Director's Message

Dear Colleagues,

It was a great delight to see the news from Australian Materials Research Society (AMRS), announced at the ICONN 2024 meeting in Melbourne last week. The Society has instituted the annual Jim Williams lecture, in recognition of his pioneering research in semiconducting materials and for his outstanding leadership, mentorship and service to the materials research community over more than three decades, including his establishment and leadership of the Australian Materials Research Society and the Department of Electronic Materials Engineering at ANU. The citation includes his outstanding service to the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS), through his contribution to the General Assembly and in the positions of Secretary and Second Vice President. Prof Teri Odom, Northwestern University (USA) gave the inaugural Jim Williams Lecture and she was presented a plaque by the current President of AMRS, Prof Lianzhou Wang (UQ). (Photo credit: Prof Joanne Etheridge, Past-President of AMRS.) When you next see Jim please pass on your congratulations.

I’m pleased to welcome Dr. Lara Gillan (QST) and Dr. Neelima Kandula (MP) as the new co-chairs of WiPAE (Women in Physics, Astronomy and Engineering). My gratitude as always goes to Drs Noemie Bastidon (MP) and Julie Tournet (SoEng) for their amazing efforts over these past few years. Through their leadership WiPAE has grown from strength to strength.

As the year builds pace I’d like to note a few items that will need your focus at some stage.  

• The new VC will be placing serious emphasis on active Performance and Development Reviews (PDRs) at all staff levels. Please start the discussion with your supervisors early. As you will remember there is a Word document that can be used to improve the experience of the standard eForm, see here. The simplest thing by far is to just update the Word file from last year. We typically aim to have 1st May as the PDR census date but please don’t leave it until then to start a discussion about your work plans with your supervisor. 
• Please keep an eye on your WHS Training requirements. I see that many people will need to refresh some of their training in the first quarter (including me). You can see your training module summaries on the School WHS Sharepoint and the pulse modules are found here.
• This is our 75th year and I will be calling for ideas and volunteers through your Head of Department. We will be coordinating activities with JCSMR and University House, who share the same founding date in October.

I will circulate soon details by email of the research seminars to be given by the candidates in the NPAA recruitment next week.

Have a great week,
Tim

Starting from 4th March, the ANU MakerSpace at Physics North will no longer be included in the default Physics card access group. Everyone who enters this space will need to be a fully inducted MakerSpace member. This includes people who choose to transit through the space to visit the Physics North Mechanical Workshop.

If you are unsure whether your induction is current, check your induction status via our Induction Checker.

To sign up for an induction, start here.

The Statistical Support Network is available to Masters and PhD students for their research projects. Statistical support is available for design of experiments and surveys, data management, exploratory data analysis, statistical modelling and data presentation. Students and their supervisors are welcome to book an initial consultation with the SSN lead via this link. Consultations are free.

Quad Fellowship – Elevating The Brightest Minds In STEM For Collective Good

The Institute of International Education (IIE) is pleased to announce the application for the second cohort of the Quad Fellowship is now open to exceptional master's and doctoral students in science and technology who demonstrate academic excellence, exceptional results in their field, and a desire to use their talents to promote collective good. The fellowship, initiated by the Quad countries of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, and administered by IIE, sponsors exceptional master's and doctoral students to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in the United States.  

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It’s a grey area – sometimes colliding nuclei miss, sometimes they bounce and sometimes they stick for a little while, dance around each other and then go their separate ways, both somehow changed forever…

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ATSE Event - Myth Busting Renewable Energy

We are in the early stages of a whole-of-economy energy transition away from fossil fuels and towards energy from renewable sources. We are on the precipice of the largest shift in how we use energy since the industrial revolution.

Globally, over 75% of new electricity capacity is from solar and wind. In Australia, it is around 99%.

Date: Thursday 22 February 2024
Time: 12:00pm – 12:30pm AEDT (Networking and canapes) In-person
12:30pm – 2:00pm AEDT (Presentation and Q&A) In-person
Location: Level 2 Burns Centre Building, 28 National Circuit, Forrest ACT 2603 and online

Register

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2024-2025 Oxford PhD Exchange (ANU to Oxford University) – Applications Open

The Oxford PhD Exchange is a graduate candidate exchange program between Oxford University and the ANU. The exchange aims to enable excellent PhD scholars to enrich their research in an international setting. 

Applicants can apply for an exchange period of one academic year, or one or two academic terms. 

Applications closing date is 4 March 2024. Completed applications must be submitted to the Graduate Research Office (GRO) via email.

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College Hot Desking In Physics

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

EVENTS

Departmental seminars

Mr Pavel Tonkaev - 27 February
Multifunctional Metaphotonics and Metasurfaces
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Professor Joseph Talghader - 1 March
Thermodynamically-Limited Uncooled Infrared Detection Using Meta-Optics And Particle-Induced Laser Damage On Optical Materials
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From Previous Weeks...

The Ian Potter Foundation Opportunity - Environment is Open For EOI

Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Grants – Round 25 (Stage 1)

AINSE Postgraduate Research Award (PGRA) Open