UWA NEWS3 May 2010 Volume 29 Number 5

In this issue P5 A NEW STONEHENGE P6 A PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TASK P10 A SNEAKY NOISE

continued on page 2

One morning last winter, a young man lay sprawled on the pavement near the Oral Health Centre at QEII.

He heard footsteps approach him, stop, then hurry on. Then he heard a truck slow down, then drive off. Neither the pedestrian nor the driver offered him any help and Tony Phan was in too much pain to ask for it.

A few weeks later, he was luckier. He fell outside the Medical and Dental Library and was found by an oral surgeon.

“He asked me if I was OK and, for the first time since my diagnosis, I was able to say to somebody at my workplace: ‘I have Motor Neurone Disease’,” Assistant Professor Phan said.

Tony Phan (30), the bright young molecular biologist who had devoted his life to medical research, had been too afraid to tell anybody at OHCWA and the School of Dentistry that he had a debilitating and terminal disease.

“It was stupid I suppose,” he said. “But I had no idea I would get such brilliant support from my colleagues and from everybody in the University.

by Lindy Brophy

Terminal disease does not stop research

Tony Phan’s research has

featured in UWA News

twice in recent years

“MND usually affects elderly people. But I’m not an old bugger – I’m a young bugger and I want to keep working as long as I can. I have a wife and children and a mortgage to support.”

A/Professor Phan noticed, about two-and-a-half years ago, that the muscles in his biceps kept jumping. MRI scans and blood tests showed everything was normal. It was nearly 18 months later that he was finally diagnosed with MND.

He is now in a wheelchair, unable to lift his arms from his lap. He can just manage to walk about five metres with the aid of a stick. The father of two cannot feed himself or use a computer keyboard. He works with the aid of voice-activated software.

“Everybody has been so helpful,” he said. “Averil Riley, the occupational therapist from Safety and Health, has been involved with everything you see here that helps me to work: the electric wheelchair, the special computer software, the desk that I can fit my wheelchair underneath. My research assistant, Marisa de Pinho is brilliant. Our School Manager, Stephen Home, is a wonderful support; as are Head of School, Andrew Smith; before him, Paul Abbott; and Mithran Goonewardene. The School installed automatic doors so that I could get through in my wheelchair. And I’ve had terrific help from the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

“But all the support in the world doesn’t change the fact that my life expectancy is three years from diagnosis. If I’m still alive in two years, I will be completely paralysed.

“My career is no longer about getting promotions, but just keeping my mind active. I’m so glad I can still do my work. This voice-activated software enabled me to write an NHMRC grant totally on my own. I was pretty chuffed by that.”

But it doesn’t stop him from feeling frustrated and angry.

“It has challenged the way I think about God and karma,” he said. “I don’t worry about myself but I worry about my wife Verity and my children. When it gets worse for me, it will also get worse for them.”

A/Professor Phan’s daughter Kayla is nearly four, his son Michael is six months old.

Verity was already pregnant with Michael when her husband was diagnosed in March last year.

“When my son was born, I couldn’t hold him,” he said.

“I defined my role as a husband and a father in physical terms: I’m the one who fixes the taps, mows the lawn and carries the children. Now I have to see myself from a different perspective.”

He says his work is the only thing that distracts him from dwelling on his condition. He is supervising a PhD student, Danny Young, through a project to extract stem cells from teeth.

“Every day, healthy teeth are extracted (usually from a crowded mouth) and thrown away. Here, at OHCWA, there are five or six every day. We’re extracting the

cell population from them in the hope that we can purify and cultivate the cells and use them as stem cells.”

A/Professor Phan has a vision for a stem cell library for research. “There are so many healthy teeth we could use, and there isn’t the controversy associated with embryonic stem cells,” he said.

His research has been featured on the front page of UWAnews twice in the past five years: work on a potential therapy for osteoporosis that came from his PhD research; and the regeneration of dental tissue that might do away with false teeth.

That research will become his legacy.

Terminal disease does not stop research

MND usually affects elderly people. But I’m not

an old bugger – I’m a young bugger

and I want to keep working as long as I can.“

continued from page 1

“

UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 The University of Western Australia2

Evolution in action keeps internationally recognised plant scientist Stephen Powles constantly on his toes.

“When you are producing crops to feed the world, weeds are one of your constraints,” said the Director of the WA Herbicide Resistance Initiative (WAHRI) in the School of Plant Biology. “So you spray them with herbicide. Chemicals are the only feasible way of controlling weeds on the world’s biggest farms.”

But within three or four years, the unwanted plants that threaten crops in Australia and all over the world can develop a resistance to the herbicide used to control them.

“It’s evolution in action,” said Winthrop Professor Powles.

He has been working on plants’ resistance to herbicides for more than 25 years and earlier this year, he was presented with the Grains Research and Development Corporation’s Seed of Light award (western region) for his contribution to crop science research, which has made him one of the world’s most highly-cited plant scientists.

Western region Chair of the GRDC, Neil Young, said Professor Powles’ knowledge enabled farmers to live with herbicide-resistant weeds. “It’s due to the work at WAHRI that WA farming systems have been led back from the brink of a disaster, with weeds overwhelming farms,” he said.

Professor Stephen Powles (far right) on his Quairading property with the WAHRI team (from left) : Dr Martin Vila-Aiub, Dr Yu Qin, PhD students Sudheesh Manalil and Mechelle Owen, Dr Rowena Long, research assistant Ros Owen and Dr Ibrahim Abdullah

The path of least resistance

Professor Powles said he was doing postdoctoral research in Paris in 1982 when he first read about herbicide resistance.

“I thought it sounded like an interesting field,” he said. “Then, the very next day, I received a letter informing me that I’d won a Reserve Bank fellowship to come back to Australia and do whatever I wanted for a year. So I went to Adelaide and started working on resistance.”

Professor Powles came to UWA in 1998. Since then, he has acquired a farm in Quairading, where he grows wheat, barley and canola and does a few small field experiments.

He has become a favourite supervisor for Honours students in the School, and one of those friendships developed into a share-farming agreement with a student’s family.

“I got to know the student’s parents and we became good friends. They live next door to our property in Quairading and we now share farm with them,” he said.

All staff should have received a copy of the New Courses 2012 information sheets. As a follow-up, staff from Public Affairs are available to present on the New Courses 2012 marketing plan and related activities.

As more information about the majors becomes available, Public Affairs is also on hand to assist faculties and schools in developing course and discipline-specific marketing materials, particularly in the lead-up to UWA Open Day on Sunday 15 August 2010.

New Courses 2012 If you would like Public Affairs to give a presentation on the New Courses 2012 marketing activity for your section, or to meet with you and discuss your section’s own marketing activities, please contact Rachel Schmitt (email: rachel.schmitt@uwa.edu.au or phone: 6488 7241). To keep up to date with information on New Courses 2012, bookmark www.newcourses2012.uwa.edu.au.

Would you like additional copies of the New Courses 2012 leaflets? Order online at www.uniprint.uwa.edu.au.

The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 3

Alan Robson Vice-Chancellor

The discovery of another ancient stone circle near Stonehenge may help archaeologists to understand the mystery of this prehistoric site.

UWA archaeologist Associate Professor Alistair Paterson was on site with the Stonehenge Riverside Project for two weeks when Bluestonehenge was excavated a few months ago.

The project, named Britain’s 2010 Archaeological Research Project of the Year, is a seven-year mission to survey and excavate at and around the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, a collaboration between five British universities and partly funded by National Geographic.

The scope of our University’s engagement and collaboration with other universities – both at home and abroad – has been highlighted again in recent weeks.

At one end of the spectrum is our very significant collaboration with Curtin University of Technology in language studies.

As a result of this collaboration, Curtin University students wanting to study European and Asian languages not offered at their institution will be guaranteed a place in a UWA language course if they meet the course prerequisites.

We have a long-standing policy of encouraging students to take up languages other than English as part of their undergraduate studies. In fact, we offer bonus points on ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank) scores to inspire students to take up and maintain the study of languages. And in our efforts to produce more rounded and multilingual citizens of the world, our New Courses 2012 will also encourage students to take up languages.

Our collaboration with Curtin University is one of the first serious attempts in this State to reverse the downward trend in numbers of students learning foreign languages. Together, our two institutions will promote tertiary level study in Asian and European languages to ensure these language programs remain viable. We will also work together to garner government support for the continued teaching of languages in WA and, over time, we hope to expand the languages we teach.

At the other end of the spectrum is the three-nation forum hosted by our University last week. This forum brought together world-class researchers from UWA, China’s Zhejiang University and Japan’s Kobe University, along with more than 80 scientists and clinicians from around the world.

The event – the Third Australia-China-Japan Symposium – has an overarching aim to develop new health sciences and bioengineering initiatives, in particular for the ageing populations of our three

nations. It has not been held in WA before.

This trilateral collaboration was based on our strength in medical research; China’s strengths in regenerative medicine and access to clinical trials; and Japan’s strength in bioengineering. In previous meetings, the group identified objectives with the potential to improve the lives of people around the world, concentrating on the fields of orthopaedics, rehabilitation and functional foods for good health.

Our ambition to be counted among the world’s top universities means we place great value on international alliances such as this. And, while our collaboration with Curtin University is a partnership much closer to home, it is also international in flavour – with the goal of providing more young West Australians with other languages to enable them to flourish and maintain meaningful relationships in the global village.

Both these exciting initiatives can only promote international wellbeing and ensure our University’s place as an institution which helps those who join with it to achieve international excellence.

Collaborations promote excellence

Out of the blue – another Stonehenge

UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 The University of Western Australia4

The holes, arranged in a circle, are inside a huge ditch (or henge), similar to Stonehenge and other British prehistoric monuments.

“It is clear, from the material that was excavated from the filled holes, that this was not a site of domestic life. There are no food remains or ceramics, but there is a lot of charcoal.”

This has led some archaeologists to the theory that Bluestonehenge could have been a cremation site, with the ashes being buried at Stonehenge.

A/Professor Paterson said that if the Romans or later visitors had taken apart the site, they would probably have broken the stones to use them somewhere else, leaving lots of fragments.

“But there are very few fragments and this, together with the ramps that were dug next to the holes, tells us the stones were taken out whole. They were almost certainly taken to Stonehenge and integrated into a rebuilding of the larger site. The smaller standing stones at the monument are bluestones.”

Among the charcoal filling are some prehistoric deer antlers, which may have been used as pickaxes. These will be radiocarbon-dated to try to pinpoint when Bluestonehenge was built and when it was taken apart.

A/Professor Paterson also visited Stonehenge, now off limits to tourists, to record some of the markings on the ceremonial rocks.

“Some of them date from the Bronze Age, and I thought it would be interesting to record historical engravings at Stonehenge, given our current research into historical rock art in Australia in the ARC Discovery project, Picturing Change,” he said.

The Stonehenge Riverside Project was directed by Sheffield University’s Professor Michael Parker Pearson and Manchester University’s Professor Julian Thomas with colleagues from Bristol, Bournemouth and London universities.

A/Professor Paterson was in the UK developing other archaeology partnerships when the opportunity came up for him to join the team. He was also interested to work with team members from Bournemouth archaeology department on new digital recording techniques at the site.

“Bluestonehenge, named for the colour of its stones, is a much smaller site than Stonehenge, just ten metres across,” A/Professor Paterson said. “It is about 1.6 kilometres from Stonehenge, but the stones that were once standing there were quarried in Wales and transported 240 kilometres to the site.”

He said the site was discovered at the end of the avenue that joined Stonehenge with the Avon River, assisted by excavations and remote sensing.

“Archaeologists use a range of techniques, including radar, electrical and magnetic sensing to detect changes underground.

“The standing stones of Bluestonehenge are no longer there, but there are 25 enormously deep holes (now filled in) which would have been dug for the stones, that would have been about two metres tall and weighed about four tonnes each,” he said.

Fossilised deer antlers, perhaps used as digging tools, were found at Bluehenge

Standing stones were buried in these holes and ramps were dug to remove them

A/Professor Alistair Paterson at Stonehenge

Out of the blue – another Stonehenge

The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 5

A bold venture for the School of Sport Science, Exercise and Health and a new dimension for UWA Publishing has given high school students an outstanding textbook.

More than 1,000 copies of Physical Education Studies 2A-2B: A textbook for teachers and students were bought by teachers and their students in at least 200 Perth schools, even before the book hit the bookstores in January.

National award-winning teacher and pedagogy specialist Associate Professor Peter Whipp was the driving force behind the major project. He used his ALTC teaching award of $25,000 to partially fund the project, while the School contributed a similar amount.

“High school teachers of physical education were telling us that the texts they were using were inadequate,” A/Professor Whipp said. “To be fair, they were written when the framework and content for the subject were shifting.

“But we decided in March last year that we were going to construct a new text. We had terrific support from the Head of School, Winthrop Professor Bruce Elliott, and we could not have achieved our goal without UWA Publishing. Other publishers we approached said that April this year would be a realistic print deadline.

The primary goal was to meet the needs of the students and teachers and they needed to have this book before the start of the school year.

“This textbook represents far more than a regurgitation of scientific facts,” A/Professor Whipp said. “It contains significant original work and synthesis of pedagogical ideas in teaching, learning and assessment.” Co-authors in the School are W/Professor Elliott, Dr Kym Guelfi, Dr James Dimmock, Dr Brendan Lay, Dr Grant Landers and Dr Jacqueline Alderson.

A project that should have been physically impossible

A/Professor Peter Whipp put all his energy, as well as most of his prize money, into the new book

“It was a huge achievement to start with nothing in March last year, and have the book ready for the printer by Christmas Eve,” A/Professor Whipp said. “We had to work together as a team and with diligence.”

Wherever possible, the book identifies UWA research in the School, presented in simple language snapshots. Exercise Science students have been used in many of the photographs.

It has been an instant hit with high school teachers and Year 11 and 12 students. W/Professor Elliott said the project was the best means of marketing the school could undertake.

“It is as complete a teaching tool as we could create,” A/Professor Whipp said. “For me, as a pedagogue, the pleasure of constructing this book is in its teaching and learning structure.

Each chapter is colour coded, with easily identifiable background information that can also be used by students in lower classes. Every chapter begins with a text outcome that aligns with the Curriculum Council’s directions. Immediately after that is a list of the content that follows, and each chapter finishes with a key point summary and revision questions.

There are practical activities that reinforce the content, information for teachers on how to run labs and how to allocate marks. And there is a CD that covers all the content with PowerPoint slides.

A/Professor Whipp said that any money that came into the School from sale of the book would go directly to support the publication of a 3A-B textbook, currently being written, and to support School teaching and research.

“We are hoping to set up seminars on campus for teachers and students, to present each chapter, through interactive teaching, before they tackle it in the classroom. We hope to be able to present the first three chapters later this year, for students who will use the book next year.”

UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 The University of Western Australia6

There is nothing like practical experience for effective learning.

When some of the Minerals Geoscience Honours students, doing a short course at UWA, told Professor Campbell McCuaig about torrential downpours and wading through floods, he was delighted. “All good experience for geologists,” he replied.

The short course he and others from UWA’s Centre for Exploration Targeting (CET), in the School of Earth and Environment, ran after Easter complements valuable field experience. It is part of a national honours program for geoscience students from the eight Australian universities that are leaders in that field: UWA, ANU, Monash, Melbourne, Tasmania, Adelaide, Curtin and James Cook.

Nearly 80 students from these universities took part in the five-day course at CET, which aimed to bridge the gap between learning structural geology and effectively applying it to problems facing the minerals industry.

Professor McCuaig said that, a few years ago, the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) had become concerned that young graduate geologists did not have enough specific skills required to be effective in the minerals industry.

“The challenge is that our undergraduate courses are designed to teach the students geoscience to as high a level as possible for a variety of purposes, from advanced fundamental research to application across a broad

Young geologists hone their skills

BELOW: Professor Campbell McCuaig and Dr Nicolas Thebaud take a break with students Ellen Marnock and Peter Le Reux

range of societies’ needs, not just the minerals industry,” Professor McCuaig said. “The MCA approached the eight universities and we all offered a short course recognised as extremely relevant to the Minerals Industry as part of the national Minerals Geoscience Honours program, to give students practical and interactive experience in applying geoscience to problems facing the minerals industry.”

This is the third year the successful program has been running in partnership with the MCA and Minerals Tertiary Education Council. Each student chooses two of the courses and UWA’s CET has the biggest enrolments.

The course, delivered by Professor McCuaig and Dr Nicolas Thebaud, focused on marrying the understanding of structures, fluid flow, alteration and mineralisation in practical geometrical analysis of mineral systems from drill core and outcrop to the regional scale.

Peter Le Reux, from ANU, doing Honours in structural geology, said he was keen to get into exploration, so he

had chosen the UWA course and a mapping course at the University of Tasmania. Ellen Marnock, from Monash, is doing a minerals-based Honours project and chose UWA because she had heard from her friends who had done the course that it was excellent.

The Centre arranged a sundowner for the students to meet industry representatives, CET corporate members and other staff and students, to enhance their networks and employment prospects. “It is great that these students take full advantage of these courses,” said Professor McCuaig. “I impress upon them that the geoscience community is remarkably small. The technical expertise they gain on the course is paramount, but the course is also an opportunity for them to network among their peers. It gives them the chance to ask these professionals about life as a practising geoscientist.

“It was really a great night; fantastic listening to some of the exciting adventures recounted by the industry and staff, and the students and staff really enjoyed it.”

Listening to the students’ enthusiasm, it was easy to see that – torrential rainfalls aside – they were looking forward to life as minerals geoscientists.

The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 7

8

Research family stays in the neighbourhoodThe families of Western Australia – and indeed all over the world – will benefit from the work in UWA’s Centre for the Built Environment and Health.

And in keeping with the family theme, the research team at RESIDE, the Centre’s defining project, see themselves more as a family than a band of colleagues.

Over the five years of the initial RESIDE project, four co-ordinators kept the strands of research together. Three of them went on to do their PhDs in the project, with two of them submitting their theses just days before their first babies arrived. Another two project members have also completed their PhDs with the

project. All of them are still with RESIDE II, with Claire Ruxton returning from the Health Department after two years there to manage the new project.

How much people’s health and wellbeing is dictated by the design of their neighbourhoods is the focus of the RESIDE studies.

CBEH director, Winthrop Professor Billie Giles-Corti, scored major Healthway and ARC grants in 2003 of more than $1 million for the first five year RESIDE project. That longitudinal study has recently been kept afloat with another injection of just over a million dollars: $750,000 from Healthway for RESIDE II in collaboration with the Department of Planning, and $328,000 for the Life Course project in partnership with the State Health Department.

And the RESIDE ‘family’, most of them early career researchers (four of them employed on a NHMRC capacity-building grant) and many with babies and young children, now has the opportunity to translate their research and communicate some results.

Originally, 1,800 participants agreed for their lives to be monitored as they built homes in new areas and moved into them. After several years, there are still 1,200 people in the study.

“RESIDE II gives us more time to see changes among our participants,” said Dr Hayley Christian. “They were building their new homes during the housing boom, which meant a lot of delays, with shortages in both bricks and labour. So it took a long time for some of our participants to move into their new areas, and even longer for

Originally, 1,800 participants agreed for their lives to be monitored as they built homes in new areas and moved into them. After several years, there are still 1,200 people in the study.

Early career researchers including Dr Hayley Christian and Dr Sarah Foster are a big part of the RESIDE ‘family’

UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 The University of Western Australia8

Research family stays in the neighbourhoodfacilities, such as shops, schools, parks and playgrounds to be established.”

The study has families, couples and single people living in 74 different new housing estates around Perth. “They are not all the stereotypical young couples building their first homes,” said Dr Sarah Foster. “We have lots of young families but also people in their 60s.”

RESIDE II will focus on the effects of community design on health and wellbeing, this time also looking at mental health and sedentary behaviour.

Professor Giles-Corti said one of the great features of the RESIDE project was the building of a Geographic Information Systems platform. Built by Nick Middleton and Bridget Beesley, in collaboration with School of Earth and

Environment GIS academics, Dr Kimberly van Niel and Dr Bryan Boruff, the platform enables the team to create measures of the built environment for this and a range of other projects.

“We’ve used it, for example, to do a ‘walkability’ study of areas,” Dr Foster said. “We can use the GIS to identify well-connected streets, access to shops and facilities and housing densities, without actually having to pound the pavements.”

But there has still been a need to get out there in the suburbs. Dr Christian said she had audited more than 1,500 parks in Perth, assessing them for proximity to housing and attractiveness for recreational walking.

“Getting out there means we get to see the graffiti, the litter, the vandalism that is deterring people from using the park,” Dr Foster said. “Or the attractive features that encourage people,” Dr Christian said.

The Centre is collaborating with the State Health Department on a new project, The Built Environment Across the Life Course, involving a cohort of about 19,000 people who completed a health and wellbeing survey in 2003. The Centre’s GIS data will be linked to these people to examine how the built environment is influencing their health and health behaviour.

RESIDE has attracted a lot of interest nationally and internationally. Four visiting scholars, from the Pennington Medical Research Institute (USA), the University of Graz (Austria), the Auckland University of Technology, and University of Queensland have written papers on RESIDE research.

And a current PhD student with the project, Paula Hooper, won an Endeavour Award from the UK so she could travel to Australia specifically to work on RESIDE.

The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 9

Anybody roaming round St George’s College at lunchtime on Wednesdays will be transported back to medieval times with the beautiful music of Sneak’s Noise.

A small group of UWA colleagues has been meeting to sing early music – unaccompanied motets, madrigals and part-songs – since 1993. They practise in the St George’s College chapel, which provides not only great acoustics but the perfect ambience for music that was mostly written between the 15th and 17th centuries.

“We sing mainly for our own pleasure,” said group leader Jane Emberson. Dr Emberson retired late last year from her position in the Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences but her background was in the humanities, with a PhD in German medieval literature.

Other group members include Professor Andrew Lynch and Dr Anne Scott, from English and Cultural Studies, Professor Philippa Maddern (History), Dr Judith Maitland and Michael Champion (Classics and Ancient History), Sarah

Sneak into the courtyard and listen to this …

Jane Emberson, Andrew Lynch, Robert Powell, Michael Champion, Philippa Maddern, Judith Maitland and Anne Scott

Dagmar Simkova was an innocent young woman who was incarcerated in eastern Europe during the 1950s.

The daughter of a banker, she and her mother were considered bourgeois (even though her father’s business helped struggling artists) and she was imprisoned for 15 years.

After their release in the late 1960s, Dagmar and her mother moved to

Gador-Whyte (St George’s College) and Dr Emberson’s husband, Robert Powell.

Singing has been a long-term interest for all of them. Professor Lynch and Dr Emberson both sing in the WA Symphony Orchestra Chorus; Professor Maddern used to sing in a semi-professional medieval music group in Melbourne; and Dr Maitland is a member of the Perth Undergraduate Choral Society.

But they all laugh at the idea that any serious students of music would join them. “We’re just an informal group of amateurs who love to sing together,” Dr Emberson said.

Their name, Sneak’s Noise, comes from Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part 2, from a scene in which the local band of that name is fetched to play at the Boar’s Head Tavern.

They perform at occasional conferences and functions for the Perth Medieval and Renaissance Group. “We’re really an off-shoot of PMRG, I suppose,” said Dr Scott. They have taken part in medieval festivals, performed on Perth

Do you remember Dagmar … ?Australia and Dagmar studied for a Bachelor of Social Work at UWA in the early 1970s.

She worked as a social worker in prisons and studied art. While creating enamel works for 50 exhibitions, she also founded a movement against oppression, learnt to do stunt work for films and wrote a book, We Were There Too, about her life and the lives of other imprisoned women.

Dagmar died of cancer in 1995.

Earlier this year, an exhibition to celebrate her extraordinary life was held in the Czech Republic and CZTV produced a documentary about her.

The exhibition is coming to Perth this year, to begin an Australian tour, and the organisers would like to hear from anyone who knew Dagmar, so their memories can be incorporated into the show.

If you can help, please contact her nephew, Patrick Murphy on 0408 686 056 or at pjdjmurphy1@bigpond.com

television in 1998 as part of an ABC Lateline program about the history of the English language, and have even added a musical dimension to Professor Chris Wortham’s first-year English lectures.

“We sing both secular and sacred music, in anything from three to six parts, and in seven languages, including Latin,” Dr Emberson said.

Professor Maddern said her sister had taught her to sing parts when she was just three years old. “Music is one of those areas in which, although you have a different profession, you can have a life-long engagement,” she said.

New members are welcome. You need to be able to read music (it helps if you can sight-read), hold a part unaccompanied, and have a voice that blends in with others.

“If we can get a few more members, we could have a go at eight-part harmonies,” said Dr Maitland.

Anybody interested can call Jane Emberson on 9245 2411 or email her at jane.emberson@graduate.uwa.edu.au

UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 The University of Western Australia10

A record number of 40 Indigenous students enrolled in degree programs at UWA this year.

For more than 25 years, the School of Indigenous Studies (SIS) has been hosting an annual Year 12 camp for students from all over the state who have aspirations to go to university. “We’re really seeing the benefits of these camps and our other outreach programs,” said Brendon de Gois, Student Services Officer at SIS.

“We now have about 160 Indigenous students here, including 20 postgrads and about 30 in the bridging course,” he said.

Four of the 40 students who attended the camp last month have siblings studying at UWA.

Federal funding for the annual camp was not available this year, so instead of students spending a whole week in Perth and visiting all universities, they spent three days at UWA, with the help of UWA Aspire and Follow the Dream funding.

(Follow the Dream is a program run for Indigenous students in government high schools.)

The students took part in team building and self esteem workshops before visiting the faculties of Law; Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts; and Engineering, Computing and Mathematics; the Business School and the School of Psychology.

Indigenous enrolments increasing

Adem Kerimofski helps Sheridan Jaffrey and Dallas Hill (from St Mary’s, Broome) to make digital films in the Arts Multimedia centre

School girls from Halls Creek have some new PAALS in Perth, thanks to a program at St Catherine’s College.

Partnering Aussie to Aussie for Leadership and Service (PAALS) creates positive interaction between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, cultivating cultural awareness, leadership development and service learning.

Head of College, Fiona Crowe, set the program in motion six years ago, sitting down with Indigenous women in the Kimberley, and gaining their trust before setting up a program.

“It’s not so much about girls who might want to come to university,” Ms Crowe said. “It’s more about women in the community. They are the capacity builders in any community and we want to help them with the skills to do that.” PAALS is in partnership with the government’s Better Life project in Halls Creek, with funding and support from Rotary International, UWA and the Halls Creek District High School.

Charlee Doom, a Rotary exchange student from Kentucky, ran the PAALS program this year. She has been at St Catherine’s while completing her MBA.

“I had been planning to go to Kenya, after putting a lot of energy into the One-Acre Fund, which helps families who make a living on an acre or less of land,” Charlee said. “When the political situation meant I couldn’t go there and I came to UWA instead, I was delighted to run this program for families who are in similar circumstances.”

St Catherine’s students have taken some girls from Mt Lawley Senior High School up to Halls Creek to meet the local students and engage with their community. The girls from Halls Creek (aged from 12 to 15) spent a week at St Catherine’s last month.

“UWA students and academics have been helping the Halls Creek girls to see what opportunities might be available to them by showing how an interest in something such as music or sport can lead to study and or a career,” Ms Crowe said.

“But it’s not a one-sided program. Our students, especially our international students, learn so much about Indigenous culture from this program. We have two residents, studying teaching and podiatry, who have both decided, since visiting Halls Creek, that they would like to work in similar remote areas.”

Partner program for girls

The students create a ‘human table : a hilarious trust-building exercise

The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 11

The Jessup International Law Mooting Competition – at which UWA excels – is so much more than just a student competition.

Two of the volunteer coaches, UWA Law School graduates Ben Gauntlett (pictured above left) and Jeremy Sher (right), are handing on their roles this year and they talked about the life-changing experience that Jessup provides.

Ben, who teaches regularly at the Law School, was part of the 2002 Jessup team which came second in the world. He said being in the competition changed his perspectives and convinced him to apply for overseas scholarships.

The following year, he became WA’s 2003 Rhodes Scholar, going to Oxford to do his DPhil, which he followed with a Masters at New York University, as a Hauser Scholar. “I wouldn’t have considered these paths if it hadn’t been for Jessup,” he said. “It changes your ideas about what’s important.”

Jeremy said the Jessup competition marked the time when he “started having fun” with his Law studies. His team made it to the final rounds of the Australian competition and, despite not

Graduates’ pro bono work for Law students

Ben Gauntlett and Jeremy Sher both have offices in QVI in the CBD

taking part in the international finals in Washington, he said it triggered a desire to take his studies further afield. After graduating, he went to the London School of Economics.

“West Australians are very hard on ourselves,” he said. “We don’t realise how good we are and how good our Law School is.”

But Perth’s isolation makes participation in Jessup very important. “We should do more of it,” said Ben. “There are lots of other international law competitions and they help the students to realise where they can go, what they can do.”

The retiring coaches agreed that the success of the Jessup teams depended on the five student members, rather than the coaches. “This year’s team was exceptional,” Ben said. “But there were also a lot of fantastic students who didn’t make the team. It was really awful having to knock them back.”

It is as significant an experience for the coaches as it is for the students. “There have been a lot of volunteers over the years and it’s important that even more get involved. It’s a good example to set for the rest of the law profession,” Ben said.

“It’s very valuable for new people to come in and pass on their knowledge,” Jeremy said. He arranged for this year’s team to meet representatives of international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Washington DC. “It was organised through a UWA graduate who worked for the firm in Paris,” he said. “These are brilliant opportunities for the students.” The team also met Kim Beazley, the Australian Ambassador to the United States, and were taken on a tour of the United Nations by the Australian Deputy Chief of Mission.

Jeremy said that every former Jessup Mooter would likely agree with him that it was one of the most important academic experiences they had at UWA. “And it continues after graduation. There are a lot of lawyers not living in Perth any more who may not take an interest in other School activities, but they all follow the Jessup Moot.”

Jeremy now works for Allens Arthur Robinson and Ben for Freehills.

“Our firms are very supportive of our voluntary work with Jessup, but after two summers, it’s time to hand over to somebody else,” Ben said.

UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 The University of Western Australia12

Three UWA designers have produced a vision for Perth – without touching the foreshore.

Architect Rene Van Meeuwen and sculptor and lecturer Jon Tarry, from the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, and architecture graduate Beth George have imagined a future for Perth by studying its past.

Their project was short-listed for the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale later this year.

A bid to take Perth

Rene Van Meeuwen, Beth George and Jon Tarry projected their ideas onto the city

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An Indian delegation visiting the Vice-Chancellor recently were greeted by a decorative reminder of home.

A rangoli, a floor design made from coloured powders, for special occasions in India, was created in the entrance to the Vice-Chancellery.

A PhD student in electrical engineering, Sushame, spent about half an hour producing the design with bright orange and blue powders. “In India we use marble powder but you can’t get it here,” said Sushame, who is from Mumbai and has been studying at UWA for two years.

India’s Minister for Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal, and his delegation were delighted with the greeting.

Traditional welcome

Described as Darwinist designers, the trio projected an image of Perth in a presentation called Speciation City.

“Speciation is the biological process by which one species splits into two or more species,” explained Mr Tarry. “Our vision is about evolution; a chance for us to respond to what other people have done here and re-imagine the site.”

The storyboard the group submitted for the Biennale describes Langley Park as Perth’s doormat. Heirrison Island is

likened to New York’s Ellis Island, where immigrants to the US were processed.

“The city of Perth is a junction for the state, a place where things cross over, overlap,” he said. “We wanted to talk about the place, what’s the most truthful thing we can do and not to deny the past or be too high art about it.”

Beth George’s PhD thesis was the catalyst for the project.

“It’s a very peculiar city that we live in and it’s got some traits that some people see as drawbacks but we see as having tremendous potential,” she said. “It’s about engaging with what we do have rather than talking about what we don’t have and imposing something new.”

Beth speculated that the Perth foreshore might be better left as is and recognised for its value as a revolving ideas space.

“Through Perth’s history, we have had numerous visions and proposals for what we see as being a big gap in the city and things are constantly proposed and never get up.

“The interesting thing about the foreshore is that it’s become a tremendous generator of ideas. Maybe that’s what it’s best for.”

The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 13

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A student from the School of Environmental Systems Engineering has won a national water prize.

It is the second successive year that a SESE student has won the State water award and gone on to represent UWA in the national competition.

Samuel Cleary, whose final year thesis was supervised by Winthrop Professor Keith Smettem and Dr Mohammed Bari from the Bureau of Meteorology, was awarded the Australian Water Association’s Student National Water Prize for his work on reducing salinity. His research also earned him first class honours.

He made a presentation at the Ozwater 10 conference in Brisbane from his thesis, Targeting strategic tree and perennial plantings to reduce stream salinity in the Warren River Catchment.

Samuel’s research was supported by the Centre of Excellence in Ecohydrology. Professor Smettem, who is director of the centre, also supervised last year’s State winner, Ali Barrett-Lennard, who went on to become national runner-up.

“It is an excellent indication that the Centre and its students are producing outstanding quality project work,” Professor Smettem said.

Samuel is now doing postgraduate work at the International Water Centre at the University of Queensland.

WA’s water winner

Samuel Cleary receives his prize from AWA President Peter Robinson

In the middle of UWA’s Cultural Precinct is the little-known Gallery 1.56.

“Well that’s what we like to call our office!” said Research Grants Officer Liz Davey. She shares an office, room 1.56, with another RGO, Olivia Langensiepen, and administrative assistant Karen Dalby, and it is decorated with Liz and Olivia’s works of art.

The two friends and colleagues moved into a newly-renovated office last year and wanted to brighten up the empty pale walls.

“We have a drink together every Friday after work and we started talking about what to put up on the walls and decided we would create something ourselves,” said Liz, who remembers when the Research Grants Office had Sidney Nolan originals hanging in the corridor.

“There are no paintings around any more and we needed some colour,” she said. “But under no circumstances do we call ourselves artists!”

Their first project was a triptych of brightly coloured tortoises, the design based on ancient turtle dishes found in Egypt.

“I like three-dimensional art,” said Olivia. “So our next project was a compromise – a mosaic, that took us eight months to complete.”

The picture features two doves drinking at a bird bath and is framed in gold tiles. It is based on a medieval design. “I just love seeing it every time I walk into the room,” she said.

Christine Casey, Associate Director, Research Grants and Finance, presented Olivia and Liz with the inaugural Archibald Research Grants Office Prize at an official unveiling at a morning tea. “Despite the pressure of working in a very busy office, we still find time to have fun,” she said.

Now the friends are planning what to put on the walls in their colleagues’ offices.

The art of research

Liz Davey and Olivia Langensiepen have brightened their workplace with their own creations

UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 The University of Western Australia14

UWA NEWS classified

NOTICESFREE 2010 MEDICAL RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES LUNG INSTITUTE OF WALIWA has collaborated with leading health experts to produce another program featuring world-class biomedical research that is directly or indirectly related to lung health.Some program highlights:

Monday May 24Professor Ralph Martins Alzheimer’s DiseaseMonday Sept 20Professor Ted Wilkes Aboriginal health

Sponsored by AstraZeneca, the free seminar series is at the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research located on the ground floor of Block B. Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.More information regarding the schedule is at www.liwa.uwa.edu.au

RESEARCH GRANTS AND CONTRACTS

Grants awarded 5–16 April 2010.

CSIRO MARINE AND ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH EX FRDCDr Alan Williams, Doctor Ross Daley, Doctor Ian Knuckey, Dr Euan Harvey, School of Plant Biology, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research: ‘Mapping the Movement and Distribution of Gulper Sharks’ – $71,000 (2009-10)

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE AUSTRALIA CHINA COUNCILAssociate Professor Guijun Yan, School of Plant Biology: ‘Climate Change Ready Wheat Cultivars for China and Australia’ – $26,920 (2010)

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE AUSTRALIA JAPAN FOUNDATIONWinthrop Professor Rodney Tyers, Professor Jenny Corbett, UWA Business School: ‘Japans Economic Performance Determinants and the Implications for Australia’ – $38,155 (2010)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE FUNDWinthrop Professor Jonathan Emery, School of Primary, Aboriginal and Rural Health Care – $10,696 (2010)

OCEANICA CONSULTING PTY LTD EX COCKBURN CEMENT PTY LTDMiss Renae Hovey, Professor Gary Kendrick, School of Plant Biology: ‘Seagrass Monitoring in Owen Anchorage Mooring Scars’ – $31,094 (2010)

UWA RESEARCH COLLABORATION AWARDSAssistant Professor Laichang Zhang, Professor Tim Sercombe, School of Mechanical Engineering, Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research: ‘Development Of Low Modulus Beta Type Titanium Implant Scaffolds By Selective Laser Melting’ – $10,000 (2010)Associate Professor Klaus Gessner, Dr Nicolas Thebaud, Dr Virginia Toy, Associate

Professor Uwe Ring, School of Earth and Environment, University of Otago, University of Canterbury: ‘The Active Alpine Fault Zone as an Analogy for Fluid Dynamics in Archaean Mineral Systems’ – $7,500 (2010)Dr Geoffrey Emery, School of Primary, Aboriginal and Rural Health Care, University of Oxford, University of Bristol, University of Cambridge, University of Durham: ‘Improving The Diagnosis and Management Of Cancer In Primary Care’ – $5,000 (2010)Professor David Denemark, Professor Murray Print, School of Social and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney, University of Sheffield, University of Wisconsin: ‘Democratic Participation in a Globalized World’ – $12,500 (2010)Professor Bu Yeap, Professor David Handelsman, Winthrop Professor Leon Flicker, Professor Robert Cumming, Winthrop Professor Osvaldo Almeida, School of Medicine and Pharmacology, School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Sydney: ‘Hormonal Predictors Of Ill Health In Ageing Men The Health In Men Study and Concord Health and Ageing In Men Project’ – $3,000 (2010)Associate Professor Gillian Yeo, Dr Andrew Neal, Assistant Professor Aaron Schmidt, UWA Business School, University of Queensland, University of Minnesota, Cornell University: ‘Establishing A National and International Collaborative Research Network For Studying The Effects Of Motivation Emotion and Cognition On Learning and Performance’ – $8,000 (2010)Professor Luis Filgueira, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Queensland: ‘Lead Pb Poisoning Of The Brain - Cellular Mechanisms and In Vivo MRI Imaging Of The Mouse Brain RCA’ – $10,000 (2010)Associate Professor Mark Edele, Winthrop Professor Richard Bosworth, School of Humanities, University College Dublin: ‘Demobilisation after The Two World Wars - Global Perspectives’ – $10,000 (2010)Associate Professor Daniel Franklin, Emeritus Professor Charles Oxnard, Centre for Forensic Science, University of York: ‘Geometric Morphometric and Ginite Element Analyses in Biology and Forensic Science - Next Step’ – $5,000 (2010)Associate Professor Defeng Huang, Dr Qinghua Guo, School of Electrical, Electronic, and Computer Engineering, University of Sydney, Zhejiang University, University of York: ‘Extending The Lifetime Of Underwater Sensor Networks Through Cognitive Acoustics’ – $5,000 (2010)Professor Stephen Wilton, Professor Susan Fletcher, Professor Arthur Burghes, Dr Chalermchai Mitrpant, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences: ‘Antisense Oligomer Induced Splice Switching Therapy In A Mouse Model Of Spinal Muscular Atrophy’ – $9,000 (2010)Professor Peter Davies, Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management, University of Leeds: ‘Climate Change - Global

Partnerships for Better Understanding Adaptation Of Freshwater Ecosystems’ – $9,000 (2010)Associate Professor Sharon Mascher, Law School, University of Bristol: ‘Climate Change and Global Public Health Law Workshop’ – $2,000 (2010)Dr Janina Tirnitz‑Parker, Winthrop Professor John Olynyk, School of Medicine and Pharmacology, University of Queensland: ‘Cross Talk of Liver Progenitor Cells and Hepatic Stellate Cells during Chronic Liver Injury and Regeneration’ – $5,000 (2010)

STAFF ADS

Classified advertising is free to staff. Email: staffads@uwa.edu.au

HOME EXCHANGEHOUSE SWAP/OXFORD UK: Academic couple are seeking a house swap or rental in the Perth/Fremantle region for a 6 week period from late Oct-Dec 10. We are nonsmokers willing to look after pets and plants. Our house in Oxford has one double and one single bedroom, two bathrooms, and is 10 minutes walk from town centre. Car swap also possible. References and further details available on request. For more information, email: dorothy.bishop@psy.ox.ac.uk

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HOUSESITTINGACADEMIC COUPLE on sabbatical at UWA seeks housing near the university for September 2010 - March 2011. Quiet, responsible, happy to care for plants, pets, and house, or willing to rent. Please contact: marlene.zuk@ucr.edu, or for a local contact pgarcia@cyllene.uwa.edu.auLARGE HOUSE IN SORRENTO available for house sitting by a visiting academic between 20 July and 20 December 2010. Location: 15 minutes walk from the Hillary’s Boat Harbour, opposite park. Fully furnished, double storey house. Contact: KSMILLER@ntu.edu.sg

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The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 15

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EDITOR/WRITER: Lindy Brophy, Public Affairs Tel: 6488 2436 Fax: 6488 1020 Email: lindy.brophy@uwa.edu.au

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UWA NEWS

In 1996 the lonely Deputy Vice-Chancellor (we had only one in those primitive times) asked me when I proposed to retire.

The Government of Western Australia had recently passed legislation outlawing discrimination in many areas, including age; and it was rumoured that the managers of the university were worried in case older academic staff (many of them receiving salaries at the top of the range) would continue to occupy their positions beyond the normal retirement age.

It was suggested that estimates of the costs of installing grab rails and panic buttons in the offices of senior academics, and providing them with Zimmer frames, were being prepared (unnecessarily, since most of us have chosen to retire at 65 or before, as in the past).

I cheerfully told him that provided that my health remained good, the thing that would make me retire would be the birth of grandchildren, and on that note the conversation came to an end (grandchildren started to arrive in 2005, but by then their parents were living in the eastern states, so my plan to be involved with them had to be modified).

I also told him that I intended to fade away in the manner of the Cheshire Cat, and this is what is happening.

In 1998 I reduced my appointment from full time to 0.3, with superannuation maintained at the full rate. Funding had been devolved to Departments (an unsuccessful experiment which caused some pain, and was soon abandoned), and I was making my own Department, which was in the undesirable position of having a number of senior staff, a smaller target. I was able to reduce my salary to this extent because I no longer had a mortgage to pay off, and had received a small inheritance a few years before, which was providing me with an investment income.

That was my own position, and there will be other academics who might consider doing the same thing, but for other reasons. After all, few people over 60 have as much energy as they had earlier, even if the added guile that age brings has

partly compensated for this decrease. Some of us would like more time for research or other enjoyable activities. And recent legislation has made it possible for anyone over 55 to start a tax-free fractional pension from superannuation while moving to part time employment, and thus maintain approximately the same spendable income.

One point, however, needs to be made: an academic who has a fractional appointment should be expected to give the employer more than the fraction. Much of the cost of maintaining a part-time employee is the same as the cost of employing a full time employee - telephone, office space, the cost of making fortnightly salary payments, and so on. And a full time employee who moves to a fractional appointment would expect the employer to maintain superannuation contributions at the full rate, as has happened in my case. I would suggest that someone who is on a 30 per cent appointment might be expected to perform at up to 50 per cent of a full workload, and someone who is on a 60 per cent appointment should be expected to perform at 70 per cent.

This needs to be negotiated with one’s colleagues, and in some cases it might seem that a move to a part time appointment would create difficulties with regard to teaching or supervision. But well matured staff might consider it an option worth exploring.

Just fading away …

Professor John Melville‑JonesClassics and Ancient History

John Melville-Jones has chosen to represent himself with this image of the Cheshire Cat from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, which once faded away until nothing was left but his grin.

UWA NEWS 3 May 2010 The University of Western Australia16