3. 2 WELCOME by Professor James McCluskey,
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)
FEATURED RESEARCH
4 Understanding the world at the most
fundamental level, two PhDs at a time
6 Sustaining endangered songs
8 Following new directions in animal health
10 The future of printing in the digital age
12 Protecting children’s rights
14 Using slang linguistics to
make the message clear
16 Melbourne alumnus leads the way
in understanding earthquakes
18 Navigating the road to medical ethics
20 Talkin’ ’bout my generation
22 The reality of reducing fire risks
24 Unravelling the complex issues
around freshwater supply
26 Healthcare efficiency under the microscope
28 RESEARCH NEWS
34 AT A GLANCE: Facts and figures about research
at the University of Melbourne
CONTENTS
1
4. …following our rising stars
What makes an outstanding researcher?
The qualities are many and varied, but
essential ingredients are curiosity, drive,
persistence and passion. Hungarian
biochemist and Nobel Prize winner
for Medicine Albert Szent-Gyorgyi has
described research as “being able to see
what everyone else has seen, and to think
what nobody else has thought”.
Discovery comes from imagination
and investigation.
Welcome to the 2012 edition of
Research Review.
The focus of this edition is on our
outstanding young achievers. The
aim is to provide a snapshot of the
career trajectory of a successful
researcher – from our rising research
stars, to our successful mid-career and
late-career researchers.
According to the latest data available,
the University of Melbourne has 3207
researchers spanning 11 faculties –
engaged in diverse activities, characteristic
of a comprehensive university.
The depth of talented researchers across
the sciences, humanities, and social
sciences is one of the globally recognised
strengths of this University, as is our
strong and valued affiliations with
external research, community, industry
and government organisations, each of
which brings additional richness to our
research community.
Research at this University takes many
different forms and impacts on lives in
many different ways: from breakthrough
discoveries in cancer and astrophysics to
authoritative evidence-based contributions
to government policy in fields such as law,
education and economics.
Our research includes partnerships
with commercial and industry
partners and creative contributions
through the performing arts and wider
cultural sphere.
This edition of Research Review, building
on our past reports, provides a sample
of articles highlighting the work of
some our most successful researchers at
different stages of their careers.
Some highlights of this review include:
Science: At just 33 years of age Dr Anthony
van Eysden, who has two PhDs, will
embark on the opportunity of a lifetime
when he begins his two-year postdoctoral
fellowship at the Nordic Institute for
Theoretical Physics in Sweden. Dr van
Eysden was one of only six successful
applicants in a highly competitive field of
226 from around the world.
Music: It is estimated that around
98 per cent of Indigenous song
traditions in Australia have been lost
since colonisation. Dr Sally Treloyn
is undertaking a collaborative,
ethnomusicological ARC Linkage Project
titled ‘Strategies for Sustaining and
Preserving Aboriginal Song and Dance
in the Modern World: the Mowanjum and
Fitzroy River Valley communities of WA’.
Dr Treloyn is one of three John McKenzie
Research Fellows profiled in this review.
The McKenzie Fellowships were
established in 2008 to acknowledge
the outstanding contribution made
by former Deputy Vice-Chancellor
(Research) and internationally renowned
geneticist Professor John McKenzie. The
Fellows are selected for their potential
to build and lead cross-disciplinary
collaborative research activities within
and across faculties.
Welcome
to the 2012 edition of Research Review
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
2
5. Law: Working with Professor Phillip
Alston, an international law scholar and
human rights practitioner from the New
York University Law School, Associate
Professor John Tobin from the Melbourne
Law School is investigating the complex
legal issue of children’s rights.
Arts: Dr Caroline Hamilton, another
John McKenzie Research Fellow, is
examining the future of printing in the
digital age. Her study hopes to establish
that reports of the death of global
publishing are greatly exaggerated.
In addition, there are articles in this
review that highlight the research being
undertaken across the full spectrum of
disciplines at Melbourne: architecture,
building and planning; business and
economics; education; engineering;
land and environment; medicine,
dentistry and health sciences; and
veterinary science.
The stories illustrate our vision of being
a globally engaged, comprehensive,
research-intensive university uniquely
positioned to respond to major social,
economic and environmental challenges.
To understand the University’s
performance we have also included
some statistics on the University’s
research activity that are drawn from
nationally collected data as well as
international rankings.
The modest cross-section of the research
presented in this review is intended to
be stimulating and illuminating. I hope
you will find some inspiration in this
review as it celebrates the breadth and
commitment of our researchers.
Professor James McCluskey
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)
3
6. Understanding the world
at the most fundamental
level, two PhDs at a time
FEATURED RESEARCH
“I’ve been drawn
to physics
because I
enjoy thinking
deeply about
problems and
understanding
how things
work, at the most
fundamental
level.”
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
4
7. Thirty-three-year-old Dr Anthony van
Eysden will soon embark on the opportunity of a
lifetime when he begins his two-year postdoctoral
fellowship at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical
Physics (NORDITA) in Sweden.
Dr van Eysden (pictured left) completed his first
PhD in Physics at Melbourne in 2011, under the
supervision of Associate Professor Andrew Melatos. In
2012, he submitted his second PhD in Maths, having
worked closely with Professor John Sader in the
Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
“I never intended to do two PhDs,” says Dr
van Eysden.
“I went back to university to study physics and as part
of my undergraduate degree, I took a third-year maths
subject with John during the summer of 2004,”
he says.
“He invited me to work for a semester as a research
assistant on one of his projects.”
“I looked at micro-cantilever beams and derived
theoretical models for the vibration of the beams
immersed in liquids.”
This predicted their behaviour for applications
in Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), which was
something that had been unsolved analytically up to
that point, Dr van Eysden explains.
These ground-breaking theories are now being used
by Caltech and other institutions around the world.
The AFM can be used in liquids where traditional
forms of microscopy are inapplicable, and are
routinely used to image DNA and proteins. MEMS are
used for sensitive mass measurement and are capable
of detecting specific biological molecules and cells,
such as virus particles and cancerous cells.
Having made a name for himself in the world of
mathematics, but at a career crossroads between
maths and physics, Dr van Eysden decided to
relinquish the maths pathway to follow his
true passion.
“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been drawn to physics
because I enjoy thinking deeply about problems
and understanding how things work, at the most
fundamental level,” says Dr van Eysden.
Born in Hobart, Dr van Eysden’s first degree with
honours was in engineering. He worked as an
engineer for two years before realising he wanted to
become a physicist.
In 2006, Dr van Eysden completed honours in
physics, which was followed by his PhD on neutron
stars in 2011.
“Neutron stars are ultra-compact stars left behind
when a star ends its life in a supernova explosion,”
says Dr van Eysden.
“Their interior is not made of atoms like on Earth, but
is a sea of densely packed subatomic particles.
“Despite their high temperatures, the extreme
pressure exerted by the gravitational force of all that
dense matter means their interior is relatively cold.”
For Dr van Eysden studying neutron stars was
fascinating, meaning that although he spent most
of his time looking at equations, he had to use his
imagination to picture them and remind himself that
these extreme objects are actually out there.
Dr van Eysden’s research on the neutron star has been
highly sought-after in physics, due to its combination
of solving astrophysics, condensed matter physics and
subatomic physics problems. This caught the eye of
the selection panel at NORDITA, as their research
focuses on these three physics disciplines. Dr van
Eysden was one of only six successful applicants in a
highly competitive field of 226 from around the world.
“NORDITA truly is an opportunity of a lifetime,” says
Dr van Eysden.
“I’ll be doing what I love, looking at the fundamental
problems of physics and having the time to think
about and explore these.”
See: http://astro.physics.unimelb.edu.au/
5
9. It is estimated that around
98 per cent of Indigenous song
traditions in Australia have been
lost since colonisation.
Dr Sally Treloyn from the Faculty
of the VCA and the Melbourne
Conservatorium of Music believes
that song knowledge in Indigenous
Australia is more endangered than
the languages.
“It’s often the oldest members of
a society who hold songs and are
masters in the poetics of songs,”
says Dr Treloyn.
“And with the loss of elders comes
the loss of songs.”
Dr Treloyn is a John McKenzie
Research Fellow undertaking a
collaborative, ethnomusicological
ARC Linkage Project titled
‘Strategies for Sustaining and
Preserving Australian Aboriginal
Song and Dance in the Modern
World: the Mowanjum and Fitzroy
River Valley communities of WA’
in partnership with Professor
Emeritus Allan Marett (University
of Sydney), the Kimberley
Aboriginal Law and Culture
Centre and the Mowanjum Art and
Culture Centre.
Through collaborative research
and innovative uses of digital
technologies, the project is
developing and testing new
strategies for preserving and
sustaining Australian Aboriginal
knowledge about song and dance.
Methods for repatriating,
recording, documenting
recordings, and disseminating
recordings via digital media,
and how these methods support
cultural maintenance and creative
innovation, are being investigated
through collaboration with local,
community-led initiatives such
as Art and Culture Centres, an
Indigenous Ranger program, and
remote community schools.
The project is identifying
appropriate and efficient
methods to preserve and sustain
endangered song and dance that
can be more broadly applied
throughout Australia.
“By supporting community-led
initiatives to engage young people
in traditional song and dance,
the research can contribute to
the efforts of individual and
organisational stakeholders to
improve social and emotional
wellbeing in their communities,”
Dr Treloyn says.
She is particularly interested in
the Kimberley region of northwest
Australia, which holds some of
Australia’s oldest and richest
performance traditions.
“It is a culturally and linguistically
diverse area, with some 30 distinct
language groups,” Dr Treloyn says.
“It is also home to junba, one of the
world’s most precious dance–song
traditions.”
Dr Treloyn’s research interest
is driven by a desire to develop
community-led applied research
that has significant benefit to
both old and young people in the
Kimberley, and through this brings
benefit to the broader national and
international community.
The highlight of her research
career to date has been obtaining
support for the project from the
ARC and being awarded the John
McKenzie Fellowship, which has
enabled her to devote appropriate
time and resources to the project.
Dr Treloyn says the research
environment at the University of
Melbourne provides an exceptional
research environment for her
interdisciplinary research.
“A strong ethnomusicological
program led by Professor Catherine
Falk and the Music, Mind and
Wellbeing Interdisciplinary
Initiative (MMW) provides an
excellent base of expert knowledge
and support in the Melbourne
Conservatorium of Music,” says
Dr Treloyn.
“Coupled with the vibrant
interdisciplinary research
network provided by the Murrup
Barak Melbourne Institute for
Indigenous Development, and the
Pacific And Regional Archive for
Digital Sources in Endangered
Cultures (PARADISEC) within the
School of Linguistics, my research
enjoys a supportive research
environment across multiple
disciplines.”
According to Dr Treloyn, there is
an emerging, strong community
of researchers engaged in applied
ethnomusicology across the world,
within which Australian research
is considered to be a leader.
See: www.conservatorium.
unimelb.edu.au/staff/sallytreloyn
7
10. An early career researcher
gaining a high profile, Dr Joanne Devlin
attributes her success to a combination
of excellent mentors, a great research
team, a supportive family and long
days and nights in the lab or in front of
the computer.
Dr Devlin (pictured right) is a lecturer
in Public Health (Epidemiology) at the
University’s Faculty of Veterinary Science
as well as an Australian Research Council
postdoctoral research fellow.
“Mentors are really important in research
because so much is best learnt by
example,” says Dr Devlin.
“I was fortunate to have many excellent
mentors and now I try to provide the
same sort of support to my own staff and
students.”
Dr Devlin is motivated by her curiosity,
which inspires her interest in animals
and infectious diseases. Her work in
veterinary public health is concerned
with the links between human health,
animal health and environmental
health, and sits within the infectious
diseases, public health and biosecurity
research cluster within the Faculty
of Veterinary Science. She leads a
small group of staff and postgraduate
students and also collaborates widely
within the Faculty and with external
researchers from Zoos Victoria, Victorian
Department of Primary Industries and
Monash University.
“My research focuses on the pathogenesis
and epidemiology of veterinary infectious
diseases with the aim of improving
disease control and enhancing animal
health and welfare,” says Dr Devlin.
“I am investigating infectious agents that
cause disease in companion animals,
livestock and wildlife species.
“The overarching aim of this research
is to develop tools and strategies to
control infectious diseases in animal
populations.”
Controlling infectious diseases in
animals benefits the animals directly
by improving their health and welfare
but also has broader benefits for human
and environmental health, according to
Dr Devlin.
For example, new animal vaccines
not only prevent disease in vaccinated
animals but can also decrease our reliance
on antibiotics to treat infected animals.
This reduces the volume of antibiotics
in the food chain and the environment
and helps to minimise the emergence of
antibiotic resistance. Recently, Dr Devlin
observes, the World Health Organization
(WHO) identified antibiotic resistance
as one of the three greatest threats to
human health.
“In the long term, I hope to contribute to
the improved control, or even eradication,
of the animal diseases that I am
studying,” says Dr Devlin.
“In the shorter term, I hope to perform
high-quality research that has national
and international relevance.
“In my everyday work, I aim to contribute
to a creative and productive research
environment in the Faculty and help
others to achieve their research goals.”
Dr Devlin graduated with a Bachelor of
Veterinary Science (Honours) from the
University of Sydney in 2001 and worked
in private veterinary practice in Victoria
before completing a PhD in microbiology
at the University of Melbourne.
During her undergraduate degree she
became very interested in infectious
diseases, especially viruses and how they
cause disease.
“I am fortunate that this job lets me
combine my interests in animals and
infectious diseases,” says Dr Devlin.
“I hope that continuing to follow my
passions will lead me down the path
of becoming an accomplished later
career researcher.
“I try to keep my research program
flexible so that I can follow new
directions as animal health problems
arise and change.”
See: www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/
researcher/person29366.html
Following new directions
in animal health
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
8
11. “The overarching
aim of this
research is to
develop tools
and strategies to
control infectious
diseases
in animal
populations.”
9
12. The future of printing
in the digital age
It was widely thought
that the wireless would prove the
death of newspapers, TV would
subsume the movies, CDs make
vinyl redundant and video kill the
radio star.
Contemporary opinion now
predicts the demise of the book
as a result of the digital tablet,
but a new study by early career
researcher Caroline Hamilton
hopes to establish that reports of
the death of global publishing are
greatly exaggerated.
The city of Melbourne enjoys a long
and rich tradition of publishing. It is
hardly surprising that the changes
being wrought by an all-pervading
digital culture are causing
widespread anxiety in traditional
publishing circles and amongst
book lovers and avid readers. Their
questions are universal, often
repeated and subsequently debated
by opposing adherents of printed
versus digital channels: ‘What is
to become of the printed book or
the literary magazine?’ ‘What is
happening to the activity of reading
and the concept of readership?’
Focusing on the Melbourne
publishing industry and the impact
of digital communications on the
rich tradition and communities
that have been established here,
early career researcher Caroline
Hamilton is working to provide
answers to such questions in the
global context by examining the
impact of recent changes on a
small, local scale.
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
10
13. “I’m especially interested
in understanding how new
technologies and traditional media
for literature can coexist, and in the
new opportunities that social media
and online networks have opened
up for the creation of literary
communities,” says Dr Hamilton.
“As a consequence of conducting
my research here in Melbourne, an
official UNESCO City of Literature,
I’ve also become very interested
in researching just exactly what it
means for the local citizens to be
part of a literary city.”
Dr Hamilton was awarded
an inaugural John McKenzie
Fellowship from the University of
Melbourne in 2010 to further her
innovative research and build and
lead cross-disciplinary collaborative
research activities within and
across faculties.
Dr Hamilton’s impressive and
ground-breaking research also
attracted an Australian Endeavour
Fellowship in the same year and
gave her the opportunity to travel
to the United Kingdom to conduct
research in collaboration with the
Institute for the Future of the Book
in London and, in the process, pilot
some ideas of how bookshops might
continue to connect with local
communities in a digital landscape.
“I’m very pleased to say that this
research provided the inspiration
for the local experimental Future
Bookshop at the National Gallery
of Victoria that will be part of this
year’s Emerging Writers’ Festival
in Melbourne,” says Dr Hamilton.
“While over in the UK I also
had the opportunity to establish
links with the Edinburgh City
of Literature Trust. I hope that
with the support of Melbourne’s
City of Literature board we can
create some opportunities for
collaborative research between our
two cities over the coming years.”
Dr Hamilton credits the opportunity
provided by the University of
Melbourne and its McKenzie
Fellowship as a crucial ingredient
in enabling and progressing her
important work in these early years
of her academic career.
“I’ve found a great range of
people here really motivated
and committed to research and
teaching – especially in my
discipline of publishing and
communications,” she says.
“As far as I’m concerned a project
like this could only happen at an
institution like the University
of Melbourne.
“Melbourne has a long history
of research and expertise in this
field and it has the established
contacts and supportive research
environment that research like
mine requires.”
See: www.archive.uninews.
unimelb.edu.au/view-21391.html
“I’m especially
interested in
understanding
how new
technologies and
traditional media
for literature
can coexist.”
11
15. Hardly a day goes past when a complex issue concerning
children does not arise in Australian society.
For example, in just a three-day period in February 2011 The
Age carried stories on discipline in schools, child sex trafficking
in the Northern Territory, food labelling laws and children’s
health, refugee children in detention, paternity testing, bail
hostels for juvenile offenders, child labour, the impact of
children living in same-sex-parented families and yet another
review of child protection laws.
Each of these issues, according to seasoned researcher Associate
Professor John Tobin from the Melbourne Law School, requires
the development of a new policy response or a critique of
existing responses.
“Historically, the welfare model, with its emphasis on the best
interests of the child, has tended to shape, at least in part, the
response to these issues,” says Associate Professor Tobin.
“However, since the adoption of the Convention of the Rights of
the Child (CRC), the recognition that children have rights has
come to represent a major shift in contemporary responses to
the issues confronting children in society.”
Associate Professor Tobin has published numerous reports
and articles on human rights, especially children’s rights. Last
year he was awarded $297,000 in ARC Discovery funding for
the project ‘Children’s Rights: From Theory to Practice’. He is
working on this project with Professor Phillip Alston from the
New York University Law School.
The project will examine the historical and philosophical
foundations of children’s rights and the measures required for
their implementation.
“The project proceeds on the basis that the limited
understanding of children’s rights undermines their capacity to
contribute to the resolution of the complex issues confronting
children,” says Associate Professor Tobin.
“The significance of this project lies in its capacity to address
this deficit.”
“It is grounded in an Australian experience and perspective
but is deliberately designed to reflect a truly cosmopolitan
perspective and thus to generate insights that will assist in
the implementation of the CRC in all of the 193 states that are
parties to it.”
Children’s rights are important but their scope is contested.
Associate Professor Tobin’s project will clarify their meaning.
The research will provide guidance to legislators, policy makers
and advocates working with or for children, and generate a
deeper understanding of the role of rights in resolving some of
the major challenges facing children in Australia and around
the world.
The practical impact of the CRC has been undermined by
four phenomena, Associate Professor Tobin explains. The first
consists of diverse challenges to the coherence of the concept
of children’s rights, which its rights proponents have been
reluctant to answer.
Second is the isolation of much of the legal analysis of the
CRC from interdisciplinary perspectives, which are of crucial
importance in arriving at a balanced and viable interpretation of
the various rights.
Third is the failure to contextualise rights claims under the
CRC in a way that takes adequate account of conflicts among
different rights and of problems such as those relating to scarce
resources and cultural resistance to change.
And fourth is the failure of lawyers to promote a systematic
and integrated jurisprudence surrounding the various rights
recognised in the CRC.
“This project aims to address each of these four concerns and
offer an account of the rights under the CRC that can guide
policy makers, decision makers, practitioners, academics
and advocates working with or for children,” says Associate
Professor Tobin.
See: www.law.unimelb.edu.au/melbourne-law-school/
community/our-staff/staff-profile/username/john%20tobin
“Children’s rights are
important but their
scope is contested.”
13
16. How do computers keep up with the constant
evolution of human language? New words are coined
every day and established words are commonly used
with new meanings. Computer scientist Dr Paul Cook,
Research Fellow at the Department of Computing
and Information Systems, is working in the field
of computational linguistics to make it easier for
computers to interpret the language we use.
Dr Cook researches computational linguistics with
a focus on slang and neologisms. Slang is a form
of language usage that tends to act as a marker for
different social groups and neologisms are new words
or new meanings of words.
Dr Cook, who hails from Canada, joined the
Department of Computing and Information Systems
after receiving a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellowship to
pursue his research at the University of Melbourne.
His research considers neologisms and slang from
both aspects of computational linguistics – i.e. that
is, it considers computational systems that do tasks
related to language (like Google Translate), and how
computational methods can be applied to study
language in new ways.
For example, words like ‘complisult’ (‘compliment’
+ ‘insult’) and ‘globesity’ (‘global’ + ‘obesity’) are
referred to as lexical blends. During his PhD, Dr
Cook built a computational model to automatically
determine the words that form a given lexical
blend. The model can be used by another language
technology system to process blends more
intelligently, but also gives insight into factors that
enable humans to interpret blends.
Computer systems that do tasks related to human
language often rely on a computational lexicon,
which is like a dictionary for computers. Because
languages change over time, computational lexicons
can quickly go out-of-date. When words or word-
senses are missing from a computational lexicon, the
performance of a system using that lexicon will suffer.
“By building methods to automatically discover
information about words that are not available in a
computational lexicon, we can potentially build better
applied language technology systems,” Dr Cook says.
For example, a massive number of tweets are sent
every day, and automatic analysis of this data can
be used for positive social applications such as
coordinating responses to natural disasters and
identifying outbreaks of disease. The large number
of non-standard usages on Twitter (e.g. ‘tmrw’ for
‘tomorrow’) makes automatic processing of the data
more difficult. Building an automatic language
technology that could quickly and accurately interpret
these messages has the potential to save lives.
Recently, Dr Cook has been working on automatically
identifying words that have taken on a new sense. For
example the word ‘cloud’ has taken on a new sense
meaning ‘Internet-based computational resources’. Dr
Cook’s team has developed a method to automatically
identify such new senses based on differences in the
contexts in which a word occurs in more-recent texts,
versus older texts.
“The method could have applications in helping to
keep dictionaries and computational lexicons up-to-
date.”
Dr Cook aims to improve the quality of applied
language technology systems through his research
and hopes that the methods he is developing for
automatically inferring information about words
may be applied to build new types of dictionaries in
the future.
“Other potential outcomes of the research could be
discovering previously undocumented differences
between dialects, which could improve dictionaries
and lead to the development of new language
technology tools such as spelling checkers that are
better suited to particular dialects,” Dr Cook says.
See: www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/researcher/
person422106.html
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
14
17. Using slang
linguistics to make
the message clear
“Building an
automatic
language
technology that
could quickly
and accurately
interpret these
messages has
the potential
to save lives.”
15
18. Canadian-born geologist
Dr Mark Quigley recently
received the New Zealand
Prime Minister's Science
Media Communications
Prize for his informed
analysis of the Canterbury
earthquakes. Dr Quigley
received his PhD from the
University of Melbourne
and has extensive
experience monitoring
Indo-Australian tectonic
plate movements.
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
16
19. A series of earthquakes
have recently hit New Zealand with
the Canterbury earthquake in 2010
measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale
and more recently, a 6.3 magnitude
event devastating the city of
Christchurch in February 2011.
Researchers are investigating these
events to help better understand
their cause and recurrence.
Geologist Dr Mark Quigley, a
postgraduate alumnus of the
University of Melbourne School
of Earth Sciences and now based
at the University of Canterbury,
New Zealand, is focusing on
understanding the country’s
history of fault lines and the
geological sources of earthquakes.
He has recently given his 50th
lecture since September 2010 on
the Canterbury earthquake and its
fault lines and is regarded as an
earthquake expert.
“Earthquakes pose an incredibly
difficult and unresolved problem
as there is still no reliable short-
term prediction scheme,” says Dr
Quigley (pictured left).
“But there are many important
things we can do in the
earthquake-hazard field of research
that impact directly on society.”
These include: understanding
where active faults are located; the
potential earthquake magnitudes
they might generate; how often
they do so; and the effects that
the seismic energy would have on
our cities.
“This is all fundamental
information that helps us to develop
seismic hazard models that are
used to inform our building codes,”
says Dr Quigley.
“The work is so important, and
never-ending, particularly in a
place like New Zealand.”
Dr Quigley is currently directing
several research programs focused
on understanding aspects of the
Christchurch earthquakes.
According to Dr Quigley the
obvious question for a geologist
is: ‘Can we see evidence for
prehistoric earthquake sequences
such as events like the Canterbury–
Christchurch earthquakes in
the geologic record?’ His team is
digging trenches one to two meters
deep through waterlogged sands
and silts to see if evidence for past
liquefaction events in Christchurch
can be found. Liquefaction is the
shaking-induced transformation
of saturated sands to behave like
a liquid. The research team is
also trying to get an idea of how
frequently the area has experienced
similar liquefaction events.
In a similar vein Dr Quigley
and his team are attempting
to date prehistoric rock falls
using cutting-edge geochemical
techniques to determine rock
fall recurrence intervals, post the
Canterbury earthquake.
Most of Dr Quigley’s research
is focused on combining new
technologies, such as airborne laser
scanning (making 3D images
to map faults underneath thick
vegetative cover), with traditional
field-based approaches to better
understand the behaviour of New
Zealand’s active fault lines.
Dr Quigley says he is particularly
interested in how earthquake
activity impacts on how landscapes
evolve. He works frequently with
GNS Science, a government
crown research institute in New
Zealand, and in Australia with
colleagues from the University
of Melbourne and ANSTO
(Australian Nuclear Science and
Technology Organisation). He has
worked in Iran, Mexico, USA and
Tibet on similar studies on active
fault systems.
Regarding the future, he wants to
build the Active Tectonics research
program at the University of
Canterbury to the stage where it is
globally regarded as one of the best
places in the world to study paleo-
seismology.
“I’ve always been very interested
in geomorphic expression, why
landscapes look the way they
do, and in their tectonic activity,
and then communicating that
to the broader community,” says
Dr Quigley.
“I hope my research makes a real
impact for the people who live
near earthquake fault lines, as a
lot of the communities do in New
Zealand.”
See: www.drquigs.com
Melbourne alumnus
leads the way in
understanding
earthquakes
17
20. Parents are entitled to parent
without interference from other people or
the state. But when it comes to medical
decision making, the scope of this
entitlement is far less clear.
Entering this minefield of ethics is Dr
Rosalind McDougall from the Centre
for Health and Society, who, thanks to
a Discovery Early Career Researcher
Award (DECRA) from the Australian
Research Council (ARC), has embarked
on researching the question ‘when
should health professionals override
parents’ decisions about a child’s medical
treatment?.’
The DECRA funding offers Dr
McDougall a unique opportunity to work
with additional flexibility. A new scheme
of the ARC, it was initiated in recognition
of statistics indicating the low success
rate for early career women gaining post
docs. She is pleased to be in the first
cohort of this scheme so she can continue
to work part-time and be a parent to her
young family.
Dr McDougall is looking at the rights
and obligations of parents and health
professionals and how they interface.
We start from a common premise: both
parties care deeply about the child’s
wellbeing. Sometimes however, conflict
arises. A key aim of the project is to
produce guidelines for paediatric health
professionals about ethical issues to
consider when dealing with conflict in
their practice.
Parents’ medical decisions for their
children can be overridden through
legal action by hospitals and it is not
uncommon for parents and health
professionals to disagree. What is the
extent of parents’ decision-making
entitlements? What are the ethical
responsibilities of health professionals
to the children they treat? How should
this type of conflict be resolved? In
Australia, there are currently over half a
million hospital admissions for children
under the age of fifteen annually. The
vast numbers of families interacting
with paediatric hospitals means that
opportunities for conflicts about parental
decisions to arise with hospital staff are
potentially extensive.
Working with the Children’s Bioethics
Centre at the Royal Children’s Hospital
and the Centre for Health and Society
at the University of Melbourne, Dr
McDougall believes that her research can
help create a framework that can inform
and guide the ethical issues that emerge
in a care situation.
“I am interested in practical medical
ethics and how to deal with the issues
from the ground up. I am equally
interested in ethical issues around
parenthood. I hope my work will
deliver social benefits to the Australian
community by facilitating ethical health
care practice and contributing to avoiding
friction between parents and health
professionals in the already stressful
environment of paediatric health care,”
says Dr McDougall.
In the first year of the project, she will
analyse real-life instances of paediatric
professionals disagreeing with parents’
medical decisions. She believes that
storytelling is a valuable tool for
communicating in ethics. “The richness
that comes from real people’s stories is
more insightful and reflective of real
life. Stories have a role to play in ethical
analysis and can transport you directly to
an issue.”
Three years of funding spaced over six
years gives Dr McDougall a chance to
learn, discover and contribute to this
important debate.
“In the end, both parents and clinicians
bring great expertise, and at the core of
this, is caring for children.”
See: www.chs.unimelb.edu.au
Navigating the road to
medical ethics
“In Australia, there
are currently over
half a million
hospital admissions
for children
under the age of
fifteen annually.”
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
18
22. Talkin’ ’bout my
generation
“How young
people experience
educational and
social inequalities
is a persistent
problem for
educational
policy, practice
and research.”
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
20
23. A study of youth identity and
educational change in Australia since the
1950s will investigate how the ideas and
experiences of young people have changed in
this country across the 1950s, 70s and 90s.
The study, titled ‘Youth identity and
educational change in Australia since
1950: digital archiving, re-using qualitative
data and histories of the present’, is led
by ARC Future Fellow, Professor Julie
McLeod, from the Melbourne School of
Graduate Education.
“How young people experience educational
and social inequalities is a persistent
problem for educational policy, practice and
research, and it is a fundamental question
underpinning my research agenda,” says
Professor McLeod.
“The study investigates the changing forms
and experience of youth inequality and
educational change since the 1950s, and
associated expert knowledge, educational
discourses and policy responses,” she says.
“It seeks to better understand the different
ways in which problems about young people
and their education have been formulated
and addressed, from the time of the
expansion of secondary schooling in the
1950s to the present day.”
Professor McLeod was inspired by oral
histories she had undertaken on people’s
memories of schooling and she wanted to
know more about the relationship between
educational changes and the shaping of
people’s lives, and how this compared in
different historical periods. She was also
motivated by what she sees as a need to
renew and develop historical studies of
education, which she believes have been
somewhat neglected in recent years.
Professor McLeod, a successful mid-career
researcher, applied for and was awarded a
four-year $742,377 ARC Future Fellowship to
complete the study.
Her study combines historical research,
including re-analysis of earlier empirical
studies of young people, with a new ‘born
digital’ qualitative longitudinal study of
young people living in contrasting locations,
as they move through senior schooling
and into the world beyond. A digital
archive of the study will be created for
future researchers.
Professor McLeod is working with
colleagues at Manchester, Sussex and Leeds
Universities in the UK and with the UK Data
archive of qualitative studies, Qualidata,
at Essex University. She also has research
links with colleagues at Teachers College,
Columbia University and the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. These involve her
in conversations with leading scholars in
her field, helping to generate comparative
understandings and seed new ideas.
Professor McLeod’s field of research is
socio-cultural studies of education, and
her specific areas of expertise are youth
identity, gender, and social inequalities
and differences in relation to processes of
educational change.
“This work has investigated pressing social
issues concerning young people’s pathways
through school, their social values and
navigation of future roles and identities,
citizenship and social inclusion, changes in
gender relations and educational reforms to
redress inequalities,” she explains.
Since being awarded a PhD in 1996,
Professor McLeod has consistently held
externally funded and competitive research
grants. She has won grants from the
ARC, the Canadian Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council (CSSHRC),
the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia,
and competitive tenders from the former
Commonwealth Department of Education,
Training and Youth Affairs.
Professor McLeod believes successful
research thrives on one being clear about
the problems that matter, and about what
one can and cannot do, including being
confident enough to follow your hunches.
The challenge is always to balance the time
required for research and the time for your
own life.
See: www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/cgi-bin/
public/staff_profile.cgi?id=13955
21
24. “Our regulations
have so far
tended to look
at the source of
the fire being
the forest, rather
than the building,
and our current
regulations do
not fully take this
into account.”
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
22
25. A research project conducted at
the University is examining Australia’s
traditional response to bushfires and
is seeking to promote an integrated
approach, which will help make
Australia a world leader in this form of
fire prevention.
Bushfires are a common feature of
Australian life and the devastating impact
of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires
in Victoria will remain permanently
etched in the psyche of the nation.
Seeking to ensure Australia learns from
its experiences with natural disasters,
the Office of the Emergency Services
Commissioner provides funding through
the Natural Disaster Resilience Grants
Scheme (NDRGS) to research conducted
in this sphere.
Dr Alan March, a mid-career researcher
from the Faculty of Architecture,
Building and Planning at the University
of Melbourne, and his team composed
of members from CISRO and RMIT
were the recent recipients of a $192,000
research grant for a project titled
‘Suitability indices for human settlement
fire prevention’. The project is examining
the way that fires progressed from the
bush through to urban areas and what
factors influenced the progression of
these fires.
“We have tended in Australia to see
the bushfire as something beyond our
control, a force of nature, and we have to
just take our chances,” says Dr March.
“This is a common misconception in the
area of disasters generally but it doesn’t
match the reality of what can actually be
done to reduce these risks.”
The research project team is using
empirical data from the 2009 bushfires
and examining the urban edges of
Melbourne and regional cities in Victoria.
“When a fire progresses to a human
settlement, essentially the last part of its
energy is expended at the urban edge,” Dr
March explains.
“That energy could be huge if it’s a
heavily vegetated forest, but if you are
able to stop that energy being converted
into fire at the urban edge, then you have
been successful.”
Dr March and his team are looking at
factors that can assist in stopping the
spread of bushfires through urban areas.
These factors include the quality of
building materials, the nature of fences,
garden plants, and the use of parks and
nature reserves. According to Dr March,
our regulations have so far tended to
look at the source of the fire being the
forest, rather than the building, and our
current regulations do not fully take
this into account. “This research feeds
into attempts to improve our regulations
to account for fire progression within
settlements,” says Dr March.
In recent years there has been a growing
recognition that an integrated approach
to reducing the spread of bushfires is
highly important.
“Previously we had the forest managers
looking at the forest, planners looking at
planning controls and the builders looking
at the structures,” Dr March explains.
“The people who work in this area
understand these aspects are related but
the way in which they integrated wasn’t
particularly good.
“What we have now is an important
transition stage in our policy
environment where the planning and
building controls are being improved so
that they are integrated.”
The research by Dr March and his
team is seeking to provide more
evidence to support that integration to
include elements that have previously
been ignored.
Australian researchers are now world
leaders in this area. It will continue to be
important to meet this ongoing threat,
even though, Dr March observes, it is the
nature of natural disasters that people
tend to forget about them.
“This project works hard to keep
momentum going,” he says.
See: http://ndmri.research.unimelb.edu.au/
The reality of reducing
fire risks
23
27. If it were not for a chance
visit to China 15 years ago,
geographer Michael Webber
would have had a very different
research career. He now divides
his time between Australia and
China, trying to understand
the issues around the supply of
freshwater – our most important
natural resource.
The relationship between humans
and their environment is a complex
interaction, which has fascinated
Professor Michael Webber during
his 45-year research career.
Based in the Melbourne School
of Land and Environment at the
University of Melbourne, Professor
Webber has now assembled a
multidisciplinary, international
team to identify the multiple
drivers of risk to freshwater supply
in Shanghai, opportunities for
adaptation to sustain that supply,
and the barriers and limits to
these adaptations.
“I first became interested in China
when encouraged by one of my
graduate students to visit there 15
years ago,” says Professor Webber.
“I previously worked on US and
Australian industrial economic
geography, but my work in China
has expanded my research to
include more physical geography
due to the importance of
understanding how human actions
affect rivers and vice versa.”
Professor Webber is now in the first
stages of an Australian Research
Council Discovery Grant, which
began in 2011 and will finish in
2014, with collaborators Professor
Jon Barnett, Associate Professors
Brian Finlayson and Mark Wang
and Professor Zhongyuan Chen.
They were awarded $534,000 over
four years for the project entitled
‘Adapting to climate, management
and policy driven risks to
freshwater supply in Shanghai’.
The research team is currently
trying to understand the ways
in which people’s actions
have modified the physical
characteristics of the Yangzi River.
“By volume, the Yangzi River is
the third largest in the world,”
Professor Webber explains. “But
it is now running into induced
shortages in supplying Shanghai’s
23 million people with water.”
The river management issues
include a sea level rise (due to
climate change) that brings in
more salt water to Shanghai’s
freshwater estuary, the
modification of flow by dams along
the river, and the diversion of water
to northern China through the
south–north transfers.
“Like the Murray-Darling River
system in Australia, the Yangzi
is affected by policy decisions
in different locations along its
course,” says Professor Webber.
“These decisions are taken by
many different bodies, at different
levels of government, and
cumulatively, they have enormous
effects on the river.
“Our work will hopefully provide
an understanding of social and
environmental relationships in a
complex political environment,
which is a common situation in so
many nations.”
The next phases of the research
project concern what can be
done to secure a water supply
for Shanghai, and the social and
political barriers to achieving
those solutions.
The international research team
meet weekly over Skype to discuss
the project and Professor Webber
visits China three times a year,
providing him with intensive
practice to speak and read the
Mandarin language.
Reflected in his international
and interdisciplinary research,
Professor Webber believes the key
to a successful research career
is openness to new experiences,
adaptability and the ability to see
the long view of research when
writing grants.
“It also helps to find a great team
of friends to work with, and my
interesting graduate students do
keep teaching me new things. I
have now worked on a couple of
research projects with the student
who first took me to China.”
See: www.findanexpert.unimelb.
edu.au/researcher/person12932.
html
“Our work will
hopefully provide
an understanding
of social and
environmental
relationships in a
complex political
environment,
which is a common
situation in so
many nations.”
25
28. “The award will
support research
into the factors
which influence
doctors’ decisions
on how many
hours to work,
where they work,
and when they
will retire.”
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
26
29. The University can further develop its research into
the working practices of doctors thanks to a new award of
$2.5 million from the National Health and Medical Research
Council (NHMRC) for the Centre for Research Excellence in
Medical Workforce Dynamics.
Professor Anthony Scott, who has devoted his research career to
looking at efficiency in healthcare systems, leads the Centre.
He and his team will use the award to support an additional five
waves of The Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment
and Life (MABEL) longitudinal survey of doctors.
The award will support research into the factors which
influence doctors’ decisions on how many hours to work, where
they work, and when they will retire.
In 2005, Professor Scott was appointed as a Professorial
Fellow at the Melbourne Institute for Applied Economic
and Social Research, where he leads the Health Economics
Research Program.
Professor Scott’s interest in efficiency in healthcare began at
the University of York in northern England, where he studied
health economics.
After completing a PhD at the University of Aberdeen in
Scotland, Professor Scott moved to senior research roles at the
Universities of Aberdeen, Newcastle in (northeast England),
Sydney and York.
Shortly after joining the University of Melbourne he was
awarded an ARC (Australian Research Council) Future
Fellowship, a scheme created by the Australian Government
in 2008 to promote research in areas of national importance
by giving researchers incentives to conduct their research in
Australia, and to attract and retain the best career researchers.
Working alongside professors from Monash University,
Professor Scott leads a team in research areas which he says are
vital for looking at efficiency in healthcare systems.
“The Centre provides much-needed evidence on the factors
that influence doctors’ decisions; in turn these decisions have
important effects on the population’s access to healthcare, costs,
and health outcomes,” Professor Scott explains.
“The research is also examining rural medical workforce
supply, including factors which contribute to the retention of
general practitioners in rural and remote areas,” he says.
The recent award by the NHMRC builds on other recognition
for Professor Scott’s work. Last year he received an ARC
Discovery Grant for a three-year project to look at the
determinants of prices charged by doctors, focusing on
the role of competition and the individual doctor and
practice characteristics.
Professor Scott says funding of this type has been instrumental
in allowing for research capacity to be developed at the
Centre so that researchers can provide work of the highest
international quality.
Since the development of the MABEL project in 2008, more
than 10,000 doctors have been surveyed to gather information
on their decision-making.
Professor Scott says this response has been key to producing
research that is policy-relevant and high quality.
“This data provides a key national resource for those conducting
research on the medical workforce, with de-identified data
available for others to use,” says Professor Scott.
“We very much appreciate the commitment shown by those
completing the survey each year. We hope they will stay with
us as MABEL enters this new phase. This recent award would
not have been possible without the hard work of our research
team in analysing the data and turning it into policy-relevant
evidence that is beginning to be used to inform medical
workforce policies.”
See: www.mabel.org.au
Healthcare efficiency
under the microscope
27
30. RESEARCH NEWS
‘Spooning’
wins science
to art award
Four researchers affiliated with
the University have been recognised
in the 2012 Premier’s Award for Health
and Medical Research
Bio21 Institute Electron Microscopy Unit Facility
Manager and Senior Research Fellow Dr Eric
Hanssen has been awarded the 2011 National
Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC)
Science to Art Award for his image, ‘Spooning’.
The Award recognises outstanding examples of
the art which can arise from the research funded
by NHMRC. Winners were announced at the
NHMRC’s 75th Anniversary Scientific Symposium
on 29 November. Dr Hanssen is internationally
recognised in the field of high resolution imaging
of the malaria parasite.
He said he entered the competition because he
already had the images on his computer, and
decided since he did all the work, it was worth
spending five minutes sending one to the NHMRC.
“I think it was my best work so far, not necessarily
in scientific terms, but more on the 3D graphics
and rendering side of things. I was quite happy
with the metal look – I usually find a lot of flaws in
my renderings, but not this time.”
Dr Stefan Gehrig has been
awarded the prestigious 2012
Premier’s Award for Health
and Medical Research, for
a discovery into a potential
treatment for muscular dystrophy.
The three commendations all
went to other University of
Melbourne researchers.
Dr Gehrig’s award recognises
achievement by Victoria’s early
career health and medical
researchers. The Department
of Physiology, where Dr Gehrig
conducted the research, also
received the $30,000 Jack and
Robert Smorgon Families Award.
“Many of the past winners
have gone on to have highly
distinguished careers in medical
research and I hope I can follow
in their footsteps,” said Dr Gehrig
(pictured below).
The three University applicants
who received commendations for
their work were each presented
with $8,000 for their outstanding
contribution in the field of health
and medical research:
Dr Sophie Valkenburg, a PhD
student at the Department of
Microbiology and Immunology,
was awarded for her research on
the role of T-cells in recognising
and protecting against different
influenza viruses.
Mr Michael Livingston, a researcher
with Turning Point Alcohol and
Drug Centre, was recognised for his
work on the availability of alcohol
and its effect on consumption,
health and social problems. His
research has led to changes in
alcohol regulation in Victoria. Mr
Livingston undertook his PhD
at the University of Melbourne’s
Centre for Health and Society.
Dr Elena Tucker, a researcher with
the Murdoch Childrens Research
Institute, was commended for her
work into mitochondrial disease
– characterised by an inability
to generate the energy required
for normal bodily functions and
often with fatal consequences.
Dr Tucker undertook her PhD at
the Murdoch Childrens Research
Institute through the University
of Melbourne’s Department
of Paediatrics.
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
28
31. Jumping fish to save the salmon
industry millions of dollars
Scientists have shown for the first
time that salmon can be artificially
stimulated to leap through the
surface of water, opening the door
to effective sea lice treatment.
Sea lice infection costs the global
industry more than $500 million
each year.
Dr Tim Dempster from the
University of Melbourne and
researchers from the Institute of
Marine Research in Norway have
demonstrated that by keeping
salmon away from the water’s
surface with a net barrier for a day,
more than 90 per cent of salmon
would jump several times through
the surface in the two hours
following the barrier’s removal.
In the 1990s, scientists trialled a
de-lousing method where a thin
layer of oil containing a sea lice
treatment chemical was added to
the water’s surface in the hope that
salmon would jump through and
coat themselves in the treatment.
However, the trials revealed that
salmon didn’t jump frequently
enough and the chemical would
break down in the sunlight,
rendering the method ineffective.
“In response to this problem,
our study has demonstrated a
way to induce salmon jumping
behaviour so that it is frequent and
predictable, therefore ensuring
the surface treatment method is
effective in de-lousing salmon,”
Dr Dempster said. The research is
published in the latest edition of
the Journal of Animal Science.
Veterinary vaccines
found to combine
into new viruses
Research from
the University of
Melbourne has shown
that two different
vaccine viruses –
used simultaneously
to control the same
condition in chickens
– have combined
to produce new
infectious viruses.
The vaccines were used to control infectious
laryngotracheitis (ILT), an acute respiratory
disease occurring in chickens worldwide. ILT
can have up to 20 per cent mortality rate in some
flocks and has a significant economic and welfare
impact in the poultry industry.
The research found that when two different
ILT vaccine strains were used in the same
populations, they combined into two new strains
(a process known as recombination), resulting in
disease outbreaks.
Neither the ILT virus nor the new strains can be
transmitted to humans or other animals, and
they do not pose a food safety risk.
The study was led by Dr Joanne Devlin, Professor
Glenn Browning and Dr Sang-Won Lee and
colleagues at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal
Health at the University of Melbourne and
NICTA’s Victoria Research Laboratory and was
published in July 2012 in the international
journal Science.
Dr Devlin said the combining of live vaccine
virus strains outside of the laboratory was
previously thought to be highly unlikely, but
this study shows that it is possible and has led to
disease outbreaks in poultry flocks.
“We alerted the Australian Pesticide and
Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) to our
findings and they are now working closely with
our research team, vaccine registrants and the
poultry industry to determine both short and
long-term regulatory actions,” she said.
29
32. University researchers named
winners of PM’s Science Prize
Professor David
Solomon has been
awarded the Prime
Minister’s Prize for
Science for his role
in revolutionising
polymer science.
Professor Solomon, a Professorial Fellow
in the Department of Chemical and
Biomolecular Engineering was joint
winner of the $300,000 prize with
Professor Ezio Rizzardo from the CSIRO.
Professor Stuart Wyithe received the
$50,000 Malcolm McIntosh Prize for
Physical Scientist of the Year for his
work on the physics of the formation of
the universe.
Professors Solomon and Rizzardo devised
a means of custom-building plastics and
other polymers for tasks at the cutting
edge of technology. Their revolutionary
chemical theories and processes are used
in almost every university chemistry
department and in the laboratories and
factories of up to 100 companies.
Professor Solomon said he was delighted
to have won this prestigious award. “I pay
tribute to my co-recipient Professor Ezio
Rizzardo and the entire research team,”
he said.
Theoretical Physicist Professor Stuart
Wyithe will use his prize money to
tackle big problems which can now be
explored using a new, multi-billion-dollar
generation of telescopes including the
Giant Magellan Telescope.
Australian scientist wins major international award
An Australian paediatric neurologist is
one of five international scientists to win
the prestigious L’Oréal-UNESCO Women
in Science Award for her groundbreaking
research into epilepsy.
Professor Ingrid Scheffer has been
awarded the title of Laureate for the
Asia-Pacific region and is only the third
Australian to receive the award. Professor
Scheffer holds a chair at the University of
Melbourne, is a senior principal research
fellow at Florey Neurosciences Institutes
and is a paediatric neurologist and
epileptologist at Austin Health and the
Royal Children’s Hospital.
Professor Scheffer has devoted the last
20 years to clinical research focused on
epilepsy. She has identified many new
forms of epilepsy and, together with
molecular science collaborators, discovered
multiple genes that cause seizures.
Professor Scheffer’s clinical research has
focused on the genetics and different
types of epilepsies, and on novel
antiepileptic therapies. For 20 years she
has led the field of epilepsy genetics
research, collaborating with colleagues to
identify the first known epilepsy gene and
13 of the 23 genes currently known.
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
30
33. The IBM Blue Gene/Q, the world’s
greenest supercomputer and one of
Australia’s fastest supercomputers
The University’s Victorian Life
Sciences Computation Initiative
(VLSCI) will be home to one of
Australia’s fastest supercomputers
and the world’s greenest
supercomputer, the IBM Blue
Gene/Q. The acquisition of the
IBM supercomputer is the second
stage of an agreement between IBM
and the University to provide next
generation computational capacity
for life sciences research within
the VLSCI in conjunction with the
IBM Research Collaboratory for Life
Sciences – Melbourne.
The Victorian Government and
the University established the
$100 million VLSCI to strengthen
the research capabilities and
outcomes of Victorian life sciences
research. The VLSCI has drawn
computation and biology experts
from around the world to manage
the supercomputer resource and
provide training and support to
researchers unaccustomed to
working at this scale.
The IBM supercomputer will
provide 836 teraflops of processing
power – the equivalent computing
power of more than 20,000
desktop computers – making it
one of the fastest supercomputers
in Australia, based on the Top 500
list (www.top500.org), and the
fastest supercomputer dedicated
to life sciences research in the
southern hemisphere.
Professor Jim McCluskey, Deputy
Vice-Chancellor (Research), said the
machine’s gigantic capacity would
assist life sciences researchers to
fast-track solutions to some of the
most debilitating health conditions.
“Through this supercomputer,
scientists will be able to advance
their work in finding cures and
developing improved treatments
for cancer, epilepsy and other
devastating diseases affecting the
lives of Australians and people
worldwide,” Professor McCluskey
said.
Celebrating the 2012
mckenzie fellows
The 2012 McKenzie Fellows were officially
welcomed to the University at a lunch with senior
staff and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research),
Professor James McCluskey, and internationally
renowned geneticist Professor John McKenzie,
whom the fellowships honour.
Established in 2008, the fellowships are post-
doctoral awards made to outstanding recent
doctoral graduates from universities outside the
University of Melbourne. Fellows are selected for
their potential to build and lead cross-disciplinary
collaborative research activities within and
across faculties.
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Lyn Yates
said the McKenzie scheme complements other
forms of recruiting, and signals strongly to the
international community the University’s research
commitments and interest in attracting the best
scholars of the next generation.
The 2012 McKenzie Fellows are: Abigail Albright,
PhD (Arkansas); Scott Flower, PhD (ANU); Emily
Forbes, PhD (Oxford); Jessica Gerrard, PhD
(Cambridge); James Hullick, PhD (RMIT); Xu
Li, PhD (Monash); Lim Chee Liew, PhD (UTas);
Maja Lovric, PhD (La Trobe; Ranjith Rajasekharan
Unnithan, PhD (Cambridge); Bridget Vincent, PhD
(Cambridge); Lesley Pruitt, PhD (UQ); Jonathan
Roffe, PhD (UTas); and Elizabeth Taylor, PhD
(RMIT).
31
34. Smart and Deadly: a
DVD resource covering
sexual health topics
Strategies needed to
improve Vitamin D
awareness
Respectful relationships, sexual
health and feeling proud to be an
Aboriginal teenager are some of
the topics covered in a new DVD
resource created by young people
in Northeast Victoria through the
University’s Centre for Excellence
in Rural Sexual Health (CERSH).
The DVD and YouTube clip, called
Smart and Deadly, is a guide for
professionals and organisations
wanting to collaborate with
Aboriginal communities to deliver
sexual health promotion to rural
Aboriginal youth.
Following the journey of a year-
long project with an Aboriginal
community in Northeast Victoria,
the DVD illustrates the key
principles that guide respectful
and inclusive partnerships with
Aboriginal communities.
This project was coordinated and
funded by CERSH at the Rural
Health Academic Centre and by the
Department of Health, Victoria.
The Hume Region in Northern
Victoria has the largest regional
Aboriginal community in Victoria.
CERSH worked with 20 local and
statewide Aboriginal organisations,
health and community services
and educational institutions,
using the principles of community
development and Aboriginal health
promotion practice.
See: www.youtube.com/user/
smartanddeadlykoori?feature=
results_main
Almost one-third of adults over the age of 25 have
a vitamin D deficiency, a new study evaluating
the vitamin D status of Australian adults
has found.
The paper is the largest study of its kind, drawing
on 11,218 people from the AusDiab Study and
includes Australians from Darwin to Hobart.
Professor Rob Daly, Chair of Exercise and Ageing
at Deakin University, honorary fellow at the
University of Melbourne and the study leader
said the findings showed strategies were now
needed to improve vitamin D awareness.
The overall prevalence of vitamin D deficiency
was 31 per cent, with women being more
commonly affected (39 per cent vs 23 per cent
in men, overall). When evaluated by season and
latitude, 42 per cent of women and 27 per cent
of men in southern Australia during summer/
autumn had deficient levels, which increased
to 58 per cent in women and 35 per cent in men
during winter/spring. This indicated that late
winter and early spring were the best times
to measure vitamin D levels in the blood to
detect deficiency.
Vitamin D is necessary for optimal health. Those
at greatest risk for vitamin D deficiency included
women, the elderly, the obese, those not meeting
the current physical activity guidelines of more
than two-and-a-half hours a week, and those
of non-European descent. Professor Daly said
vitamin D deficiency was recognised as a global
public health problem, but the population-based
prevalence of deficiency and its reach in Australia
had never previously been properly examined.
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
32
35. World-first study uses vineyard
records to link early grape ripening
to human-induced climate change
By using decades of vineyard records,
scientists have for the first time
been able to attribute early ripening
of wine grapes to climate warming
and declines in soil water content.
The study reveals that management
factors have also influenced the shift,
offering hope for growers to develop
adaptation strategies.
The study is published in the
journal Nature Climate Change and
was conducted by scientists from
the University of Melbourne and
the CSIRO. Climate scientist and
viticulturist Dr Leanne Webb, based
at the Melbourne School of Land
and Environment and CSIRO, said
that while trends towards earlier
ripening have been widely reported,
a detailed study of the underlying
causes of these shifts has not been
previously undertaken.
“Changes to the timing of biological
phenomena such as flowering and
emergence of butterflies have been
noted on many continents over recent
decades. In some wine-growing
regions such as southern Australia,
grape maturation dates have
advanced about eight days per decade,
with earlier maturing potentially
impacting wine-grape quality and
regional branding,” Dr Webb said.
“This has been a study of potential
influences on wine-grape maturity
trends on a continental scale. On
average, over the period 1985–
2009, early ripening of Australian
wine grapes are equally attributable
to climate warming, declines in
soil water content, and lower crop
yields. An additional influence from
changing management practices is
also likely.”
Australian scientist awarded
a Royal Medal from the
Royal Society London
Internationally recognised chemist Professor
Andrew Holmes has been awarded the 2012 Royal
Medal – the only Australian in 10 years to receive
the award.
Three Royal Medals, also known as the Queen’s
Medals, are awarded annually for the most
important contributions in the physical, biological
and applied or interdisciplinary sciences. Former
recipients include Charles Darwin, Francis Crick
and Suzanne Cory.
Professor Holmes is a University of Melbourne
Laureate Professor of Chemistry at the Bio21
Institute, a CSIRO Fellow and a Distinguished
Research Fellow at Imperial College London.
He is recognised for his contributions at the
interface of the materials and biological sciences
that will lead to outcomes that will benefit society.
He played a pioneering role in the field of applied
organic electronic materials.
In the late 1980s he established a collaboration with
University of Cambridge physicists that in 1990
led to the discovery of light-emitting polymers.
Professor Holmes led the chemistry team in that
collaboration for 14 years. These polymers have
applications in solid state (LED) lighting, flat panel
displays, transistors and solar cells.
In Australia Professor Holmes leads the Victorian
Organic Solar Cells Consortium involving
the University of Melbourne, CSIRO, Monash
University and industry partners. The Consortium,
which benefits from a strong collaboration with
the Imperial College Doctoral Training Centre in
Plastic Electronics, aims to deliver efficient flexible
printed solar cells for low-cost applications in
electricity generation.
33
36. AT A GLANCE
Facts and figures about research
at the University of Melbourne
VISION
To be a globally engaged, comprehensive
research-intensive university uniquely
positioned to respond to major social, economic
and environmental challenges.
HISTORY
The University of Melbourne has been a centre
of learning since 1855. The main Parkville
campus on the edge of Melbourne’s CBD is a
focus of the city’s ‘Knowledge Precinct’ and
the prestigious medical research ‘Parkville
Precinct’.
Melbourne is a leading research university,
widely renowned for its teaching, research
achievements, and social and economic
contributions. National and international
ratings confirm the University as a leader across
a broad range of fields.
RANKINGS
Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)
The University of Melbourne claimed the top spot in Australia and was ranked
57th worldwide in the 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities. Melbourne
climbed three places internationally in the most highly regarded academic rankings
of the world’s top universities, collated by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
The University has also improved its ranking by 35 places since the rankings began
in 2003. The ARWU compares 1,000 higher education institutions worldwide on
a range of criteria including staff and alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields
Medals, highly cited researchers and articles published in Science and Nature
and science citation indices, as well as academic performance in relation to the
university’s size.
Times Higher Education World University Rankings
2012–13
See: www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/
World rank 28 Region rank 1
34
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
37. QS World University Rankings by Subject
The QS rankings emphasise reputational parameters with a particular focus on
teaching and learning strengths. Some highlights for the University of Melbourne
include:
++ 1st in Australia and 25th in the world in English Language & Literature
++ 1st in Australia and 21st in the world in Computer Science
++ 1st in Australia and 27th in the world in Electrical Engineering and Mechanical
++ 1st in Australia and 15th in the world in Medicine
++ 1st in Australia and 24th in the world in Biological Sciences
++ 1st in Australia and equal 15th in the world in Psychology
++ 1st in Australia and 20th in the world in Chemistry
++ 1st in Australia and 20th in the world in Physics & Astronomy
++ 1st in Australia and 16th in the world in Accounting & Finance
++ 1st in Australia and 20th in the world in Statistics and Operational Research
++ 1st in Australia and 8th in the world in Law
For the complete top 200 QS World University Rankings by Subject,
See: www.topuniversities.com/#slide-one
LOCATIONS
Main campus: Parkville.
Other campuses: Austin and Northern Hospital,
Western Hospital and the Eastern Hill precinct
including St Vincent’s campus and The Royal
Eye and Ear Hospital, VCA and Music campus
at Southbank, Burnley, Creswick, Dookie,
Hawthorn, Shepparton, Wangaratta, Ballarat,
Werribee.
RESEARCH PARTNERS
Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria; Austin
Health; Australia and New Zealand School
of Government Limited; Australian
Antarctic Division; Australian Centre for
Post Traumatic Mental Health; Australian
College of Optometry; Australian Institute
of Family Studies; Bionics Institute; Bureau
of Meteorology; Burnet Institute; Cancer
Council Victoria; Centre for Eye Research
Australia; CSIRO; Epworth Health Care;
Florey Neuroscience and Mental Health
Institute; Goulburn Valley Health; Grattan
Institute; Howard Florey Institute; Institute
of Postcolonial Studies Limited; Institute of
Postcolonial Studies; Leo Cussen Institute for
Continuing Legal Education; Ludwig Institute
for Cancer Research; Marine and Freshwater
Resources Institute; Melbourne Business
School Limited; Melbourne College of Divinity;
Melbourne Health; Murdoch Childrens
Research Institute; Museum Victoria; National
Ageing Research Institute Incorporated;
Northern Health; O’Brien Institute; Peter
MacCallum Cancer Institute; Royal Botanic
Gardens Board; Royal Children’s Hospital;
Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital; Royal
Women’s Hospital; Skin and Cancer Foundation
Incorporated; St Vincent’s Health; St Vincent’s
Institute of Medical Research; Tasman Institute
Limited and Tasman Asia Pacific Limited;
Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine; Walter
and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research;
Zoological Parks and Gardens Board of Victoria.
35
38. RESEARCH CENTRES
The University of Melbourne has 11 discipline-specific faculties, and is affiliated
with many independent medical research institutes, teaching hospitals and other
institutions like the Melbourne Business School. The University is also a leader
in cultural, environmental, legal and social research. Among the many specialist
centres are:
Cooperative Research Centres (CRC)
The Australian Government’s CRC program delivers social, economic and
environmental benefits by encouraging collaboration between research institutions
and industry, with a strong commercialisation focus. The University of Melbourne
is involved with 15 CRCs. For further information see www.unimelb.edu.au/
research/research-institutes-centres.html
Australian Research Council (ARC) Centres
The ARC’s Centres of Excellence program maintains and develops Australia’s
international standing in the Commonwealth Government’s designated priority
areas of research. The ARC also funds Special Research Centres on the basis of
research excellence and potential to contribute to the economic, social and cultural
development of Australia. The University of Melbourne is involved with two special
centres: the ARC Special Research Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics,
and the ARC Special Research Centre for Particulate Fluids Processing.
The University of Melbourne is the lead participant in four centres of excellence:
ARC Centre of Excellence for Free Radical Chemistry and Biotechnology; ARC
Centre of Excellence in Coherent X-ray Science; ARC Centre of Excellence for
Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems; and ARC Centre of Excellence for
Particle Physics at the Tera-Scale.
Melbourne is also a key collaborator and partner in a further 12 centres: ARC
Centre of Excellence in Design in Light Metals; ARC Centre of Excellence in Ore
Deposits; ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research; ARC Centre
of Excellence for Quantum Computer Technology; ARC Centre of Excellence for
Kangaroo Genomics; ARC Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology and Development;
ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Wall Biology; ARC Centre of Excellence for
Quantum Computation and Communication Technology; ARC Centre of Excellence
for Climate System Science; ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics; ARC
Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions; and ARC Centre of Excellence for
the History of Emotions.
National Health and Medical
Research Council Centres and
Programs
The National Health and Medical Research
Council (NHMRC) is Australia’s peak body
for supporting health and medical research.
NHMRC Program Grants provide security of
funding to teams of researchers over a five-
year period. The University of Melbourne is
currently involved with: the NHMRC Centre
of Research Excellence in Medical Workforce
Dynamics; the NHMRC Centre of Research
Excellence in Clinical Science in Diabetes; the
National Health and Medical Research Council
Centre of Research Excellence for Translational
Neuroscience: A Modular Platform for
Translating Discovery into Health Outcomes;
and the National Health and Medical Research
Council Centre of Research Excellence for
Translational Pathology Research and Training.
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
2007* 2008 2009* 2010 2011*
Research Expenditure ($ million)
*Note: As formal analysis is undertaken biennially for the
Australian Bureau of Statistics data collection,
results for odd years are estimates.
36
RESEARCH REVIEW 2012
39. Facts and Figures
CATEGORY 2010 2011
Median ENTER 93.9 93.1
Student enrolments
Total load 49,972 50,214#
Research higher degree 4,822 5,029
Postgraduate coursework 14,520 16,006
Undergraduate 30,630 29,179
% Female enrolment 55.7% 55.8%
International load 12,285 12,326
% International 24.6% 24.5%
DIISRTE Funded (incl RTS) 29,360 29,719
Award completions
Research higher degree (excl Higher Doct) 727 776 (est)
Graduate coursework 4,440 6,155
Undergraduate 7,726 8,566
Total 12,893 15,497
Staff (FTE) (at 31 March, including casuals and excluding TAFE)
Academic (all) 3,405 3,417
Professional (all) 3,913 4,210
Total 7,318 7,627
Student:staff ratio
TR faculty staff 18.4 18.7
All academic faculty staff 10.9 11
Research expenditure ($ million) 812.9 844.0 (est)
Research performance indicators
Research income ($ million) 357 375.2 (est)
Research publications 4,271 4,300 (est)
Research load (EFTSL) 3,216 3,119
Research completions (eligible)* 727 776
* 'Eligible completions' means those included in RTS formula; excludes Higher Doctorates by publication.
#
includes part-time students
Melbourne’s Performance Against Key National Research Indicators
RESEARCH INCOME
RESEARCH
PUBLICATIONS
DOCTORATES RESEARCH MASTERS
COMPLETIONS (ELIGIBLE)*
$ million National Rank DEST Weighted Score Number National Rank
2011 376.5 n/a 4,572 776 (est) n/a
2010 357 1 4,319 727 2
2009 337 1 4,517 775 1
2008 382.5 1 4,325 720 1
2007 309 2 3,909 732 1
* ‘Eligible completions’ means those included in the RTS formula; excludes Higher Doctorates by publication.
Melbourne Research Institutes
These are University-constituted institutes
that draw together the breadth of our
research activity across faculty and discipline
boundaries to tackle complex global issues
and respond to major social, economic and
environmental challenges.
Our current institutes are:
++ Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society
++ Melbourne Energy Institute
++ Melbourne Materials Research Institute
++ Melbourne Neuroscience Institute
++ Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute
++ Melbourne Social Equity Institute
See: www.ri.unimelb.edu.au
GRADUATE RESEARCH
TRAINING
As members of one of Australia’s largest
research institutions, graduate research
candidates at the University of Melbourne
work on projects spanning emerging fields as
well as the full range of traditional academic
disciplines. The researchers who supervise
and mentor our graduate research candidates
are among the world’s finest and work at the
forefront of international scholarship.
37
