The COVID-19 pandemic has not stopped Australian delegates to the 70th Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting participating in four days of online discussion and debates with Nobel laureates and other young researchers from around the world at the Lindau Online Science Days. The delegates are recipients of the SIEF–AAS Fellowship to the Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting, an annual gathering of bright young researchers from around the world and dozens of Nobel prize winners in Lindau, Germany
The 2020 interdisciplinary-themed 70th meeting has been postponed until 2021 due to the pandemic but the 11 Australian participants took part in the Online Science Days from 28 June to 1 July. Five delegates additionally participated in the Sciathon, a 48 hour science marathon to tackle topics under three major themes: implementing the Lindau guidelines, capitalism after coronavirus, and communicating climate change.
Australian delegate Dr Eugene Sachkou from the University of Queensland was in the winning group of the communicating climate change section of the Sciathon. Their project suggests using a ‘big data approach’ to identify influencers on social media who would have the most effective reach for climate change communication.
Coastal climate researcher Ms Nicole Foster from the University of Adelaide, who posted about her experience on her blog, said “My favourite aspect of the entire experience was that I was able to make connections with scientists around the world regardless of time zones and technology. This has made me so excited for to see what can happen when we meet in person next year.”
And materials chemist Dr Wenyue Zhou from RMIT, describing the experience of meeting Nobel laureates online, said “The Online Science Days really helped me prepare myself for next year’s meeting. Before this, I was excited but very nervous about meeting the Nobel laurates…Attending the Online Science Days made them very familiar to me. Now I see they are human beings, extremely kind, intelligent, humorous human beings.”
The Academy was also featured in the Academic Partners Expo Booth, where we highlighted the experiences of past attendees and Nobel Laureate and Academy Fellow Professor Brian Schmidt in a short video, and gave a presentation followed by a Q&A session with Academy Fellow Professor Jim Williams.
The SIEF–AAS Fellowships are supported by the Science and Industry Endowment Fund. Find out more about the Lindau Aussies.
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