What's On at UWA

The UWA Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management (CENRM) has now been in operation in Albany for 10 years. During this time, a range of regional, national and international projects have been completed raising the profile of CENRM and Albany as a destination of quality research directed at solving, not just studying, environmental issues. Professor Davies will highlight CENRM research, talk about constraints of running a regional research centre and discuss future plans including the new Albany Sciences Building, the appointment of a Chair in Biodiversity (Professor Steve Hopper) how the Centre plans to further engage the community in our research programs. Professor Peter Davies is Foundation Director of the Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management at The University of Western Australia based in Albany. He currently leads a team primarily focussed on ecological health of rivers and streams, and particularly how to restore degraded landscapes in areas of intensive land use and escalating climate change. He is currently working in a range of regions including temperate and tropical Australia, island nations of the Pacific, India and western Africa. His interests also include training future water managers and how to deliver knowledge to ensure uptake by the community.

The loss of a life through suicide is the most feared and tragic outcome from mental ill-health. It’s also an outcome which is preventable, and we all need to know how. headspace Great Southern Manager Andrew Wenzel will speak about the need for more open discussion about suicide at a community level, as well as look at the understandable fear about talking to someone at risk of suicide. Andrew Wenzel is the Manager of headspace Great Southern , a local not-for-profit youth mental health and support service. He graduated in Medicine and worked for 10 years in state Mental Health Systems, before a fascination for people’s stories led him to a career change to Broadcasting, and a shift to Albany. A synthesis of these two career paths led him to his current position. He is passionate about mental health awareness and youth health.

Adjunct Professor Andrew Turk will facilitate a discussion on the topic 'Seeking Adventure'. Questions will include: Why do we seek challenges and dangerous thrills? Is it bad, or is it good for us? Do we always need to seek out adventure or does it sometimes find us? Philosophy of extreme sports; The notion of the sublime.

Increased consumption of resources is leading to a proliferation of global environmental problems that cast doubts on the capacity of the biosphere to continue to support our well-being in the context of a growing population. Ecologists and environmental scientists are busy documenting the deterioration of land and oceans. Yet alerting society to the risks and challenges ahead has proven ineffective to curve present trends, suggesting that a different dialogue is required to engage society in acting to ensure the best possible future for humanity.

A fresh view of the research we do reveals ample opportunities to deliver solutions to these challenges. The ocean represents a largely untapped reservoir of resources and opportunities, which offer a huge potential for innovation. Realizing these opportunities into specific outcomes requires a broad interdisciplinary approach and sufficient critical mass to take the extra step from excellence in research and technology to delivering ocean-based solutions.

Professor Carlos Duarte was appointed Director of UWA’s Oceans Institute in March 2011. He is currently leading the Malaspina 2010 Expedition, a Spanish circumnavigation expedition that is sailing the world’s oceans to examine the impacts of global change on ocean ecosystems and explore their biodiversity.

Peter le Breton is in love with excellence. He will share why pursuing excellence or expertise or mastery in virtually any field of endeavour can be blissful and deeply fulfilling. Even being an expert bank robber can be delicious—just ask Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Peter will explain why most people settle for mediocrity, for surviving instead of thriving, and why many of us are less happy and successful than we can be. Peter has pursued excellence in many areas of life, including family, business, sport and scholarship. He is happily married and has normally dysfunctional teenagers. He was Managing Director of Perth’s Down to Earth Bookshop for 15 years, became an Ironman triathlete at age 61, and is completing his PhD in this his 69th year.

Commissioned by Perth Festival in 2006, the canvas remains of the most significant collaborative arts projects of recent times and represents a powerful image of the unity of the Noongar nation. The canvas will be hung in the Albany Entertainment Centre for the opening of the 2013 Great Southern Festival beginning February 8th. Join Noongar elders and artists on a journey that reveals the genesis of the project and the realisation of the design and symbolism that reflect deeply on Noongar culture. Entry $5.

Have you travelled to a developing country and been confronted with the obvious challenges faced by local communities trying to best manage the health & welfare of their people, and realised how fortunate you are living in a western society?

Since the 1970s, motivated by his family connection with India, medical knowledge in skin care and recognition of the significant divide between health care programmes in western societies compared to developing country situations, Professor Terence Ryan has played a lead role in delivering a number of extremely successful United Nations, World Health Organisation and British Government sponsored humanitarian programmes that have and continue to make an enormous difference to the lives of many people living in poor communities around the world.

Prof. Ryan will present a fascinating insight into the many humanitarian projects he has actively worked on in South America, China, India and Africa. All projects have had a simple mission of focussing on making a difference in treating neglected diseases by the deployment of low technology programmes. Perhaps there are lessons to be learnt that could assist in improving health care in remote regional communities here in Australia.

Prof. Ryan is an Emeritus Professor of Dermatology at Oxford Brooks University, University of Oxford, Honorary Doctor of Medicine Martin Luther University, Knight of St John, Rotary Club Paul Harris Fellow for International Activities, and Honorary Member of National Dermatology Societies in Britain, Nepal, India, China, Brazil & Tanzania.

Have you travelled to a developing country and been confronted with the obvious challenges faced by local communities trying to best manage the health and welfare of their people and realised how fortunate you are living in a western society? Since the 1970s, motivated by his family connection with India medical knowledge in skin care and recognition of the significant divide between heath care programmes in western societies compared to developing country situation, Professor Terence Ryan has played a lead role in delivering a number of extremely successful United Nation, World Health Organisation and British Government sponsored humanitarian programmes that have and continue to make an enormous difference to the lives of many people living in poor communities around the world. Professor Ryan will present a fascinating insight into the many humanitarian projects he has actively worked on in South America, China, India and Africa. All project have had a simple mission of focussing on making a difference in treating neglected diseases by the deployment of low technology programmes. Perhaps there are lessons to be learnt that could assist in improving health care in remote regional communities in Australia. Professor Ryan is an Emeritus Professor of Dermatology at Oxford Brooks University, University of Oxford Honorary Doctor of Medicine at Martin Luther University, Knight of St John and Honorary Member of National Dermatology Societies in Britain, Nepal, China, Brazil and Tanzania.

Public pools play an important part in the Australian way of life. But how well do we understand them? What is their nature? How are they managed? Where does their water come from? This Skywest lecture gathers three specialists who will share their knowledge on public pools and water management. Taking as an example the case of the Albany Leisure and Aquatic Centre, among others, the speakers will dive in the subjects of pool management, pool integration in the regional hydrological system, and the social virtue of aquatic public spaces. John Toomey is the Manager of ALAC, and Dr. Paul Close and Dr. Nathalie Boucher are respectively Research Assistant Professor and postdoctoral fellow at the Center of Excellence in Natural Resource Management with the University of Western Australia.

In this lecture, internationally renowned and highly cited plant scientist, Prof Rana Munns, will show how the combination of fundamental plant biology and targeted plant breeding can produce significant outcomes for crop production in saline soils.

Saline soils restrict plant growth in a large proportion of the Australian wheat belt. Plants exclude most of the salt from the water they take up from a saline soil, but with time it can build up to high concentrations in older leaves, and kill them. This reduces the supply of carbohydrates to the growing leaves or developing grain.

In a search for genes that reduce the rate of sodium accumulation in leaves, Prof Munns and her team discovered novel genes for controlling sodium transport in an ancestral wheat, crossed them into modern durum wheat, and showed that one of them increased yield in saline soils in farmers’ fields by 25%.

This event is sponsored under the 'Hector and Andrew Stewart Memorial Lecture'.

The science and practice of ecological restoration have depended for several decades on key touchstones such as ecological integrity and historical fidelity to provide moral guidance on appropriate action. The intensification of human-caused environmental and ecological change is giving rise to hybrid and novel ecosystems, and thus blurring the picture on counts as proper restoration. Does historical knowledge still matter? Is conventional restoration still appropriate? What targets should be used in designing restoration projects? What are the foundations of a 'new' restoration? These questions, and ones like them, are beginning to receive the technical and scientific attention they deserve, but so too is it important to clarify values for a new ecological world order. In this lecture Professor Higgs will draw on recent ideas about ecological restoration, novel ecosystems, and environmental ethics, as well as his decade-long field research in the Canadian Rocky Mountains examining landscape change.

One of Albany’s most elegant buildings, the Old Post Office on Stirling Terrace has been used for many purposes in its 144-year life. Now home to the University of Western Australia in Albany, its strong granite walls can tell many tales. Historian Malcolm Traill will take you back to the convict era, the inter-colonial communication links, the wartime bustle of a busy post office, and latterly, to its time as a restaurant, a museum, and a bijou theatre. Famous names in WA public architecture such as James Manning, George Temple Poole and Francis Bird all contributed to this icon of old Albany. Malcolm Traill is a local historian and Public Programs Officer at the WA Museum – Albany. For many years, he ran the Albany History Collection at the Albany Public Library and is also a former Battye Librarian at the State Library of WA. He is also Chair of Creative Albany, which aims to bring creativity in all forms into the lives of our community. He has been one of the organisers who have instituted the inaugural Albany Heritage Festival in 2013.

You hear that insistent message, echoing through the philosophical traditions of East and West: treat other people the way you’d like to be treated. The basic message never alters, whether your moral heritage is Socratic, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, humanistic or anything in between. A good life is not measured by security, wealth, status, achievement or levels of happiness. A good life is determined by our capacity for selflessness and our willingness to connect with those around us in a meaningful and useful way. Hugh looks at the numerous ways we get distracted from this central purpose. He examines the utopian complex, which describes our dangerous desire for perfection, and the false expectation that life with unfold according to our carefully laid plans. He highlights the things that lead us along paths to pain and confusion, notably our willingness to sacrifice others on the altar of our personal desires and ambitions. As with Hugh’s previous works of non-fiction, The Good Life is a book that will start conversations, ignite arguments and possibly change the way we live our lives. Tickets $15 adults, $10 concession

To some, the transformation of Western Australian landscapes as encountered by first European settlers has been so dramatic as to have seen irrevocable alteration, the early countryside effectively lost to modern experience. In many ways this interpretation parallels views about Aboriginal cultures. Do such interpretations stand up to modern scientific scrutiny? In this talk, Professor Hopper presented a modern journey taken from the central wheatbelt to the Murchison goldfields in the path of Surveyor Robert Austin’s 1854 expedition. The team comprised staff from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Kings Park and Botanic Garden, a consultant landscape ecologist and a Noongar elder. Austin’s journal was published two years before this small party followed in his footsteps. The team was in search of landscapes, plants and animals described and illustrated by Austin’s team, as well as wanting to better understand Noongar perspectives on the country traversed. This contemporary search proved more revealing than first planned. There is hope that not all is lost despite the changes wrought by a settler society less tuned than Aboriginal cultures to sustainable living on old landscapes.

The Great Southern Science Council, the Western Australian Chief Scientist, the WA Museum (Albany), and the Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management are hosting a conference in Albany to showcase the excellent science taking place in the Great Southern region.

'Great Southern, Great Science' will include presentations on nationally significant work that impacts on the Great Southern, and local research and development by scientists and professionals in the Great Southern.

The conference will be held Thursday 8 August at the Albany Entertainment Centre from 9am to 3.30pm.

Program available online http://www.cenrm.uwa.edu.au/community/conference

Buy tickets online http://payments.weboffice.uwa.edu.au/cenrm/gsgss_registration

Come and find out about our undergraduate and postgraduate courses, career options, scholarship opportunities, our valuable research, community programs and facilities.

There's also residential college tours, hands-on activities, live music, entertainment, and plenty of fun activities for the whole family as we celebrate our 100th birthday.

There is a deep problem with beauty. Beauty is commonly equated with sexual attractiveness. Yet there is also the beauty of art, which arouses an aesthetic response of disinterested contemplation. As Roger Scruton writes in his recent book, Beauty (2009): “In the realm of art beauty is an object of contemplation, not desire.” Are there, then, two kinds of beauty? By looking back the classical Greek conception of beauty, we may see how it gave rise to the modern dilemma, and some possible ways of resolving it. David Konstan is Professor of Classics at New York University and Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at Brown University.Professor Konstan’s research focuses on ancient Greek and Latin literature, and on classical and Hellenistic philosophy. In recent years, he has investigated the emotions and value concepts of classical Greece in Rome.

Come along to discover the range of courses available at UWA Albany. UWA career advisers will be on hand to offer advice on the best course for you point you in the right direction for an exciting and rewarding career. Displays, demonstrations, hands-on activities and campus tour will make this an event not to miss.

This conference explores the possibilities of scientific and technological applications to crop improvement and crop management under drought-prone farming, by linking progress made at the molecular level to that at the whole plant and crop levels in the field. The conference will also provide recommendations on the most effective approaches to achieve better crop productivity under drought conditions as well as the research needed to move forward in this direction.

To attend the conference, you need to register via the conference website below.