Archive for November, 2008

A gene discovered in Australian Merinos and traced back to the Indian Garole breed is now being used in India to help raise the incomes of poor shepherds.

The “Booroola fecundity” (or FecB) gene promotes the birth of twin lambs. Over the past 10 years, Indian and Australian scientists have been working with shepherds in the State of Maharashtra in an effort to increase the productivity of their flocks by using a variety of methods – including the introduction of the FecB gene from the Garole breed.

The project, funded since 1998 by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), culminated earlier this month with an international workshop in Maharashtra that confirmed the success of the strategy in that State and supported its extension to other parts of India.

The leader of the Australian research team, Professor Steve Walkden-Brown from the University of New England, said that the Deccani sheep of Maharashtra (in common with the majority of Indian sheep breeds) have a comparatively low reproduction rate, with ewes producing only one lamb every 10 to 12 months. “As the shepherds’ income depends largely on the sale of lambs for meat, they have always placed a high value on those rare ewes that produce twins,” he said.

Seven scientists from UNE – the commissioned Australian research institution for the project – participated over the years, together with several from CSIRO and the University of Melbourne. The leader of the Indian team is Dr Chanda Nimbkar who – during the project – completed a PhD degree in genetics at UNE, graduating in 2005. Dr Nimbkar is now the Director of Animal Husbandry at the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute in Maharashtra, founded by her father. The other leading researcher in India is Dr Vidya Gupta of the National Chemical laboratory in Pune, Maharashtra, where this month’s workshop was held.

Professor Walkden-Brown explained that the project had initially examined the possibility of improving productivity by the introduction of the tiny but fecund Garole breed from West Bengal.

“This proved inappropriate in the Maharashtra environment,” he said. “However, the discovery during the project that the fecundity of the Garole was due to the action of a single major gene (the FecB) meant that the gene could be introduced into the local Deccani sheep by repeated back crossing and DNA testing for the gene. This enabled the transfer of the desirable prolificacy trait of the Garole, while limiting transfer of undesirable traits such as its small body size.”

“UNE’s ‘systems analysis’ approach, emphasising the importance of understanding the social, economic and biological aspects of traditional shepherding in Maharashtra – including the needs of the shepherds themselves – guided the project from the start,” he added.

The effects of the gene have been thoroughly evaluated in 26 shepherds’ flocks since 2003. “We found that, in Indian breeds, the FecB gene produced moderate increases in lamb numbers which were welcomed by the shepherds and which increased profits,” Professor Walkden-Brown said. “This differs from the effect of the gene in breeds such as the Australian Merino, in which it causes excessive lamb numbers – an effect that has limited the use of the FecB gene in Australia.

While the workshop in Pune brought the ACIAR-funded project to an end, Professor Walkden-Brown and his colleagues at UNE will maintain a keen interest in the application of its findings. “Determining the underlying reasons for the difference in behaviour of the gene in India and Australia is an obvious research challenge arising from this work,” he said.

The workshop was named the “Helen Newton Turner Memorial International Workshop” in memory of the distinguished Australian geneticist Dr Helen Newton Turner, who was the first to suggest that the FecB gene, found among Merino sheep on the “Booroola” sheep station in NSW, had come from Indian sheep imported into Australia in the late eighteenth century. During the workshop, researchers from countries including Australia, New Zealand, the United States, the UK, China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Israel and Kenya reported their findings on the Booroola gene. (For reports on the presentations, go to: http://www.une.edu.au/ers/hnt-workshop.php.)

The UNE researchers who presented papers included Professor Walkden-Brown, Professor Julius Van Der Werf and Associate Professor Geoff Hinch from the School of Environmental and Rural Science, and Dr Andrew Swan from the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit. Dr Julian Prior from the School of Environmental and Rural Science also produced a paper for the workshop that was presented on his behalf.

Others from UNE who have been involved in the project over the years include Dr Lewis Kahn and Associate Professor Jim McFarlane.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here was taken during a visit by delegates at the Pune workshop to one of the farms participating in the project. The farm, at Phaltan, is owned by the two Pisar brothers. They and their wives (in yellow) are pictured here with some of their sheep.

Researchers from more than 20 countries will meet in Sydney next week to discuss the latest information about how people use their time, and how time use is changing.

The time spent by men, women and children around the world in activities including paid employment, volunteer work, eating and drinking, housework, leisure and holidays, watching television, travelling to and from work, and caring for the sick and elderly will be discussed in revealing detail at the annual conference of the International Association for Time Use Research (IATUR).

Professor Michael Bittman from the University of New England, the President of IATUR and the convener of the conference, said the world’s leading figures in time use research – both from universities and from national statistical agencies – would be attending the conference. It will be held at Sydney’s Wesley Conference Centre on the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd of December.

Professor Bittman, from UNE’s School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences, explained that time use researchers ask people to keep a record of their activities throughout a day (or several days) – usually by keeping a diary. “Analysing these records gives us irreplaceable information about things we otherwise find difficult to measure,” he said, “such as the hours that we Australians put in to shopping, housework and child care, and how we spend our leisure time.”

The conference will provide answers to questions such as: “Has the amount of time people spend travelling remained the same in Sydney over the last 25 years?”, “Is there any escape from traditional gender roles in the division of housework?”, and “Does time use help predict depressive illness among adolescents?”

A paper to be presented in the first session by government-employed researchers from the United States will examine eating patterns in relation to obesity. In the following session, Professor Bittman’s UNE colleague Jude Brown will discuss television viewing patterns among young Australian children. Succeeding sessions will hear papers on diverse aspects of time use in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Norway, Japan, Denmark, Germany, France, Canada, India, Korea, Belgium, Finland, Slovenia, Romania, Brazil, China, and The Netherlands.

IATUR, formed in 1970, promotes the analysis of daily activities in order to learn how different groups of people juggle work and family responsibilities, and how people have changed their activities over time.

An international authority on innovation says the challenge for industry posed by the global economic crisis is to “look ahead” and not “batten down the hatches”.

John Bessant, Professor of Innovation and Technology Management in the Tanaka Business School at Imperial College London, is the keynote speaker at an international symposium on primary industry innovation being held at the University of New England this week.

In the short term, however, there would necessarily be a shift of emphasis in innovation to “saving money by stripping out the waste”, Professor Bessant said. “Innovation isn’t always about rocket science,” he explained, “or about needing more money.”

The symposium, titled “New Pathways to Adoption and Diffusion of Primary Industries Innovations”, began at UNE yesterday and is continuing today. Bringing together more than 100 delegates from around Australia and from New Zealand, it is supported by the Primary Industries Innovation Centre (a joint venture of UNE and the NSW Department of Primary Industries), the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Sheep Industry Innovation, the CRC for Beef Genetic Technologies, Meat and Livestock Australia, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, and Australian Wool Innovation Ltd. The participants are researchers, farmers, and agricultural advisers and investors, as well as representatives of industry organisations, government and non-government agencies, and agribusiness.

Professor Bessant (pictured here, left) emphasised the vital role of users in the innovation process, advocating the “democratisation” of innovation by “bringing users into the process at the front end”.

“The problem is not knowledge production, but knowledge connections – ensuring that innovations are accessible to businesses and applicable to their needs,” he said.

The convener of the symposium, Dr Philip Thomas from UNE’s School of Business, Economics and Public Policy, said the aim of the event was to identify impediments to innovation adoption, and potential solutions to them. Dr Thomas (pictured here, right) said the symposium would “provide insight into real-life innovation success, highlighting the key reasons for failure to achieve innovation and how these might be overcome in the future”.

In officially opening the symposium, the Chair of the Cooperative Research Centre for Sheep Industry Innovation, Dr John Keniry, said the current low rate of innovation adoption in many primary industries was “a fundamental challenge”.

The official opening function, at which the Speaker of the NSW Legislative Assembly and Member for Northern Tablelands, Richard Torbay, acted as MC, included the launch of a book – Mustering Moisture: the Practice of No-till Farming in Australia – which tells the stories of 12 farming families who have overcome the challenges of no-tillage and conservation farming to transform their farming operations and lifestyles.

Pam Welsh, the north-west Regional Director for Department of Primary Industries (DPI) Relations, launched Mustering Moisture. Three of the farmers featured in the book – Anne Williams from “Magomadine” (Coonamble), Bede Burke from “Glendon” (Tamworth) and Gavin Hombsch from “Hyfield” (Tamworth) – were present at the launch.

Mustering Moisture, published by the Primary Industries Innovation Centre (PIIC), was produced with funds raised through a no-tillage conference that PIIC convened in Tamworth in March 2006.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Professor John Bessant (left) and Dr Philip Thomas displayed here was taken during this week’s symposium at UNE.

Erle Robinson, who died on Tuesday 18 November at the age of 84, is remembered by his former colleagues at the University of New England for his untiring pursuit of justice.

From his arrival as a lecturer in Philosophy in 1954 – the year the University gained autonomy – till his retirement in 1989, he devoted his academic career to the education and welfare of his students and the health of the institution. “He was the sort of ‘thorn in the side’ of Administration that every administration should be grateful to have,” said UNE’s current Professor of Philosophy, Peter Forrest.

Professor Forrest said he had encountered former students whose most vivid memory of their university days was “Erle teaching them ethics”. And Mr Robinson’s colleagues – even those who were his antagonists in one or other of his campaigns for institutional justice – all remember him with fondness and respect.

Erle Robinson (pictured here) was born and educated in New Zealand, where he gained a law degree and practised law before developing – through a Master of Arts degree – his vocational interest in philosophy. As a leading figure in UNE’s development of philosophy programs for external students, he upheld the principle that external students should be taught and examined according to the same standards as internal students. It was his “pragmatic advice” (as one former colleague put it) that “helped to shape the University’s external Bachelor of Arts degree”.

In 1957 he was elected to represent undergraduate students on the UNE Council, and he continued to serve in that role until 1960, when he took a year’s study leave. From 1976 to 1980, and then again from 1982 to 1984, he served as a member of Council elected by the academic staff. He served as President of the UNE Teachers’ Association, and was active in the Student Christian Movement.

His life-long pursuit of justice was remarkable for its integrity: his determined opposition to what he believed to be wrong was balanced by a lack of personal rancour. “He never bore malice,” one of his colleagues recalled.

Erle Robinson’s unique contribution to UNE over 35 years was a product of that integrity.

He is survived by his wife Marcia (whom he married in 1960), their daughter Christine, and their grandchildren Timothy and Genevieve. Their son Stephen was killed in an ice avalanche on Mount Cook, New Zealand, in 1997.

The funeral service for Erle Robinson will be at St Peter’s Anglican Cathedral, Armidale, at 11 am on Tuesday 25 November.

The distinguished local composer and pianist Richard Peter Maddox will be one of the musicians involved in a concert of New England music, titled “Subliminal Messages”, in Armidale this weekend.

“Last year’s ‘Subliminal Messages’ concert was so successful that the University of New England’s Music Department and the New England Conservatorium of Music (NECOM) are joining forces again to celebrate new music by New England composers,” said the concert’s artistic director, Steve Thorneycroft.

Mr Thorneycroft, a guitarist, composer and UNE Music lecturer, said he had had no trouble finding musicians keen to be involved. “This is a great opportunity for local musicians just to get together and celebrate what we do,” he said. “Last year’s concert had such a warm, supportive atmosphere that we all wanted it to become an annual event.”

The concert will feature chamber pieces and solos by Ann Ghandar, Richard Peter Maddox, Steve Thorneycroft, Graham Howard, Ben Thorn, and John Plankenhorn. Performers will include a number of NECOM’s Educator Members, including Eleanor Streatfeild, Ruth Strutt and the EphenStephen Guitar Duo.

The program will include several world premieres, such as Phase Faze for two guitars (Thorneycroft), The Owl and the Pussycat for soprano, violin, cello, piano and cor anglais (Maddox), feed it all it needs for solo clarinet by John Plankenhorn, and a selection of piano miniatures by Graham Howard.

Performers will include Robyn Bradley, Peter Maddox and Sheila Guymer (piano), Graham Maddox (oboe/cor anglais), Margaret Howard (violin), Hannah Rowland (viola), Eleanor Streatfeild (cello), Sarah Christopher (bass), Steve Thorneycroft and Steve Tafra (guitars), Ruth Strutt (soprano), Elisabeth Kelvin (clarinet), Nick Negerevich (flute), and Alistair Finco, Kerry Hawkins and Bruce Menzies (French horns).

The concert, at 3 pm on Sunday 23 November, will be in the Auditorium of the C.B. Newling Building (“the Old Teachers’ College”). Tickets are $15 and $10, with $5 tickets available to current students of NECOM’s Educator Members. Bookings can be made at the NECOM office, or by phoning 6772 7013.

A talk on the deep “sleep” habits of a tiny marsupial mouse has landed a UNE postgraduate student a prestigious award at a recent national research conference.

Lisa Warnecke, a PhD candidate in Zoology at the School of Rural and Environmental Science at UNE, received the Bolliger Award for best student presentation at the 54th Scientific Meeting of the Australian Mammal Society in Darwin last month. Her talk, entitled “Basking Behaviour and Torpor Use in Planigales”, beat 30 others given by students from around the country.

The planigale was one of the smallest marsupials on Earth, Ms Warnecke said, and needed to eat almost constantly to survive.

“My talk was on those aspects of my PhD thesis that deal with the planigale’s torpor use,” Ms Warnecke said. “Basically, the planigale is so small , it’s constantly losing heat to its environment. Hence they go into torpor [a state of reduced body temperature and slowed metabolism] every day for several hours in order to conserve energy.”

Ms Warnecke, who hails from Germany, said that although the talk was given in front of what she termed a “friendly audience” of 100, she still got nervous speaking in front of so many people.

“I’ve been to about half a dozen conferences now, so I’m getting used to it, but it’s still nerve-wracking, especially when I’m talking in what is to me a foreign language.”

Ms Warnecke recently handed in her thesis and, pending some minor corrections, she will shortly be returning to Germany. She said she had thoroughly enjoyed her three-and-a-half years in Armidale and that she had chosen to come to UNE specifically to work with Prof Fritz Geiser, the supervisor of her PhD thesis and a world-renowned expert in the field of marsupial physiology.

Ms Warnecke said her PhD had afforded her plenty of opportunities for fieldwork and to get up close and personal with the subject of her research.

“I have always been fascinated by marsupial physiology, and that is what drew me to undertake a PhD on the subject,” she said. “Of course, it helps that they are really cute, too.”

Ms Warnecke is pictured here with a dunnart, another marsupial she is studying.

More information, contact Lisa Warnecke on 6773 2885 or Leon Braun (UNE public relations) on 6773 3771. A photograph is available to accompany this story.

Tales From New England, to be launched this week by Richard Torbay, Speaker of the NSW Legislative Assembly and Member for Northern Tablelands, is a collection of essays that gives a New England context to aspects of the lives and works of several famous authors.

The book focuses on nine important writers, including Rolf Boldrewood (author of Robbery Under Arms) and D’Arcy Niland (author of The Shiralee), who have enriched their novels with imaginative re-creations of New England society and landscapes.

John Ryan (pictured here), the Armidale scholar and well-known regional and cultural historian who has written Tales From New England, said the texts he discusses “tell us what we are in a way that history or the newspapers never do”. Dr Ryan, an Associate Professor of English at the University of New England, said his aim in writing Tales From New England had been “to help readers appreciate the rich and accessible heritage content of these literary texts of the region, as they illustrate many aspects of our distinctive local identity”.

The other authors (and particular novels) given lively context in the book include Thomas Keneally (The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith), Dymphna Cusack (Picnic Races), Gwen Kelly (in various reflective works), Geoff Page (Benton’s Conviction), David Crookes (The Light Horseman’s Daughter), Robert Barnard (Death of an Old Goat and Cry from the Dark), and Gabrielle Lord (Bones).

The public launch of Tales From New England, organised by the joint publisher, UNE’s Heritage Futures Research Centre, will be this Friday, the 21^st of November, in the Armidale Dumaresq Council Chambers from 12.30 pm. Everyone is welcome.

Dr Ryan said that the title of the book reflected the emphasis on “tradition – i.e., the passing on of stories” – in the explorations and publications of the Heritage Futures Research Centre.

The eight larger tales that Dr Ryan tells link the lives of the authors with the topics treated in the novels and their rich evocations of New England life and environment. There are dramatic stories, such as those encountered by Thomas Browne (Rolf Boldrewood) during his eight months in Armidale as Police Magistrate – including the attempted shooting and stabbing of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Armidale, Elzear Torregiani. And there are stories with a quieter rural and domestic focus, such as those connecting Dymphna Cusack’s New England nurture to her novel Picnic Races. These stories illuminate, in Dr Ryan’s words, those “timeless moments of quiet savouring of Australia’s colonial past and landscapes” that the text of Picnic Races contains.

Dr Ryan points out that these novels often give life and colour to historical events – for example the pursuit of the Governor brothers that inspired Thomas Keneally’s novel and the later film-based myth. “A number of the writers have created very effective historical vignettes,” he said, “such as Geoff Page’s local treatment of the 1916 conscription issue in Benton’s Conviction.

In the work of all the writers he discusses, he finds “a large measure of autobiography” and “much investigation of societal/educational processes as they affect individuals”. “The trials of education, as supplied at the primary, secondary, and – even more quirkishly – at the tertiary level, are explored both with some exasperation and also with a more profound investigation,” he says in his “Introduction”.

The 68 illustrations in Tales From New England include many rare photographs, as well as reproductions of original or early dust covers to remind readers of the books they knew they should read one day. Tales From New England provides a witty, wry and compassionate guide to such reading.

Work is about to begin on a new, state-of-the-art sports complex at the University of New England’s Bellevue Oval.

The new complex will include two team change rooms, a referee’s change room and amenities, a first-aid room, a clubhouse, bar and kiosk, an electronic scoreboard, disabled access, and public toilets. “It will make the Bellevue Oval a fantastic field for football in Armidale,” said the Acting Executive Officer of Sport UNE, David Schmude.

Building work on the new complex is to begin this month, and is expected to be finished in April 2009. Visiting the Bellevue Oval yesterday to inaugurate the project, the Vice-Chancellor of UNE, Professor Alan Pettigrew, said the development had been made possible by a grant of $1.2 million from the Federal Government’s Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) Transition Fund for Sporting and Recreational Facilities.

The grant was announced in October last year. In welcoming that announcement, Professor Pettigrew said that it recognised “the important role of Sport UNE in providing first-class sporting facilities not only for the University’s students, but also for the people of Armidale and the New England region”. “More broadly, it recognises the University’s continuing commitment to providing its students with a rich educational experience while contributing to the life of the community,” he continued.

Mr Schmude said that the VSU Transition Fund grant had been supplemented by “generous backing and support from UNE”.

“The new complex will increase the interest in – and the opportunity for – bigger and more important games out of Sport UNE,” he said. “Bellevue Oval is host to around 15,000 visitors a year, and with this facility the numbers are sure to increase.”

The successful tender for construction of the complex was won by National Build Plan – a local building group. The building is designed by architects Tim Earnshaw and Partners from North Sydney. Its features include water tanks and the allowance of natural light to encourage energy efficiency and incorporate the environment into the design. It includes a function room, to which the general community will have access.

“It will provide both the University and the wider community with an excellent place to view matches,” Mr Schmude said, “including glass windows so that games can be watched from inside – a benefit during Armidale’s frosty winters.”

The field has traditionally been the home ground of two of the University’s Rugby teams: St Albert’s College and Robb College. “Bellevue in the past has also held the New England Rugby Union Finals Series,” Mr Schmude said, “giving the ground greater potential for the future. In addition to Rugby Union, this new UNE facility will also be host to Rugby League and soccer matches.

The development of the complex will be continual, with other stages – such as the construction of seating and lighting for night games – to be incorporated in the near future.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here expands to show (from left) David Schmude, Gerard Stephen (President of Sport UNE) and Professor Alan Pettigrew. It was taken yesterday on the site of the new sports complex at Bellevue Oval.

The University of New England has won a $252,000 grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) for an investigation of a protein that suppresses the growth of cancers.

Dr Pierre Moens, the project’s chief investigator at UNE, is an expert in the use of fluorescent markers to track the movements of individual molecules within living cells. His collaborators on the project, titled “Profilin: a novel target for cancer therapy”, are scientists based in the United States and Denmark, as well as in Australia.

Dr Moens explained that profilin, a protein present in every cell of the human body, is found at lower than normal levels in breast cancer cells. “And if you increase the expression of profilin to above-normal levels, you reduce the aggressiveness of the cancer,” he said. “For this reason, profilin molecules are an outstanding candidate as a target for cancer therapy.”

“We believe that the tumour-suppressing effect is due to the interaction of profilin molecules with the cell membrane,” he continued. “Our immediate aim is to understand the basic mechanism underlying this effect. After that, it could be possible to develop cancer therapies specifically targeting profilin molecules – therapies so specific that they would have very few side effects.”

In 2005, with the help of a grant from the Australian Research Council, UNE acquired a technologically advanced instrument – a spectrofluorometer – for the detection of fluorescence at the molecular level. Working in UNE’s Centre for Bioactive Discovery in Health and Ageing, Dr Moens has developed an international reputation for his work in this field. Attaching light-emitting molecules (“fluorophores”) to profilin molecules, he is able to study their movement within a solution. “And,” he said, “with the help of a confocal microscope acquired by UNE last year, we’re able to look at the three-dimensional picture.”

One of Dr Moens’s colleagues on the project – Professor Enrico Gratton from the University of California, Irvine, in the United States – is a world leader in fluorescence methodology and instrumentation. Professor Gratton has developed methods of observing clusters of molecules and counting the molecules in such clusters. His work will be an essential component of the project.

Along with Dr Moens and Professor Gratton, the project’s other chief investigators are Dr Partha Roy from the University of Pittsburgh, USA, Professor Glenn King from the University of Queensland, and Professor Luis Bagatolli from the University of Southern Denmark. Dr Roy is an expert in controlling the expression of profilin within living cells, Professor King will be using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance to map the area of interaction between profilin molecules and the cell membrane, and Professor Bagatolli will be studying the mechanical characteristics of the membrane where this interaction occurs.

In awarding the research grant, the NHMRC commended the three-year project for its “clarity of design” and the fact that it “addresses an issue of considerable importance to human health”.

THE IMAGE of a cell membrane model (“giant unilaminar vesicle”) displayed here expands to show Dr Pierre Moens investigating cell membrane / profilin molecule interactions.

Dr Kapil Chousalkar, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of New England, has won a national award for his research on food safety.

Dr Chousalker travelled to Parliament House in Canberra last month where he and 13 other young scientists were presented with this year’s Australian Agricultural Industries Young Innovators and Scientists Awards by the Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry, the Hon. Tony Burke MP, and the Secretary of the Department, Dr Conall O’Connell.

Dr Chousalkar, the “Australian Egg Corporation Limited Award Winner”, received a prize of $20,000 with the award. The prize money will help him to further his research, in which he has screened eggs from various parts of Australia and checked them for the presence of organisms – such as Salmonella and E. coli – that cause food poisoning.

“Eggs from healthy hens are generally sterile, but the shells can come into contact with faecal matter during laying,” he explained. “And if the shell cracks when it is collected or washed, harmful microorganisms can enter the egg.” He hopes to identify in these organisms the genes that cause food poisoning.

According to Dr. Chousalkar, Australia is more fortunate than many other countries in being able to produce eggs that are extremely safe. “However, outbreaks of food poisoning, such as Salmonella, are often blamed on eggs, even though the causes are not always confirmed,” he said. “I hope my research will help farmers adopt increasingly effective management practices and minimise the incidence of egg-related food poisoning.”

The Australian Agricultural Industries Young Innovators and Scientists Awards help young scientists to pursue innovative ideas that will result in long-term benefits for Australia’s rural industries. “Being presented with this award was an enormous honour – a highlight of my academic and research career,” Dr Chousalkar said.

In presenting the awards, Mr Burke congratulated the young scientists for their efforts in the fight against the global food shortage. Eminent scientists and agricultural industry leaders were present at the award ceremony, as well as several MPs – including the Member for New England, Tony Windsor. A proud UNE alumnus, Mr Windsor personally congratulated Dr Chousalkar on his achievement.

Dr Chousalkar, who moved from India and began his PhD studies at the University of New England in 2005, now calls Australia home. Supervised by UNE’s Associate Professor Julie Roberts, he completed his PhD research last year. He is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at UNE, working with Dr Roberts and Associate Professor Brian Cheetham. “Kapil has worked tirelessly in his research endeavours and truly deserves this recognition,” Dr Roberts said.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here, showing the Hon. Tony Burke MP (right) presenting the award to Dr Kapil Chousalkar, expands to include Dr Conall O’Connell, Secretary to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.