POSTGRADUATE NEWS June 2005
WELCOME
Kasturi Kanniah, PhD student from Malaysia and Nancy Varrasso, M.Env.Sc. student. Kasturi will be developing a climate model for Malaysia using remote sensing techniques and Nancy will be doing her research on "Building Community through Community Gardening"
CONGRATULATIONS
Lucia Lancellotti won the Australian Federation for Studies in Italy Award and the Italian Embassy/Italian Institute of Culture Scholarship for 6 months. The former will go towards Lucia's fieldwork expenses in Sardinia. The latter will allow her to study in the Dept. of Environmental & Earth Science, University of Cagliari, Sardinia from Sept 2005-Feb 2006.
Liam Brady, Pauline Byrt, Lucia Lancellotti, Ursula Pietrzak, Kiran Shinde and Akiko Yamane who were successful in the SGES round 1, 2005 Travel Grants
Dr Rebekah Brown and Prof Chris Cocklin who have just been awarded one of the Victorian Dept of Sustainability and Environment Our Water Our Future Postgraduate Scholarships. Rebekah and Chris sought funding for a scholarship to support their project Advancing Sustainable Water Governance: an institutional capacity assessment framework.
HIGHER DEGREE RESEARCH MEETING
Wednesday 1st June, 1.00pm in SGO2
This is an informal session to discuss any issues, both
intellectual and practical, that you may have on your mind. Also,
it will be a good opportunity to get to know the new students that
have recently commenced their candidature.
CONFERENCE
ARCHAEOLOGY IN SALT LAKE CITY
Liam Brady
In mid-March I traveled overseas to attend the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A., and being Canadian, I decided to add a few extra days in Toronto to visit family and friends (interestingly coinciding with St. Patrick's Day celebrations) and experience some mind-numbing below freezing temperatures. With the family obligations completed, I moved on for my first visit to Salt Lake City - an interesting and visually spectacular place. From March 30 - April 3, I was one of over 3500 people to attend one of the largest gatherings of archaeologists at the SAA's 70th annual meeting. This was, without a doubt, one of the largest conferences I have ever attended (although small in comparison to Akiko's experience in Denver where over 5000 geographers attended the AAG!). I had the good fortune to be invited to present a paper in a symposium entitled "Rock-art, Research and Indigenous Communities" which discussed the exciting challenges rock-art researchers (and archaeologists) face in how they carry out their research with Indigenous communities. Individuals working in a variety of geographical locations such as Australia, U.S.A., southern Africa and the Sahara region presented papers on their recent work involving the social context of their rock-art research. One interesting aspect of the conference was listening to American archaeologists discuss the challenges they face in their archaeological research involving Native Americans since the passing of the North American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) which involves the repatriation of Native American cultural material. The conference also featured many internationally-authored papers and an impressive array of book stalls which emptied the wallet quite quickly. All things considered, the conference was an enjoyable experience where many good contacts were made with other rock-art researchers and archaeologists from North America and elsewhere. Thanks to SGES for much-needed financial support.
SEMINARS
Seminars in June
Sustainability Forum
Wednesday 8 June, 12-2pm in R3
"Consuming
Passions: Can we be free?"
Guest Speaker: Clive
Hamilton, Executive Director of the Australia Institute
12-2pm Wednesday, 8th June, Lecture Theatre R3 Rotunda (Building 8)
RSVP by June 1st to assist with
catering:
Email: Bianca.Roggenbucke@arts.monash.edu.au
Phone: 03 9905 4624
For details go to:
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ges/about/sustforum.html
SGES Lunchtime Seminars
WEDNESDAYS 1-2pm in SGO2
Details of other research seminars in related disciplinary areas can be found at:
SCIENCE FACULTY
http://www.sci.monash.edu.au/students/postgrad/sem_news.html
ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE
http://www.meteorology.monash.edu.au/research/seminar2.shtml
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
http://biolsci.dbs.monash.edu.au/seminars/departmental.html
GEOSCIENCES
http://www.earth.monash.edu.au/news+seminars/news+seminars.html