Director's Message

Dear Colleagues,

It was a huge pleasure to see the Australian Institute of Physics awards come out last week and my congratulations to all recipients across Australia. Due to unavoidable delays over the past year, the AIP released outcomes for a few award rounds at once, which made for a grander splash and we are very well represented by our students. It is such a delight to congratulate our colleagues on the recognition of their excellent research;

2020 Bragg Gold Medal
Dr Alexander Bray, for his thesis, “Strong field sub-femtosecond electronic processes”

2018 TH Laby Medal
Dr Felicity Lee, for her thesis, “Pulsed Hydrogen Plasmas: Modelling and Experiment”.

2020 TH Laby Medal
Dr Matthew Goh, for his thesis, “Feedback Control of Fermi Gases”

My thanks to our School Manager, James Irwin and his hard working team for simplifying the complexities of standing up the new departments. On Friday he emailed the School outlining the next administrative steps, which commence today. I have copied his email here for convenience. If you have questions please speak to your Head or administrator. 

The School Executive met in its new form last Wednesday with the initial configuration including Heads, Associate Directors, School Manager and Director. We immediately resolved the standing agenda, schedule of meetings and expanded membership. The School Executive will meet for two hours each month if conducted in-person, or for remote meetings two separate hour-long meetings. Standing items include reports from an HDR student representative, an Early and Mid-Career Researcher representatives, the WHS Manager, an Equity & Diversity co-Chair, the Facilities Manager, the Associate Directors, School Manager and Director. As we enjoy a joint-Centre with RSAA, the Director of Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics will have a permanent invitation to attend. As we have done in the past, I propose that the HDR and EMCR representatives attending are drawn from self-organised groups that may share attendance, if they so choose, or elect a single representative. To help these groups coordinate I have created a zoom meeting on Wednesday at 10am. If you’re interested in either representative group please come to the meeting, I will give a brief overview and then leave you to coordinate between you. Over the years we have had many excellent contributions from these representatives groups, who in combination represent over 60% of our School population.

This week’s pic comes from the mechanical workshop in Physics South and shows Graham Rhall in front of some critical work he and Brent Butler have been ploughing through over the lock-down. Graham is holding a pair of endcaps of the 170 units that are soon to be shipped to National Electrostatics Corp. in Wisconsin and integrated into the high voltage ceramic support posts and acceleration tubes. Each encap requires 5 separate tool setups and so represents an enormous amount work. These components will be shipped back to Australia as part of a multi-million dollar renewal of the 14UD, proudly supported by strategic funds from the School, the DVC(RI) and the ARC through NCRIS support of the Heavy Ion Accelerator program. Together with the major electrical upgrade (EH #31), new Space testing beamline and new ARC LIEF funded ion sources this already remarkable national facility will establish new international capabilities.

And finally, in case you missed the news on Friday the ACT government has partially reopened operations on large construction sites. WIN News was at the Physics building site interviewing the WHS Commissioner, Jacqueline Agius, and the Hindmarsh Project manager, Brett Price, about the requirements going forward. (see the WIN News interview)  It’s fantastic to see a staged return to activities.

Have a good week,
Tim

Vote for Your Favourite ‘As You See It!’ Photographs

The submissions are in and the photos have been shortlisted – it’s now time for you to help us pick the winning images!

We have received some amazing photos and we need your help to find each category winner to be featured in the 2022 ANU College of Science, and ANU College of Health and Medicine calendar.

All ANU staff, students and alumni are eligible to vote (once per image), so jump on and let us know which images are your favourites!

Voting closes on Sunday 12 September and the winners will be announced on Monday 13 September.

Vote now

The course focusses on the differences between self-care and self-compassion, and how to cope with challenges such as lockdown, stress etc. 

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The team from Nonlinear Physics Center with collaborators from the Swinburne University of Technology (Melbourne) suggested and designed novel anisotropic hybrid metasurfaces inspired by the structure of butterfly wings, focusing light into high-Q cavities with extremely strong near-field enhancement governed by the physics of bound states in the continuum. They demonstrated experimentally multiple high-Q resonances with absorption amplitude exceeding 80% at mid-IR using NA = 0.4 reflective objective. The results have been published in Nano Letters (Impact Factor=11.189).

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These are truly difficult and exhausting times. But this is also an opportunity for us to come together, support each other, and maybe have a little fun in the process!

Starting on 28 August, we’re launching a six-week self-care challenge that will inspire you to move, grow, cook, connect and relax.

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Understanding Amino Acid Transport and Homeostasis in Mammalian Cells through Quantitative Modelling
Professor Stefan Broer
Division of Biomedical Science and Biochemistry

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Managing Teams Remotely

12-1.30pm, Thursday 9 September, via Zoom
Managing teams remotely has now become a crucial skill for every leader.

You no longer have a cohort, but many individuals with different needs. How do you set them up as independent, competent and capable team members who not only look after themselves, their colleagues, but also the business?

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CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program

The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) invites exceptional early-career researchers to join one of their interdisciplinary research programs The CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program accelerates the development of the next generation of research leaders and positions them to heighten their impact in academia and beyond.

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Need to Schedule a Meeting with the Director?

For ANU Outlook users
Open a new invite for Director.Physics@anu.edu.au, and use Scheduling Assistant to propose a mutually convenient time and send.  

For all others
Please send an email request to Director.Physics@anu.edu.au 

Tim will reply to any meeting requests ASAP

RSPhys Store

Stores will be physically staffed, though operating at reduced capacity with no face to face interactions. 

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EVENTS

Departmental seminars

Professor Sougato Bose - 9 September
Quantum nature of gravity in the lab: Assumptions, implementation and applications on the way
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School Seminar Program - 9 September

Forming diamonds at room temperature - Professor Jodie Bradby

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HDR Progress Milestones

Students and supervisors can access information on HDR progress milestone requirements on the School Intranet.

HDR Opportunities