U3A Perth 2021 SEMINAR SPEAKER PROFILES - Emeritus Professor Alan Robson AO evolution of the Solar System. More recently, her work has CitWA, Patron of U3A Perth transitioned to the use of machine learning and AI to rapidly assess Emeritus Professor Alan Robson retired planetary image datasets. She is an avid and active supporter of as Vice Chancellor of The University of Women in STEM fields and spends time at local schools showing Western Australia (UWA) in 2012. how fascinating Astrogeology and planetary science are. Her work During his career he held many has taken her to 6 continents, including Antarctica twice. She has an positions including Deputy Vice asteroid named after her (6579 Benedix), which will never even come Chancellor, Dean of the Faculty of close to the Earth. Agriculture, Head of the School of Agriculture and Professor of Agriculture. Professor Robson is the Arthur Harvey, Former Chairperson of now-retired Chair of the Western Australian Museum Board of the Perth Observatory Volunteer Group Trustees. Studied Metallurgy at the University of NSW. From 1975 to 2008, managed Emeritus Professor David Blair, metallurgical services businesses in University of Western Australia NSW, Singapore, New Zealand and Emeritus Professor David Blair is an Western Australia. experimental physicist renowned for Interested in Astronomy since 1957 when pioneering several precision he saw the Sputnik 1 ‘fly’ overhead. measurement techniques. David's career Since 2008 he has been a volunteer at Perth Observatory. A former has focused on the direct detection of Chairperson of the Perth Observatory Volunteer Group he is now gravitational waves first predicted by Albert Einstein. This led to the involved in public outreach including night sky tours, group day tours, establishment of the Australian International Gravitational Research school day tours and off-site presentations. Centre at Gingin, part of the School of Physics at UWA, and the

Australian Consortium for Interferometric Gravitational Astronomy. In 2020 Professor Blair and his team were awarded the Prime Minister’s Professor Andreas Wicenec, Science Award. A further prestigious award to add to those David has University of Western Australia already received. Professor Andreas Wicenec is a Research Professor and head of the Data Intensive Astronomy (DIA) program John Curtin Distinguished Professor at the International Centre for Radio Kliti Grice Astronomy Research (ICRAR). Andreas Professor Kliti Grice is an internationally is leading research efforts directed at the renowned organic geochemist and world- challenges of transmitting, storing, and leading authority on molecular and processing the enormous amounts of data generated from the radio stable isotope . Her research telescope arrays being developed in WA. He leads work on three into modern and ancient environments has main projects: greatly enhanced the understanding of 1. Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Science Data Processor Data Earth’s early life, microbial of Layer design the past, aspects of plant and algal physiology and food webs. She 2. Science Survey Support is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, Fellow of Royal 3. High Performance Computing systems. Society of Chemistry and an Honorary Fellow of the Geochemical Andreas joined (European Southern Observatory) ESO in 1997 as Society and European Association of Geochemistry. In 2014 Kliti an archive specialist and was involved in the final implementation of Grice was appointed John Curtin Distinguished Professor in the the archive for ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and then became Department of Chemistry at Curtin University. Professor Grice, who ESO’s Archive Scientist and led the Atacama Large is founding Director of the Curtin-based Western Australian Organic Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) archive subsystem and Isotope Geochemistry Centre and based in Curtin’s School of development group. During his early career he was involved in the Earth and Planetary Sciences, was presented the ANZAAS (Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of software development and reduction of photometric and astrometric Science) Medal in 2018. Tycho data from the Hipparcos satellite. Prof. Wicenec is also involved in the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA). His scientific interests and publications include high precision global Professor Gretchen Benedix, Curtin astrometry, optical background radiation, stellar photometry, University dynamics and evolution of planetary nebulae and observational Professor Gretchen Benedix is a Cosmic survey astronomy and the related scheduling and computational Mineralogist / Astro Geologist and a concepts. Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University. She uses the chemistry, mineralogy, spectroscopy, and petrology of meteorites to understand the

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sulphide vulcanisation. The abundance of steroids derived About the talks from cholesterol, with an original biological stereochemistry, links to the exceptional preservation of derived from e.g., crustaceans. This discovery of steroids including sterols derived from an individual Emeritus Professor David Blair Devonian fossil, bridges the disciplines of molecular fossil and isotope 'Gravitational waves: a new form of astronomy and geochemistry to the field of palaeontology. Microbially-induced carbonate encapsulation, thereby preventing complete transformation a new science curriculum for schools. and decomposition, has significantly expanded our understanding of After a century of argument, innovation and searching, physicists steroid occurrence and diagenesis in the geosphere. Very recently it has discovered Einstein’s gravitational waves on 14 September 2015. Almost been demonstrated that an ichthyosaur vertebra of 183 million years old six years later we have discovered an astonishing population of colliding was found to contain cholesterol but also contains red and white blood black holes throughout the universe. Spacetime is continually rippling as cell-like structures and collagen. The small size of the red blood cells unimaginably vast bursts of energy pass through the solar system. was attributed to an evolutionary adaptation to low oxygen levels in the Neutron stars are merging, creating black holes and spreading gold dust atmosphere when the ichthyosaur lived. and other heavy metals across the galaxy while they become new black holes. Other black holes grow bigger by gulping down neutron stars. On a larger scale enormous black holes gulp down whole stars. Matter is Professor Gretchen Benedix disappearing from our violent universe in processes that have been Views of Mars – Innovative methods in visualisation going on for almost its entire lifetime. of the Red Planet and what we learn from it. The exciting discoveries highlight the fact that most of our school curriculum is still set in the 19th century. Children are turned-off science Mars is the next closest planet to Earth that is in the goldilocks zone for because what they learn in the compulsory years of science is old and habitability. It has always been an object of interest – it was known to the boring, in contrast to the media they watch, where the science they see ancients. Over the last 30 years, our knowledge of the Red Planet has is modern and exciting. Most of our population is disenfranchised from grown at an exponential pace. We have rovers driving around the surface science because they did not learn the language needed to discuss and satellites taking images of the globe at resolutions down to modern discoveries. The Einstein-First project seeks to revolutionise 30m/pixel. This is allowing us to look at the surface of Mars in school science by putting modern concepts first. We believe that unprecedented detail. Using new machine learning techniques has been everyone has the right to share our best understanding of the universe. vital to access the full range of information from these new datasets. She His talk will start with the discoveries of gravitational waves, and then will will take you on a journey of the history of our exploration of Mars. show how easily children learn the Einsteinian concepts which are only difficult for adults whose world view was moulded by concepts that were overthrown a century ago. Arthur Harvey A Journey Beyond. Distinguished Professor Kliti Grice Travel plans curtailed by Covid, not invited to join Branson or Bezos? Microbial Mayhem during Mass Extinction Events: Come on a journey beyond … beyond Earth’s atmosphere to where our artificial satellites orbit, past the Moon, the rocky inner planets and detour The Incredible Evolution of Life on Earth. to our star, the Sun. The largest mass extinction ‘event’ of life about 252 Ma years ago (the Steer through the asteroids to the outer solar system, past Pluto, and the end-Permian event) occurred when climate forces led to low atmospheric Kuiper Belt to interstellar space. Wave as we pass our most distant oxygen levels with a parallel rise in concentrations of dioxide and probes. Pause at our nearest star system and then explore the clusters hydrogen sulphide. The ocean circulation became highly sluggish, and and nebulae in the Milky Way. some 90 per cent of marine and 75 per cent of terrestrial species became Venture further into intergalactic space; meet the Magellanic Clouds and extinct at this time. This event contrasts markedly with the end- our local group of galaxies. Cretaceous that destroyed the non-avian dinosaurs, the Onwards and backwards in time, as we look for the edge of the event was not initiated by a meteorite impactor but by climatic effects observable Universe. related to the aggregation of the supercontinent Pangea and volcanism released from the Siberian traps. Green sulphur bacteria (based on biomarkers) were abundant in the upper water-column of the Late Permian oceans at many locations globally implying that the hydrogen Professor Andreas Wicenec sulphide, on which green sulphur bacteria use as an electron to fix The Square Kilometre Array: A mega-science project , must have also been widespread. Similar in the West-Australian outback. biogeochemical conditions have been invoked from biomarker and stable isotopic studies during all past episodes of rapid global warming The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project is the biggest and most and biotic crisis (e.g., end-Devonian, end-Triassic and end-Cretaceous). complex endeavour ever undertaken in astronomy and about half of it Further, we have recently investigated unique markers associated with will be built and operated here in Western Australia. Later this year the tsunamis and markers of resistant microbial communities from the SKA will finally transition into the construction phase after the adoption Chicxulub impact crater. of the construction plan by the SKA council, which is expected to happen Novel biomarker and stable isotopes approaches have been applied to end of June. Australia, as a host country is one of the biggest contributors reconstruct the paleoenvironmental setting of a Devonian aged and beneficiaries along with South Africa and the UK. In this talk he will fossiliferous deposit in the Canning Basin, WA. Highly unusual carbonate present some of the background and technological challenges as well as concretions, referred to as ‘Gogo nodules’, form around the decaying soft the scientific drivers for this exciting journey to expand the knowledge of tissue of e.g., fish and invertebrates. Biomarkers and stable isotopes humanity. derived from green sulphur bacteria and sulphate reducing bacteria play a significant microbial role in the preservation of the biolipids via

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