BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT MATTERS | March 2, 2018

Dear all,

Next week is a week-long celebration of International Women at Macquarie – there is something on every day, so check out the calendar and join in. Within the department we also have our welcome to first years (Monday sausage sizzle in the courtyard from 12pm) and regular department meeting on Tuesday. So a packed week coming up (in addition to teaching, research, and all that other stuff we do).

And great news – the 2016 Annual Report is now published (many thanks to Jenny Ghabache) and can be found here

cheers,

Michelle

Save the Date

This coming week 5th – 9th March – an event every day for International Women’s Week – see details here

Mon 5th: MQ Women changing the world symposium. MUSE building, level 3, 11am-1pm.

Mon 5th: Welcome to 1st year students Sausage Sizzle; 12.00pm – 1.00pm; Biology (E8) courtyard.

Mon 5th: Special Seminar – Dr Paul Szyszka, University of Konstanz – How flies resolve conflicting odour information from afar; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR (E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Mon 5th: Mason Lecture by Dr Rebecca Johnson, Director Australian Museum Research Institute; 5.00pm – 6.30pm; MUSE 18WW (C7A).

Tues 6th: Gender Equity Summit: 10am-12.30pm; E7A Level 8.

Tue 6th: Department Meeting; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR (E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Wed 7th: Hidden Figures of STEMM photo exhibition opening; 10am; E7B courtyard

Wed 7th: Genesearch & Department Morning Tea; 10.30am – 11.30am; 14EAR (E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Wed 7th: Departmental Seminar – Prof. Angela Moles – Rapid evolution in introduced species: will introduced plant species eventually be accepted as unique native taxa?; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR (E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Thurs 8th: International Women’s Day morning tea; 10.30-11.30am; Biology courtyard

Thurs 8th: International Women’s Day public lecture with Prof Cordelia Fine; 1-2pm; MGSM Room 165

Fri 9th: Writing Workshop by Ken Cheng; 2.00pm – 4.00pm; 6SR (E8B) 111.

Next week 12th – 16th March

Wed 14th: Department Morning Tea; 10.30am – 11.30am; The Hill.

Wed 14th: Departmental Seminar – Prof. Andrew Skidmore – Remote Sensing enabled Essential Biodiversity Variables for environmental monitoring; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR (E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Thu 15th: Promega Morning Tea; 10.30am – 11.30am; 14EAR (E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Thu 15th: Academic promotion info session; C7A Level 3 conference rooms; 2-4pm. Register here by Monday 5th March

Fri 16th: Writing Workshop by Ken Cheng; 2.00pm – 4.00pm; 6SR (E8B) 111.

Coming up

Thu Mar 22nd: HDR Supervision Training – Mental Health; 10.30am – 12.00pm; 14EAR (E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Fri Apr 13th: BioNetwork “Killing it in Science” Research Symposium; 8.30 am – 5.30 pm; Lvl 8, 12WW (E7A).

Tue Apr 17th: L&T Special Seminar Commitment, engagement and learning in a large cohort of students by Maurizio Manuguerra; 1 – 2pm; 6WW (E8C)-212 for (sign up here).

Wed Apr 18th: Biological Sciences Graduation Ceremony; 2.30pm; Location 14SCO (E7B) main hall.

Departmental Seminar Series

March

Wed 21st: Departmental Seminar – Prof. Geoff Hill – Speciation and sexual selection as processes to maintain mitonuclear coadapation; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR (E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Wed 28th: Departmental Seminar – Dr. Michael Stat – Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR (E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

April

Wed 4th: Departmental Seminar – Dr. April Reside – University of Queensland; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR (E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Wed 11th: Departmental Seminar – Assoc. Prof. Kira Westaway – Department of Environmental Science, Macquarie University; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR (E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

General News and Announcements

RESEARCH OUTCOMES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Department Awards for HDRs

This year, the department is coordinating two awards for HDRs in plant sciences, supported by two bequests:

• Tony Price Award for plant ecology (guidelines here)
• Milthorpe Memorial Award in Plant Biology (this includes forestry, agriculture and horticulture) – guidelines here

In both cases, the funds (up to $2500) can be used for research support or conference presentation. Applications close 31st March, and must be submitted to <fse.bio-hod@mq.edu.au>.

LEARNING AND TEACHING

There is an upcoming workshop that will contribute to your requirement of ongoing HDR supervisory training.

Dr Benjamin Wilkes, Clinical Psychologist, Campus Wellbeing will be facilitating the workshop: Responding to Mental Illness in the tertiary setting.

– Managing the supervisory relationship

SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS

Genesearch Morning Tea Next Wednesday, 7th March, 10:30am (coinciding with Departmental Morning Tea), 14EAR (E8A) 280 (Tea Room)

Genesearch MQ Morning Tea flyer

Departmental Weekly Seminar Returns for 2018!

Day/Date/Time/Place: Wednesday, 7th March, 1:00pm – 2:00pm, 14EAR (E8A)-280 (Tea Room).

Speaker: Prof. Angela Moles, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW.

Title: Rapid evolution in introduced species: will introduced plant species eventually be accepted as unique native taxa?

Abstract: Introducing species to a new environment creates excellent conditions for evolution, as the species are released from their old enemies and subjected to a new suite of biotic and abiotic pressures. Our work with herbarium specimens has shown that 70% of the plant species introduced to Australia have undergone significant morphological change since their introduction. Differences between source and introduced populations are retained when they are grown in common conditions (check out the picture of S. African vs Australian beach daisies). If we can’t eradicate introduced species (and we seldom can), then it seems inevitable that they will eventually evolve to become unique new taxa (whether we like it or not). At this point, we will have to decide whether to accept them as new native species, or try to exterminate them. While most ecologists don’t like the idea yet, I think acceptance of introduced species is just a matter of time. I have been called a witch for these ideas before – bring on the arguments!

ADMIN THINGS

Need the HoD’s signature?

Please remember that if you want sign-off an any application, send it to fse.bio-hod@mq.edu.au

Absence on Duty – get in early

Reminder that you are asked to submit Absence on Duty forms AT LEAST two weeks before your departure. Give our lovely admin team a break!

Photo Competition – March 2018 – 1x $100 Gift Card to Win each month!

This month’s theme is SUMMER

Your images could be used on our Department website, this newsletter, on our social media and in other biology publications. A lucky person’s name will be drawn each month, and they will receive a $100 Gift Card!

Criteria

• you must provide caption information including details of what/where/who(names of people)/date
• you must have taken all photos
• the image was taken in the last five years

Please follow the dropbox file request link to submit your images.

Submission close: 30 March 2018

You can enter as many photos as you like – one entry to the draw for each good photo, good luck!

Correct Method for Submitting to Department Matters

Department Matters submissions now have their own email address.  Please send all future submissions to the newsletter to <fse.bionewsletter@mq.edu.au>!

Also, please see the following to correctly format your additions, and keep them rolling in!

You may have noticed that we try to keep all the articles to the same format for the Department Matters, however, rest assured, they do NOT all turn up in this format! To help keep your Department Matters looking as good as possible, when sending in additions to the Newsletter, please try to keep these formatting guidelines in mind.

1. Please write in third person. The information is coming from the Newsletter, not directly from you.
2. Do not use fancy text formatting. Bold heading, normal text, and only italics or bold to highlight. No font size changes will make it through, sorry.
3. If sending via email, set your email output to basic. HTML output will add all sort of formatting that will have to be removed before your article can go into the newsletter.

Keeping to these guidelines will streamline your article’s addition to the newsletter. Thank you.

2018 Office Inspections

Please be advised that your friendly WH&S team will be carrying out all of the office inspections between the 15th March and 15th April.

As usual this is part of our duty to ensure that we are all working in a safe environment, and we will be checking against the same checklist as last year (see attachment). You don’t need to be around when we inspect your area, we’ll come through and then send you the checklist with any issues flagged. Please have a quick look at this checklist and try and ensure that your office and common areas that you are responsible for are in good order before the 15th March. So you have just over a month to get things just tickety-boo.

Thanks

Simon Griffith (on behalf of the WHS committee)

hs_common_areas_offices_inspection_checklist_v2

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SUSTAINABILITY

JOB POSITIONS AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
SIMS Advertising for a Full-Time Post-Doc for an Initial Period of 3 Years

Post.Doctoral.Position

1. Some molecular skills to adapt a prac in Biol115 to create a versatile activity called solving mysteries with DNA
2. Interests in marine conservation with an emphasis on fish to build resources for a marine reserve activity built around a fish ID prac

BLOGS AND OTHER THINGS OF INTEREST

Plant of the Week!

David Mabberley Wins the American Botanical Council’s James A Duke Award for Excellence in Botanical Literature for his book Banks’ Florilegium.

David Mabberley – American Botanical Councils Award for Banks Florilegium

Reference Writing & Gender Bias

This one-page poster is a succinct and evidence-based guide to writing references (for women or men), from the Faculty Women in Stem Committee.

avoiding_gender_bias_in_letter_of_reference_writing

The Tyranny of Metrics

The title of a new book from Princeton University Press.

https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11218.html

This reductive mode of monitoring may lower morale by riding roughshod over professional experience, invite manipulation from gaming the stats to teaching to the test, discourage innovation, promote short-termism and reward dumb luck. The Tyranny of Metrics is an essential corrective to a rarely questioned trend that increasingly affects us all.

New Publications

In the Media

Recent Completions