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ASC conference – a social happening

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Cocktails in UTS’s new Great Hall? Café Scientific in a pub? Book Launch event of The Genome Generation? Pre-conference drinks with sci-comm up-and-comings?

Yes to all! The conference social calendar is now in place and we even offer a choice on the Tuesday evening.

First off is a relaxed pre-conference get-together at the Belgian Beer Café in the Rocks on Sunday 26 February from 6pm. Will Grant is organising this event. Reply to his tweet @willozap if attending.

Science Communication Tweetup pre #asc2012. 6pm, 26th Feb, Belgian Beer Cafe The Rocks (See Map Here) ping @willozap if attending!

Get dressed up on Monday 27 February for a cocktail function from 6-8pm at the newly refurbished Great Hall of the University Technology Sydney. All registered conference delegates are invited to this convivial gathering. Arrive on time to mingle and relax. There will be a couple of brief presentations and then some more mingling, etc. UTS has a lot to show off – you’ll hear about the exciting major rejuvenation of the university and its neighbourhood, its new science facilities and novel partnerships in communicating science. The Great Hall is in the Tower building on Broadway in Ultimo, a short walk or a quick bus ride from the conference venue.

Tuesday 28 February offers two events from 6-8pm for different tastes. In fact your choice of which one to go to may be influenced by where you want to eat afterwards.

  • The science team at the ABC with support from NETS and Rod Lamberts, our conference convenor, are putting on a light-hearted conversation about seriously communicating science, and the best part is that’s in a pub (location TBA).
  • The second event is in restaurant rich Glebe (a short bus or taxi ride from the Masonic Centre). Elizabeth Finkel’s latest book, The Genome Generation, will be launched at Gleebooks on Glebe Point Road. The first 20 delegates to RSVP will get free entry (otherwise $10). Drinks are available. Elizabeth will be in conversation with Wilson da Silva, editor-in-chief of Cosmos Magazine. See http://www.gleebooks.com.au/default.asp?p=events/events4_htm#Elizabeth_Finkel.

More information about how to RSVP for the events will come soon.

More details are being added to the conference program and many sessions have powerful panels of potent presenters. The sooner you register the quicker you can reserve your place for sessions and events that have limited numbers.

So get organised and get registered – go to http://2012conf.asc.asn.au/register/ to make it happen.

Jesse Shore
National President

Past President and Life Member Profile: Alison Leigh

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From Alison Leigh:

I didn’t grow up dreaming that one day I would be …. the Editorial Director of the World Congress of Science Producers. No such thing existed. Now it does and like the best things in life – it evolved.

I emigrated to Sydney from the UK in 1988 – bicentennial year; fully expecting my on-screen career as a BBC TV and radio reporter /presenter to continue to flourish here. Wrong. I was “too old” and “too English”. Yikes! What to do? Try my hand at producing? My current affairs credentials landed me the job of Producer, Media Watch, with the task of getting series one to air. Next thing I know after that baptism of fire, I’m being courted by the Executive Producer of “Quantum”- to be the Series Producer – i.e. day to day manager of that show. Saying yes to that job changed my life – and my focus.

For several years I was Series Producer and then Executive Producer of the ABC TV Science Unit. This gave me the privilege of being closely involved in the development, production and commissioning of dozens of science TV programs in addition to Quantum:  Hot Chips, What’s your poison?, The Future Eaters to name a few. I was also closely involved in the development of major initiatives that have enhanced the celebration and understanding of science in Australia such as National Science Week and of course, our very own ASC – I was a founding member. We were a small group then and now look how far we’ve come.

As Executive Producer of the ABC TV Science Unit, I used to represent the ABC at a small somewhat chaotic annual get together of science producers and broadcasters hosted each year by one or other public broadcaster somewhere in the world.

My great good fortune is that just as I left the ABC in 1998 to go freelance, the science broadcasters decided that their annual get together, or congress as it was now called,  should become a professional conference. In 1999, they asked me to be the programmer of the event, the role I’ve held ever since.

The World Congress has grown into a unique forum of presentations and discussions, where television producers and executives from all over the world come back year after year to catch up with world trends in science and factual programming, to talk passionately about program-making, and to be inspired. The convivial and informal atmosphere creates lasting friendships which lead to binding business relationships and co-production partnerships, and the all important deals to be made down the track.

It’s not a full time job:  in addition to my Congress commitments, I freelance as a science and health writer when the project interests me enough. Everything from scripts for TV series and documentaries to health articles for magazines  and most recently I co-authored the book “Eight steps to happiness” to accompany the ABC TV series “Making Australia Happy”.

But it is my dream job. Fancy being paid to watch science films and science television, to keep abreast of innovative and exciting trends in the industry, to keep in touch with some of the smartest most creative people on the planet and even to travel to exotic places to meet them all face to face. Can’t be bad. Yet if it hadn’t been for some racist and ageist attitudes way back when, it might never have happened!

Atmospheric Sciences on the Rise

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Thanks to Craig Macaulay, CSIRO for contributing this article:

Once a year Australian atmospheric scientists gather for a research review centred on a real singing ‘canary’ – the Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Monitoring Station.  The Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station was established in 1976 to monitor and study global atmospheric composition; the Bureau manages the station and its research is jointly managed by the Bureau and CSIRO. This year’s annual Cape Grim science meeting at the Bureau of Meteorology from November 15-17 was combined with the 5th Annual Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research Workshop with a focus on the science of atmospheric composition.

The timing could not have been more appropriate coinciding with a series of releases on carbon and greenhouse gas emission figures from the International Energy Agency (http://www.iea.org/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=426) and the World Meteorological Organisation (http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_934_en.html)

Both activities brought together more than 90 researchers from New Zealand and Australian research agencies and universities. The Workshop also included the Annual Priestley lecture, which was given this year by Dr Stephen E. Schwartz (Brookhaven National Laboratory).

This meeting provided a much needed forum for atmospheric composition researchers from different disciplines (in-situ observations, remote sensing observations, modelling) to share ideas, enhance collaboration and develop a coordinated regional approach to characterising atmospheric processes in Australasia.  A major outcome of this meeting is the decision to continue this forum into the future and to investigate during 2012 the establishment of a co-ordinated atmospheric composition research group.

Melita said there is energy to bring researchers more closely together through collaboration to benefit from the expanding  and emerging infrastructure and tools  that are providing  increasing opportunities observations, modelling and assessments. These include the Australian Community Climate Earth System Simulator, new observation sites such as the Tropical Atmosphere Research Station at Gunn Point and Australia’s new research vessel, the RV Investigator that will be commissioned in June 2013.

Australian Science Communicators welcomes new science and industry Ministers

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The Australian Science Communicators, the peak professional group of people who make science accessible to diverse audiences, welcome the appointment of Senator Chris Evans as Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Greg Combet as Minister for Industry and Innovation.

“Minister Evans has an opportunity to encourage improving the communication of science in the tertiary education area and to continue to seek to engage Australians with science,” said Dr Jesse Shore, President, ASC.

Inspiring Australia is the government’s science communication program. The report proposing the program was announced in early 2010 at the opening of the ASC conference. The program has been in operation for around a year later and holds promise to increase the effectiveness of delivering science messages throughout the country.

The ASC will continue to work with the Inspiring Australia team and sees opportunities for the program to link science and innovation between Ministers Evans’ and Combet’s departments.

ASC congratulates Senator Kim Carr for his leadership as Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science & Research since 2007 and especially for his passion about communicating science.

Jesse Shore
President, Australian Science Communicators

ASC National Conference 2012 – Update & session overview

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The ASC National Conference will be at Sydney Masonic Centre from 27-29 February 2012. The program is coming into shape and looks enticing. Here’s a quick overview (some sessions may change, not all are listed, and titles and details of sessions will be refined):

Day 1

  • Opening keynote: Professor Ian Chubb, Australia’s Chief Scientist will open the conference and be the first plenary speaker.
  • After lunch: State Chief Scientists will feature in a plenary and then in parallel sessions.

Day 2

  • Plenary: Careers in science communicating – hear about career possibilities and resources.
  • Plenary: New media – continuing insights into how to use a range of rapidly evolving communication channels to communicate science (and maybe make a buck?).
  • Plenary: The NBN and how to use it -  a science communication perspective of  nation changing technology.

Day 3

  • Plenary: The Nobel experience – in an exclusive for the conference, Brian Schmidt, the 2011 Nobel Prize winner for Physics, is interviewed on video by Rod Lamberts. The discussion will interweave winning a major science prize with effective science communication of astronomy.
  • Plenary: Science and Art – a star-studded illustrated talk by David Malin and a conversation about beauty and science communication.
  • Plenary: Heads of Science Agencies – the big wigs will be prodded to tell all as they are quizzed about the role and funding for science communication in their patches.
  • Plenary: Advocacy – explore how heads of science advocacy groups represent their members’ interests to politicians and government departments.

Other parallel session topics include (partial listing; PD means session has a professional development focus):
*       Speed mentoring (PD)
*       The consultancy game – a follow-on from the careers plenary
*       Communication strategies
*       Philanthropy, fundraising and science communication
*       Beyond evaluation (PD)
*       Science as theatre
*       Putting the ‘confer’ back into conferences (PD)
*       The latest in research in science communication
*       Science and art sessions and exhibitions
*       War on science

Website: The conference website is http://2012conf.asc.asn.au/.
Online registration is active. See http://2012conf.asc.asn.au/register/.

Jesse Shore
National President

SCREN: Science Communication Research and Education Network

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Special thanks to Sean Perera from ANU for this contribution.

SCREN is a network of science communication researchers and educators in Australia, and aims to enable members to take part in collaborative science communication research and share best practices in science communication training at tertiary institutions.

Inaugurated in June 2007 under the auspices of the Director of the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at The Australian National University in Canberra, SCREN’s current membership includes academics from thirteen Australian universities. The Network has been successful in attracting participation from The University of Auckland and the University of Otago in New Zealand.

In April 2011, a collective body of members met over two days at the SCREN Symposium in Canberra to deliberate future directions for science communication research and tertiary training, further to outcomes of the Inspiring Australia Conference (more about that later).

If you would like participate in SCREN or have any question please e-mail here.

Dr Sean Perera

Associate Researcher
Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science
The Australian National University

The ASC 2012 Conference website is live!

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Australian Science Communicators National Conference
http://2012conf.asc.asn.au/
Getting Science Where It’s Needed
February 27 to 29, 2012
Sydney Masonic Centre, Sydney

RESEARCH PAPERS

If you would like to tell us about your sci-comm research, please submit an abstract BY FRIDAY 2 DECEMBER 2011 (EXTENDED!!!). If you wish to submit an abstract for review by the research committee, you must also intend to register for the Congress. On-line submission is the only method of receipt of abstracts.

Please visit the Conference website to submit your abstracts or click here to take you to the online abstract submission form directly. Note: First timers will have to create a new account and will be sent an email with their password for subsequent visits.

SESSION PRODUCERS

Interested in organising a session at the conference? Please go the Conference website for the details and send a single page (bullet points good) to ASC2012@wsm.com.au for review by the program committee.

CONFERENCE REGISTRATION COMING SOON!!!

Please visit the Conference website for further information and regular updates; www.2012conf.asc.asn.au

Should you have any further queries, please contact the Conference Secretariat;

ASC 2012 Conference Secretariat:
WALDRONSMITH Management
Suite 49, Level 3
89 – 97 Jones Street
Ultimo NSW 2007 Australia
T + 61 2 9518 7722
F  +61 2 9518 7222
Email: ASC2012@wsm.com.au
Website: www.2012conf.asc.asn.au

Australian astronomer shares in 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics

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I’m pleased to add science communication plaudits to Australia’s latest Nobel Prize winner.

Dr Brian Schmidt, Laureate Fellow in the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Australian National University, shares in this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics. He is being recognised along with US scientists, Saul Perlmutter and Adam G. Riess, by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae.”

I have listened to one of Brian’s public lectures and I can say that as well as being a superb scientist, he is a wonderful science communicator. He presents with clarity and energy, bringing light to dark matter and dark energy.

Brian was born in the USA and has been in Australia since 1995, starting work at Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories (MSSSO) and appointed 1999 as a fellow at the ANU. I suspect the two counties will be quick to count Brian among their list of Nobel winners.

The press release of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is at http://www.kva.se/en/pressroom/Press-releases-2011/The-Nobel-Prize-in-Physics-2011/.

Jesse Shore
National President

Member Profile: Dr Maia Sauren

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Dr Maia Sauren

Victorian National Representative

As a stubborn six-year-old, Maia Sauren heard about the scariness of bees (‘your whole hand gets huge! and then they DIE!’), so she decided to find out for herself. She resolutely stalked a poor, helpless creature and poked it until it duly gave its life for science. As an adult, Maia is a little more gentle with her experimental subjects.

A few years ago, Maia heard about this amazing job description called ‘know cool things about science and find ways to tell people how incredible they are’, so she joined the ASC list and is the current Victorian National Representative.

Just last week, Maia became the rather awesome-sounding Dr. Sauren, Electrical Engineer. She’s not quite sure what to do with all her freedom now the Ph.D. is behind her, but she’s considering reverting to using the first person when referring to herself. Her thesis was on the radiation safety of mobile phones, and she thinks they’re quite safe to use now!

International Conference Energy & Meteorology (ICEM) 2011

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Dear Colleague,

I am pleased to send you an update on the provisional programme for the International Conference Energy & Meteorology (ICEM) http://www.icem2011.org) 2011. The programme can be downloaded at: http://www.icem2011.org/ICEM2011_Programme_latest.pdf

ICEM 2011 will be held from 8 – 11 November 2011 at the Surfers Paradise Marriott Resort & Spa, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia (Pre-Conference Seminar Energy & Meteorology: Fundamentals and Challenges on 7 November 2011).

New keynote speakers have been confirmed:

  • Prof. Roberto Schaeffer, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  • Mr Peter Cowling, GE Ecoimagination, Australia
  • Dr Giovanni Pirovano, Ricerca sul Sistema Energetico, Italy

The updated programme also includes details of accepted abstracts for oral presentation. There will be 4/5 parallel sessions for 90 minutes each day, many interesting topics will be covered and a wide variety of exciting presentations to listen to.

In addition, ICEM 2011 will provide a premium forum to discuss key issues such as:

  • An international framework for the exchange of information between the weather & climate community and the energy industry
  • Training the next generation of experts: Plans for an Energy & Meteorology Degree

Networking is also an important part of this busy week, with social events including the Welcome Reception, Happy Hour and Conference Dinner, in addition to an exhibition.

For more details about the provisional programme, keynote speakers’ bios, social events and/or to register, please visit http://www.icem2011.org, where you can also register online (credit card payment required).

We look forward to welcoming you to ICEM 2011 in November.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the event manager:

Aurélie Favennec
ICEM 2011 Manager
Tel: +61 2 9431 8632
Email: info@icem2011.org

Best regards
Alberto Troccoli (ICEM 2011 Convenor)

——
Dr Alberto Troccoli
Ph:   +61 (0)2 6246 5759
Email: alberto.troccoli@csiro.au