has taken.
The 2025 Pleiades Awards nominations were submitted to the ASA IDEA chapter. I would like to thank Associate Director (IDEA) Luca Casagrande and members of the IDEA committee for their work preparing the submission, and for the progress made.
This month I was also able to provide the RSAA School Review panel report following its endorsement by the Deputy Vice Chancellor - Research & Innovation. The report provides a strong affirmation of the quality and direction of the School and makes a number of constructive headline recommendations that will assist us in improving our science, culture and impact.
In March I will hold annual town hall discussions with our HDR students and E/MCRs. We will also hold our first All School Meeting (invite to come). Among the topics for discussion will be our response to the School Review Report.
Congratulations to Hayden Park and Marcie Mun who have accepted postdoctoral positions at CEA Paris-Saclay and at the IAP in Paris respectively! If you know of other good news please pass along so that we can share.
Stu Wyithe
Image: ANU University Council Credit: David Fanner
