What's On at UWA

The UWA Institute of Agriculture's Alan Sevier Lecture 2021 will be delivered by The University of Sydney Associate Professor of Animal Reproduction Simon de Graaf on the topic "The future of sheep artificial breeding".

Come and hear UWA’s top postgraduate students present their research in agriculture and related areas.

Opening address by Mr Ralph Addis, Director General of the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development WA. Afternoon tea provided. All are welcome to attend.

UWA's Oceans Institute, Office of Research, and Development and Alumni Relations invite you to hear four leading UWA marine scientists discuss how their work is making a difference. The iconic Western Australian marine parks, Ningaloo and Shark Bay, as well as the Great Southern Reef, are bio-diversity hotspots whose future is tightly linked to the planet's. Their survival is both dependent upon slowing climate change and – through their potential to capture, store and release carbon – critical in the fight against it. Join us as we explore how philanthropic support, scientific research and community collaborations are finding innovative ways to protect these vital coastal ecosystems.

Protection of breastfeeding is a shared responsibility. It is widely quoted that it takes an average of 17 years for just 14% of research to reach patient care. Discoveries from researchers at The University of Western Australia over the last 50 years have transformed our understanding of how breastfeeding works and a new Lactology course has been developed to share this knowledge.

Hear breastfeeding mothers share current perspectives and challenges relating to what they wish they knew about breastfeeding. Three leading human lactation researchers from UWA will share how understanding the science regarding how breastfeeding works can help to address these challenges.

The UWA Institute of Agriculture is proud to host the 2021 UWA Farm Ridgefield Open Day.

This event will showcase key UWA research projects including the Avon River Catchment Critical Zone Observatory, 'Enrich' Forage Systems, Oestrogenic Subclover pastures, the Land Restoration Demonstration Site and more.

Book a seat on the return bus from UWA here: https://bit.ly/3ju9Zw8

All are welcome to attend.

The diaphragm is the major component of the respiratory muscle pump and is rhythmically active throughout life, from the moment of birth until our final breath. So the functional capacity of the diaphragm is critically important for achieving its life-sustaining role in ventilation. Appropriate in utero development of the diaphragm is essential for the establishment of spontaneous breathing at birth; respiratory capacity can be a limiting factor for exhaustive exercise; and respiratory muscle weakness is associated with increased morbidity and mortality in critically ill patients. In this seminar I will present an overview of our research investigating diaphragm contractile function during development and disease. Using an ovine model of preterm birth, and rodent models of diaphragm immaturity, we have identified unique activation properties of the neonatal diaphragm, characterized the rapid adaptation of the diaphragm immediately after birth, and established the impact of common, clinically relevant in utero exposures on the functional integrity of the diaphragm. I will also present some of our recent work characterising the vulnerability of the diaphragm to contractile dysfunction in several animal models of human diseases. These studies highlight the important contribution of diaphragm dysfunction to respiratory disorders and provide insight into potential treatment strategies that aim to preserve diaphragmatic function.

This free community event is hosted by the UWA School of Psychological Science (SPS)

About this event:

The Movie - In My Blood It Runs Ten-year-old Dujuan is a child-healer, a good hunter and speaks three languages. As he shares his wisdom of history and the complex world around him we see his spark and intelligence. Yet Dujuan is ‘failing’ in school and facing increasing scrutiny from welfare and the police.

As he travels perilously close to incarceration, his family fight to give him a strong Arrernte education alongside his western education lest he becomes another statistic. We walk with him as he grapples with these pressures, shares his truths and somewhere in-between finds space to dream, imagine and hope for his future self.

View the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbpcWq54Ga0

The Panel

W/Prof Carmen Lawrence

After training as a research psychologist at The University of Western Australia and lecturing in a number of Australian universities, Dr Lawrence entered politics in 1986, serving at both State and Federal levels for 21 years.

She was at various times W.A Minister for Education and Aboriginal affairs and was the first woman Premier and Treasurer of a State government. She shifted to Federal politics in 1994 when she was elected as the Member for Fremantle and was appointed Minister for Health and Human Services and Minister assisting the Prime Minister on the Status of Women. She has held various portfolios in Opposition, including Indigenous Affairs, Environment, Industry and Innovation and was elected national President of the Labor Party in 2004.

She retired from politics in 2007and was Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Change in the School of Psychological Science at UWA where she is now an Honorary Research Fellow and Professor Emerita. She is currently Chair of the Conservation Council of W.A.

Casey Mulder

Casey is a Ballardong Noongar woman from Western Australia. She graduated from The University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education, and has been a high school educator and Student Services leader since 2009.

In 2020 she completed a Master of Leadership and Management in Education at the University of Newcastle. Casey is now the Coordinator of Teaching and Learning (Indigenous Students) at the School of Indigenous Studies at UWA, where she leads the Student Services team, and oversees High School outreach programs and the Aboriginal Orientation Course.

Wendi Torres

A proud Bardi, Jabirr Jabirr and Filipino woman hailing from a small town in the Kimberley called Broome. Wendi completed her Bachelor of Science Majoring in Exercise and Health in 2019 from UWA before enrolling in a Masters of Teaching (Maj. Health and Phys Ed) of which she is a current student.

During her time at UWA she has worked as a Tutor/mentor for programs that aim to inspire Indigenous Youth to aim for tertiary education and it was here that she truly felt that she had a purpose in educating young people to lead healthy and active lifestyles. She is passionate about the need for more Aboriginal teachers, particularly in Secondary Schools and in Rural and Remote Communities.

Event Details

When: Tuesday 19th October 2021 at 6:30pm

Where: Social Sciences Lecture Theatre, UWA

Cost: Free, however registration is required

The movie will run for approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes, followed by a 30-minute panel discussion and audience Q&A.

A free public webinar hosted by UWA on behalf of the Matariki Network of Universities.

Talks will cover the following subjects: 1. Professor Irene Molina, Uppsala University, Sweden: "How racism, discrimination and segregation have affected the outcomes of COVID-19" 2. Professor Pat Dudgeon, The University of Western Australia: "Social and emotional wellbeing: Dismantling systemic racism" 3. Dr Donna Cormack, University of Otago: "The impacts of racism on Maori health and health inequities"

Q&A will follow

Disrupting for Good is a free public lecture delivered by Cara Peek and hosted by The UWA Institute of Agriculture.

Cara identifies as many things – a Yawuru/Bunuba woman, a successful lawyer, a diverse entrepreneurial leader and even a part-time “cowgirl".

As co-founder of The Cultural Intelligence Project, she is currently launching an innovative First Nations Entrepreneurs hub; MakeItHappenHQ.

Cara also leads the annual female-run indigenous event Rhythm+Ride Rodeo, and is the current recipient of the prestigious Winston Churchill Fellowship and AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award.

Socialising your research can be a great way to increase visibility of your work and publications and lead to increased collaborations and citations. As well as using both UWA's and your own social media networks, 'socialising' your research also encompasses other online exposure. Come and learn from researchers who have been successfully socialising their research across a range of subject areas to find out what works and how to get started.

Groups are mathematical objects that abstractly capture the concept of symmetry. Two groups are isomorphic if they essentially describe the same data, but they might be given with respect to different frames of reference. More specifically, two groups are isomorphic if there is a 1-to-1 correspondence between their elements that preserves the group operations. The group isomorphism problem is a decision problem that asks whether two given groups are isomorphic. This problem is of interest in theoretical computer science (with focus on the complexity of the problem) and in computational group theory (with focus on practical algorithms). My talk will survey some known results and comment on some recent new results, covering both complexity theory and practical applications to computer algebra systems.

Colloquium followed by refreshments in Monadelphous Integrated Learning Centre

Applied mathematics involves building models of the real world. When those models consist of differential equations (as they very often do) one can seek to do one of two things: (1) make approximations that allow those models to be solved on a restricted, but still useful, domain; or (2) study those equations and offer a descriptive understanding of the dynamics of the underlying system. Increasingly, our ability to collect data is exceeding our skill at constructing viable and interesting systems of equations. I will describe the situation where we have a stream of observed time series data but insufficient expertise to write down an appropriate generating set of equations. From that stream of data, I will describe methods that we have been working on that offers a descriptive understanding of the dynamics that is equivalent to what might have been obtained from the equations. That is, for chaotic systems, we seek to estimate quantities such as Lyapunov exponents, (unstable) periodic orbits, symbolic dynamics, correlation dimension, and attractor topology directly from the data. This allows us to describe the behaviour of the underlying system from observed data, and importantly for practical applications quantify change in that behaviour.

Three graduates of the School of Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science, Professors Peter Veitch, David McClelland and David Blair were recipients of the 2020 Prime Minister’s Science Prize for the Discovery of Gravitational Waves. It is a great pleasure to have them all together on campus along together with the fourth award recipient Prof. Susan Scott. They will give a Special Seminar describing their work, and the future of gravitational wave astronomy. This is the first time that the award recipients have met in person since the disruption of the pandemic.

This special seminar will consists of four brief talks and a Q&A session, which will include two further distinguished guests who will be giving public lectures in the Octagon Theatre on Thursday 22 September: Regents’ Prof Paul Davies, Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University, and Prof Tamara Davis, astrophysicist at University of Queensland. We invite members of the School and University community to attend the Special Seminar.

New ideas and new discoveries have changed our view of space and time, the very fabric of the universe. The changes began a century ago when the Wallal Eclipse in Western Australia proved that space is elastic and flexible.

Join WA artist Mark Grey-Smith, cosmologist Regents' Professor Paul Davies AM, Professor Tamara Davis AM, astrophysicist and UWA Emeritus Professor David Blair for an informal floor talk and panel discussion. Bring your questions!