School Director Update

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue66 1–30 September 2025

Late September I attended the First Billion Years conference in Port Douglas. This was a well attended international meeting with many results reported on the rapid progress that has been made studying reionization in recent years. Congratulations to Yuxiang Qin, Cate Pickering and Sabrina Berger for making this meeting such a success.

I also attended a very successful StarFest at SSO during the October long weekend. We had more than 50 volunteers on hand, including many from Mount Stromlo. The weather was made to order and we counted 1200+ members of the public through the gates. Thank you to all our staff and volunteers who assisted with the organisation and running of this excellent event.

This week RSAA is hosting the 8th Scientific Detector Workshop with over a 110 participants, many of whom are international visitors. Well done to Tony Travouillon and colleagues on bringing this significant international event to ANU.

During October and November the School will refresh its strategic plan, and I would like to encourage all members to be involved. A draft discussion document has been sent out to all staff that will aid in discussion and strategy development.

This document is based on input into last year's School Review, together with the resulting recommendations.

We plan to hold 4 strategy sessions with small group discussions centred around each of the 4 pillars of the ANU strategic plan as follows:

October 10: Delivering a student experience equal to the world's best
October 24: Conducting research that transforms society and creates national capability
November 7: Being a standard-bearer for equity and inclusion
November 20: Strengthening our national mission and meeting our unique responsibilities

Each discussion will be held 1.30pm-3.30pm in the CSO common room, and the School will soon receive calendar invitations.

Stuart