The Australian National University

Event Horizon

Research School of Physics

 

Weekly newsletter | vol 46 no 27 | 12–16 July 2021

 

Director's Message

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome back. I see many are coming back from holidays, I hope you all had a good break. 

In last week’s Event Horizon I congratulated the authors on their recent article in Advanced Photonics. This has been a very popular story indeed. The media impact statistics just coming back show the story reached an audience of close to 4 million people, and consequently piqued the interest of some tech companies. If you have research you’re proud of please contact Phil Dooley, our resident science communications expert.

Within the new building some of the internal glass doors and windows will sport a decal, a narrow strip of translucent film that adheres to the glass in offices to denote the presence of glass and the location of the door. The presence of the strip is a WHS requirement and we have a chance to personalise the decal. To help guide the architects I recently asked a few colleagues for their most significant scientific symbols, including universal constants, commonly used variable or function symbols. The idea is to uniquely colour code each symbol using the Quantum Random Number Generator from Professor Lam’s group and to print a dense, random, and translucent array of the symbols along the strip. The colour palette will be chosen to suit the building scheme. This week’s pic shows just a few of the significant symbols offered and I’ve included a list of those I have at present. If you would like to contribute please send me a TeX version with a short description.

For those away last week, I draw your attention to two School-wide emails send on Thursday 8th. The first was about the time capsule project (1:15pm), the second an updated change schedule (1:30pm). 

Hope the week goes well,
Tim

 

Call for Expressions of Interest in the New Associate Dean (Engagement) Role

The College of Science (CoS) is seeking expressions of interest from internal candidates for a new role, Associate Dean (Engagement), who will support the Dean and Research School Directors in building capability in translational research and increasing success in gaining funding from category 2 – 4 sources (see here, from the Griffith University site, for an explanation of the different research income categories).  The role will also lead the College’s activities related to the University’s goals in the ARC’s Engagement & Impact Assessment exercise.

» read more

 

Record-breaking Ultralow-threshold Nanolaser

The team from Nonlinear Physics Center with collaborators from the University of Korea realized a novel concept of merged optical bound states in the continuum (BICs) and demonstrated highly efficient, ultralow-threshold nanolaser with reduced out-of-plane losses and remarkably improved lasing characteristics (the so-called super-BIC laser). The results have been published in Nature Communications (Impact Factor=14.419).

» read more

 

ARC Assessment Process and Medical Eligibility Seminar

Dr Robert Mun, Executive Director, Engineering and Information Sciences from the ARC will be discussing details of the ARC assessment process, and how it has been modified for COVID-19 restrictions, plus some detail on the medical eligibility clause.

This session will be held on Wednesday, 14 July 2021 from 12.00 – 1.30PM via Zoom.

Please RSVP to preaward.rsd@anu.edu.au by 9AM on 14 July to receive an invite.

 

  1. SAAFE Research Internship Program – applications are open (applications close 15 September 2021)
  2. AINSE 2021 Early Career Researcher Grants (ECRG) – applications are open (applications close 31 July 2021)

» read more

 

3MT: Three Minute Thesis (College final)

The College of Science and College of Health and Medicine are hosting a 3MT Final on Tuesday 20 July from 1pm-3pm.

The event will be held in the China in World Auditorium and will be followed by afternoon tea in the atrium.

» read more

 

Westpac Research Fellowship

The Westpac Research Fellowship is an exceptional opportunity for the very best early-career researchers to apply for one of Australia’s most prestigious Fellowships, valued at over $400,000 over 3 years. Applications are now open, and close Wednesday 25 August 2021.

Please contact the RM team if you intend to apply for this opportunity at your earliest convenience.

 

Opportunity for PhD and Early Career scientists: Global Young Scientists Summit (GYSS)

The ANU has been invited to participate in the milestone 10th anniversary edition of the prestigious Global Young Scientists Summit (GYSS) 2022 to be held online from 18 to 21 January 2022.

» read more

 

 

 

Oliphant Tea Room

The Oliphant tea room is open with tea bags & black coffee* only.

Please remember to bring your own cup & spoon.

*coffee grounds for garden use are available

 

STAFF MOVEMENTS

Patrick Kluth will be away 12/7/21-16/7/21. Vanessa Robins will be acting Associate Director HDR during this time.

 

Need to Schedule a Meeting with the Director?

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

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

Tim will reply to any meeting requests ASAP

 

Building and Room Security Access

Please note that the school now has a general access restriction of 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday.  

If you need to complete a new after-hours risk assessment, please see the new top section here: https://physics.anu.edu.au/intra/whs/

 

EVENTS

 

School Colloquium - 23 July

Photonic chips harnessing thin film lithium niobate - Professor Arnan Mitchell

» read more

 

Know your administrators...

L-R: Belinda Barbour, Sonia Padrun, Petra Rickman, Nikki Azzopardi, & Julie Arnold

 

Know your School team...

Sue Berkeley -
Finance Team Leader

Goran Radovanovic -
Stores Services  

Hannah Phan - Purchasing/Finance Services 

Patrick Romero - Stores/Purchasing Services 

purchasing.physics@anu.edu.au

 

Know your student admin...

Liudmila (Luda) Mangos -
Higher Degree Research admin
C3.02C, Cockcroft bldg (Mon-Fri 9.30-5pm) hdr.physics@anu.edu.au

Siobhan Ryman -
Physics Education Centre admin and HDR
1.05, Bldg 38A (Mon-Tues 8.30-4pm) ; C3.02C, Cockcroft bldg (Wed-Fri 8.30-4pm) pec.physics@anu.edu.au

 

OFF CAMPUS FLU VACCINATIONS
The University is committed to supporting our staff to maintain their health and wellbeing during the upcoming influenza season and for this reason is ensuring that FREE flu vaccinations for staff are available again this year.

» read more

 

Registration and Abstract submission is now open for the 14th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves (Amaldi14).

If you have any questions please email info@ozgrav.org.

 

From Previous Weeks...

National Graduate Innovation Forum (NGIF)

Exploring Learning and Teaching (ELT)

Workshop for Physics HDR Students - “Raising Your Research Profile”

 

Physics @ ANU

 

 


The Australian National University, Canberra | CRICOS Provider : 00120C | ABN : 52 234 063 906


If you do not wish to receive future emails from us, please unsubscribe.