Event Horizon

The Australian National University

Event Horizon

Research School of Physics

Weekly newsletter | vol 48 no 20 | 22–26 May 2023

Director's Message

Dear Colleagues,

My thanks to everyone who attended Ally training on Friday (above), and enjoyed the IDAHOBIT morning tea last Wednesday in support of our LGBTQI+ colleagues and friends. As an extra treat, those at the morning tea will appear in Hassell Studios exposé on the new building. (We’re still in the running for some National awards.)

My congratulation to four of our Honours students, Thomas Stinson, Rosemary Zielinski, Stephen Catsamas and Harry Wetherill on each being awarded an $8k honours grant from Co-Lab, a partnership with the Australian Signals Directorate and ANU.

Since 1998, the life and achievements of Dr Wanda Henry has been commemorated with the award of financial support to an undergraduate physics or engineering student to further their study of photonics. This year the $10k prize goes to Kieren Dyke. My thanks to the Awards committee for their care and deliberation.

This week marks the launch of an amazing ANU branding campaign, and the entire Department of Nuclear Physics and Accelerator Applications is at the epicentre. It brings me great delight to see such a massive publicity effort centred around our unique Nuclear Physics capability. Over the next few days all Newscorp outlets will be promoting NPAA and the NCRIS-supported accelerator facilities. The ANU Reporter is also running a special issue. My thanks to all those in the ANU media team who went into overdrive to get all the material together over the past two weeks. And, thank you to all the NPAA staff and students who gave their time and comments for the media. I will have much more to report next week after an invited panel event tonight with our VC and Mahasen Sooriyabandara (Thaum, QST). For now, I'll leave you with the new ANU banner “A national effort. A national university”. The VC will introduce the International Atomic Energy Agency Director Deputy General Najat Mokhtar, “How nuclear science can help address global challenges” on Wednesday at 2pm (See details right).

It was an amazing week of awards and celebrations. Fabulous news, the WhalePod Team at Thaum took home the CSIRO On Accelerate prize. But that’s not all, Aqeel Akber also won the opportunity to study an MBA at Standford!! (see Aqeel's selfie below). Well done everyone at Thaum, one of our founding members of Momentum.

As part of our recent Memorandum of Understanding with the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN) we hosted an investor showcase, which drew in over 100 technology investors from the region, Melbourne and Sydney. As a long-time advocate for investment in the ACT region, the Honourable Kate Lundy (below) opened the day-long event with a stirring call for action. It was truly amazing to see three Physics inspired companies front and centre (Quintessence Labs, Liquid Instruments and Quantum Brilliance). The audience, literally worth collective billions, were rapt. Chief Minister Andrew Barr joined in the chorus emphasising his commitment to supporting our high-tech region. Clockwise from top-left; Dr Vikram Sharma (QL), Prof Daniel Shaddock (LI), Dr Marcus Doherty (QB) and the Chief Minister.

Finally, I couldn’t help squeezing in a snap of the newly finished workshop floor. Now stronger than ever and ready for our new multitasking machine (watch this space).

Hope you have a good week,
Tim

Travel Grant Opportunity

There’s an open opportunity for ANU academic staff to receive a $10,000 travel grant to go to Humboldt University in Berlin. Humboldt is a highly regarded university with a lot of complementary research strengths, here’s their Physics research.

Applications close at the end of May, but the application process is easy. You just need to identify a staff member at Humboldt, note down some activities to undertake together, and for the host to write a letter of support (which we could draft). As timing is so tight, the chance of winning is high!