Director's Message

Dear Colleagues,

Jamie Kidston’s (ANU Media) photo beautifully captures the joy of Distinguished Professor Emeritus Chennupati Jagadish being elected to the Royal Society, covered here by Paul Richards.  Please join me again in congratulating Jagadish for this wonderful recognition of his contribution to science.

Below, an image of Professor Emeritus Hans Bachor holding a HeNe laser seen through diffraction grating film at the Optica public lecture on Tuesday this week.  Very notably, Hans had the honour of christening our auditorium.  Designed for demonstration, Hans was the first to illustrate the art of the science demo to a public audience.  It was a remarkably engaging lecture for all ages covering everything from lasers and quantum physics to science communication and hype.  My thanks to Hans, of course, but also to Drs Vincent Daria and Rick Walsh for their assistance on laser safety.  A special thank you to PhD student Sarah Dean (EME) for everything!  Almost single-handedly, Sarah was the MC, tech support, catering, and organised our speaker.  I look forward to many other demos.

Another milestone instrument move yesterday.  The ANFF Focus Ion Beam and Scanning Electron Microscopes can now be seen in the two cleanrooms presenting to the foyer of the new building.  My thanks to Dr Horst Punzmann and his fabulous team for doing this so well and safely.

And continuing the Autumn sunset series, this week my contribution below.  Please send in yours.

Have a great weekend, stay warm.

Tim

3 Minute Thesis Competition 2025

Preparations have begun for this year’s Three Minute Thesis competition – the time when ANU’s PhDs are challenged to engage, entertain and inform you with the gist of their thesis in three short minutes (and not a second more!) supported by just a single PowerPoint slide.

3MT allows our PhDs to showcase not only the amazing research that we do here at ANU, but also to show off their research communication skills. To see a good 3MT presentation can be an incredibly informative, entertaining and even quite moving experience.

Training for the year begins with the launch/information session next Monday and the carries on through to the College heat on 1 July and ultimate Grand Final on 11 July. Students can attend the training without competing if they just want to brush up on their communication skills with the pressure of competition. With oral exams now very much ‘in the mix’, 3MT training has become much more relevant to our HDRs.

Please register here if you are interested.

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Are you a researcher or part of a research team looking to maximise the impact of your work?

CSIRO's ON Innovation Program is now offering a free training opportunity — the Research to Value workshop — to equip researchers with practical innovation and engagement skills to transform their research into real-world impact.

Date: Mon 16 June
Time: 12pm-4.30pm
Location: Canberra Innovation Network, Level 4, 1 Moore Street

Registration here

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'Microbial manipulation may help safeguard the future of coral reefs'
Professor Madeleine van Oppen
^{Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, Australian Institute of Marine Science, School of BioSciences, The University of Melbourne}

Date: Wed 18 June 2025
Time: 5pm
Location: RN Robertson Lecture Theatre, Bldg 46 or via Zoom

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College Hot Desking In Physics

Finance, HR & RM Teams
Thursday Mornings
^{Lv2 Tearoom, Bldg 160}

EVENTS

Departmental seminars

Professor Patrick Kluth - 21 May
Nanopore science in the Advanced Materials Group: A non-linear journey from heavy ion research to biomolecular analysis
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