ANFF-VIC success at Research Showcase
A note from the ANFF-VIC Director:
Thank you to all users and staff that made their way to Sydney for the ANFF and AMMRF 2017 Research Showcase on 22-23 November.
The show was a resounding success for all of ANFF, but I want to highlight the particular achievements of the ANFF Victoria community.
Particular congratulations must go to Stella Aslanoglou from Monash University and Raghuram Dharmavarapu from Swinburne University of Technology on their posters titled Orchestrating cellular processes by engineering silicon nanowire architectures and Flat micro-optical elements for control of axial intensity distribution respectively. Both posters were fantastic displays of thoroughly interesting research, and both were recognised with a $500 prize. You’ll soon be able to see both at MCN soon.
ANFF-VIC staff were recognised for outstanding contributions to the ANFF network through the Frater Awards. Named after ANFF’s first chairman, Dr Robert Frater AO, Frater Awards are a professional development award given to ANFF staff for outstanding achievement. The award funds local or international travel aimed at fostering technical and professional growth.
Of four winners in 2017, two were ANFF-VIC engineers. I’d like to formally congratulate Dr Karyn Jarvis from ANFF-VIC’s Biointerface Engineering Hub at Swinburne, and Dr Abu Sadek based at MCN. Karyn will head to the USA to visit two suppliers of large-scale plasma polymerisation reactors, participate in a short course in advanced ellipsometry data processing and visit Medtronic, a global medical technology company. Abu is also going to America, where he will visit the Berkeley NanoLab and the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility to gain further training on furnace processes and advanced characterisation techniques for doped semiconductors. Both will be presenting their findings on their return, so keep your eyes peeled for dates.
If our Node may share in Karyn and Abu’s success momentarily, this is an amazing feat for our team. It’s a testament to the calibre of people within ANFF-VIC and recognition for our experts is becoming a trend – the 2016 Frater Awards also saw ANFF-VIC take home two certificates, won by Dr Hemayet Uddin and Dr Yang Lim.
There was also a number of users that spoke and presented posters, and all stood out as well-communicated and promising science. The two-day event in Sydney saw 64 scientific talks given in total, with speakers selected by a scientific committee to represent work conducted with ANFF and AMMRF across the country. I’m therefore thrilled to see that at least 15 of these talks were highlighting research carried out at the ANFF-VIC node. A similar proportion of the 50 posters that were on display acknowledged ANFF-VIC facilities, including our poster prize winners.
On a personal note – to have so many early career researchers presenting cutting-edge research was very exciting, there’s no doubt we will be seeing a lot more of those faces in the future.
Thanks again to all that came and made this show such a success for us – I hope to see you all at next year’s event and for ANFF-VIC to excel yet again.
Professor Nico Voelcker
ANFF-VIC Director, MCN Scientific Director.
