School of Physics News

Eureka: Science Photography award

Research News

A new Research news page has been created to showcase some of the recent projects undertaken within the School.

Students get inspired at the Australian Synchrotron

The Mars Phoenix Lander

Mars is a cold desert planet with no liquid water on its surface. But in the Martian arctic, water ice lurks just below ground level. Landing on the 26th of May 2008, Phoenix will be the first mission to return data from either polar region providing an important contribution to the overall Mars science. It will be instrumental in achieving the science goals of NASA's long-term Mars Exploration Program. Here at Monash, a direct webcast of NASA TV was broadcast on Monday 26th of May in the School of Physics “Astro-lab” (27-211) , showcasing the ingenuity of exploring and discovering new worlds to an audience in real time around the world. For more information on the Phoenix Mission go to: http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/

Monash Physics Graduate – Victorian Graduate Teacher of the Year

Andrew Thomson who graduated in 2006 has just been selected as Victorian Graduate Teacher of the Year for 2008. Andrew was appointed as a physics teacher, back in his home town of Warrnambool, immediately at the end of his Dip. Ed. in October 2007. He had carried out part of his teaching rounds at Warrnambool College and obviously impressed them as they offered him a job during the teaching round. We can see that their confidence was well-placed! His enthusiasm when discussing teaching physics is very evident and we hope that this will also imbue some of his students with a love of physics.

It has been a big week for Andrew. As part of his third year physics in 2006, he carried out a PHS3350 project on the Mössbauer spectroscopy of iron sites in clay minerals and the research paper based on this work has just been published.

2008 Dean's Excellence in Teaching Awards for the Faculty of Science

-- Dr David Paganin, for sustained achievements in motivating and inspiring students to learn physics

David is an outstanding teacher and this award is in recognition of the significant and innovative contribution he has made to teaching in the School of Physics.

2007 Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal

Dr John Daniels has been awarded the 2007 Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal. This is awarded annually to the most outstanding doctoral candidate in each faculty.

John was awarded his PhD in 2007 under the supervision of Associate Professor Trevor Finlayson. The title of John's thesis was: “Diffraction Studies of Ferroelectric Materials during Application of Electric Fields”. Currently John is working as a Postdoctoral researcher at the ESRF in Grenoble, where he describes “life as good!”

NHMRC Award School of Physics scientific photographer Steven Morton played an instrumental and creative roll in the production of the image that saw Brian Cooke of the Microbiology Department, receive the inaugural National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Award for “Science to Art”. This award was for the outstanding image from health and medical research. The image shows the surface of a human red blood cell infected with a malaria parasite. Detailed information on the awards, the image and the science behind the image may be found at: http://www.monash.edu.au/news/dec07-nhmrc-awards.html

The School of Physics congratulates Dr Trevor Hicks on the award of a an Honorary Fellowship from the Australian Institute for Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE). Trevor who has retired from the School of Physics, has served the University as its AINSE Councillor for many years and had a long and distinguished research record with AINSE. He is most deserving of this honour that was bestowed at the Council Dinner on Thursday evening December 6.

On the 28th November, eight Australians were presented by His Excellency Major General Michael Jeffery AC CVO MC - Patron in Chief of The General Sir John Monash Foundation - with Australia's General Sir John Monash Awards, recognising their excellent academic achievement and future leadership potential.

Dilani Kahawala, 22, from Victoria - Area of study: Theoretical Physics - Quantum Gravity
Dilani has just completed a Bachelor of Engineering degree and a Bachelor of Science degree from Monash University.
She will use her Monash Award to study for a Doctor of Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.
Dilani will study the foundations of quantum mechanics and general relativity and test the fundamental assumptions on which they are based. She will aim to find a physics theory that can describe atoms to galaxies.
Dilani is also keen to reinvigorate pure scientific research in Australia, building bridges between the researchers, engineering applications and the wider community.

Dilani is a graduate from the School of Physics.

A starring role at NASA

As part of an international team, Monash astrophysicist Dr Duncan Galloway has helped discover a rare planetary-mass star orbiting a neutron star. More Info..

EARLY CAREER RESEARCHER AWARD FOR PHYSICS LECTURER

David Paganin, a Senior Lecturer from the School of Physics, recently received the 2007 "Faculty of Science Award for Excellence in Research by an Early Career Researcher". Since the commencement of his employment in the School of Physics in 2002, Dr Paganin has published 42 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, together with a 400-page monograph on "Coherent X-Ray Optics". In total, his papers have received over 1000 citations in the open literature. Dr Paganin has had continuous ARC funding since the beginning of 2003, and aspects of his work arising from his PhD studies have been commercialised. Dr Paganin has an excellent record of supervision and has been nominated by his students for a 2007 supervisor award by the Monash Postgraduate Association. He currently co-supervises or supervises four honours students, seven PhD students, and two post-doctoral fellows.

The history of Physics at Monash.