When rubbish enters the ocean what happens? Oceanographer Dr Erik Van Sebille says: “The plastic joins other rubbish ... and is eaten by thousands of sea animals, birds and fish who mistake the plastic for food.” Dr Van Sebille is using the NeCTAR Research Cloud to host http://www.adrift.org.au a research tool 'Adrift' to explore how objects drift through the ocean.
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Hooked on an immunology feeling
"Australian scientists in the main are straight shooters with a sense of humour, they are well trained, globally connected and innovative. They do extraordinarily well despite some constraints (including financial at times). As the world becomes more complicated and crowded there is something special about being an Australian and therefore an Australian scientist!"
As a final year veterinary student, Chair of the NeCTAR project Board, Dr Graham Mitchell AO was advised to write an essay on the thymus gland and has been hooked on immunology ever since.
Dr Graham Mitchell AO is recognised as one of Australia's leading biological scientists. An author of more that 350 publications, in 1993 he was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia for services to science. Currently Chief Scientist Victoria and a veterinary graduate, Graham made discoveries in immunology during his PhD studies at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) in the late 1960s. After post-doctoral experience in California, England and Switzerland, he returned to Australia in 1973 and established a new program on the immunology of parasitism at WEHI.
Name: Dr Graham Mitchell AO
Where do you work? Principal, Foursight Associates Pty Ltd and Chief Scientist Victoria
Discipline? Scientific Research; originally Veterinary and Agricultural training; interests in vaccines, biodiversity and food security; advisor in innovation and commercialization; global health (in particular tropical parasitic diseases).
What is your research field and how did you become interested? Cellular immunology and the immunology of infectious diseases (primarily parasitic diseases). In 1965, as a final year veterinary student, I received good advice to write an essay on the thymus gland. This I did, and became hooked on immunology.
What were your inspirations and influences? Major influences have been extraordinary mentors and incredible good fortune, even luck! I enjoy writing scientific papers and seeing my students flourish during their training and beyond. In terms of laboratory based research there is something special about what one of my mentors, Gus Nossal, has described as "a combination of team work and high technology in a bubbling cauldron of ideas".
What has been a highlight for you and your research? Discovery of, and interaction between, T cells and B cells in immunology. Being involved in a wide range of scientific endeavours and new initiatives across the life sciences.
What is a highlight about being an Australian researcher? Australian scientists in the main are straight shooters with a sense of humour, they are well trained, globally connected and innovative. They do extraordinarily well despite some constraints (including financial at times). As the world becomes more complicated and crowded there is something special about being an Australian and therefore an Australian scientist!
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Researchers
Joanne Whittaker is a Research Fellow at the School of Geosciences in the University of Sydney. She conducts research investigating Earth-ocean system phenomena including understanding interactions between upper mantle convection patterns and the manner with which they interact with the newly forming lithosphere of ocean basins.
Nicky Wright is fascinated by the earth’s geologic history. She is currently researching paleogeography throughout the Phanerozoic and combines GPlates, an open source plate tectonic software, with the online global Paleobiology Database to reconstruct past environments. "I am learning how to unravel the secrets of past worlds..."
Sabin Zahirovic is a PhD candidate at the School of Geosciences in the University of Sydney conducting research on the plate tectonic history and evolving geography of our planet through geological time. Sabin has studied the history of the collision between the Indian and Eurasian continent that was responsible for the uplift of the Himalayas and Tibet.
Maria Seton is an Australian Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Geosciences, University of Sydney. She works in the field of plate tectonics and geodynamics, reconstructing the configurations of the continents and ocean basins over hundreds of millions of years using GPlates, a Virtual Geological Observatory prototype.
Dr Shelley Wickham is a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School in the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Working in Associate Professor William Shih’s lab, the entire lab uses an open-source electronic lab book. Shelley shares her research story.
Associate Professor Martin Sevior performs experiments with the world's highest intensity and energy particle accelerators in Japan and at CERN in Switzerland. He shares his research story.
Izabela Ratajczak-Juszko is a Research Fellow at the Climate Change Adaptation Programme of the Global Cities Institute at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She shares her research story.
As a final year veterinary student, Chairman of the NeCTAR project Board, Dr Graham Mitchell AO wrote an essay on the thymus gland - and has been hooked on immunology ever since. Today he is one of Australia's top biological scientists and holds an Order of Australia.
NeCTAR Partners
Senior software developer from Cybera in Alberta, Canada, Everett Toews, recently visited Melbourne to offer his support to Australia's Research Cloud. He shares his experience building clouds. Everett is a keen scuba diver, since 2004. He is seen in these photos playing hockey underwater in Hawaii.
A NeCTAR partner is a friend, an individual or a group doing something of interest to the NeCTAR project. They are not necessarily someone with an economic or stakeholder interest in NeCTAR. As NeCTAR is partnering with a broad range of disciplines; eResearch communities and their computing partners, there are lots of interesting stories to tell. Please email: communications@nectar.org.au
Canada has embarked on building a Research Cloud. Read more about their journey via an interview with technical architect John Shillington.
