With the generous support of the late Lady White MBBS and the late Sir Frederick White FAA FRS, the Academy has established a series of research conferences in the physical and mathematical sciences related to the solid Earth, the terrestrial oceans, Earth’s atmosphere, solar-terrestrial science, space sciences and astronomy.
The purpose of the conferences is to advance, at the most fundamental level, of the understanding of the subject, to introduce to Australian research new aspects or directions, and to encourage participation of overseas scientists.
The 2022–23 conference has been awarded to Dr Tim Rawling from AuScope and Dr Beryl Morris from Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), for a proposal titled ‘Integrated Earth: linking our planet’s processes from the core to the atmosphere’
Earth’s processes can be grouped into five systems: geosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. These systems interact to create and sustain life on Earth, but data on them is often collected in isolation, or to address a specific research problem.
This conference, to be held in September 2023, intends to bring together participants working across the five Earth systems to identify opportunities for data integration and scientific collaboration.
The organisers seek to create a cross-disciplinary community of practice for Australian Earth and environmental science data.
In July this year, the 2021–22 Elizabeth and Frederick White Research Conference, ‘Multiscale dynamics of the Southern Ocean’, was held at the Australian National University.
More than 40 early- and mid-career researchers from across Australia gathered to discuss the Southern Ocean, which plays an important role in Australian climate, economy, environment and security.
Higher confidence in models of the Southern Ocean, and hence better resilience for Australian and global communities, requires greater understanding of dynamics spanning from millimetre-scale turbulent mixing, metre-scale surface waves, kilometre-scale convection and eddies, and thousand-kilometre scale atmospheric weather systems.
Conference participants discussed the effects of turbulence, circulation and internal waves in the Southern Ocean on weather and climate models – as well as the cryosphere, which is very sensitive to climate change – and will produce a review article to set out priorities for the field.
With the generous support of the late Dr Alex Boden AO FAA, the Academy has established a series of small specialist conferences in the biological sciences to enable active research workers in rapidly advancing fields to discuss current developments and problems.
The 2023 conference has been awarded to Professor Helen Truby from the Australian National University and Dr Katherine Livingstone from Deakin University, for their proposal ‘Advancing the science of precision and personalised nutrition: A pillar of the Decadal Plan for the Science of Nutrition’.
The Academy’s National Committee for Nutrition published the decadal plan in 2019, and the emerging area of precision and personalised nutrition research forms a key pillar of the plan.
This conference, to be held in October next year, seeks to highlight the importance of this area to the scientific and nutrition community by bringing together more than 100 early- and mid-career researchers from across Australia to develop working groups and actionable activities promoting precision and personalised nutrition research in Australia.
Advancement of this field would bring Australia in line with Europe and the US where strategic and long-term objectives have been established for this area of nutrition science.
© 2024 Australian Academy of Science
