The University of Sydney School of Physics From the Head 2003 As I take over as Head of School I would particularly time of writing we are finalising relocations like to acknowledge the achievements of my within the School and beginning refurbishments predecessor as Head, Professor Don Melrose. Don needed to achieve these changes. succeeded in the unenviable task of restructuring Due to continuing retirements the School is March the School to reduce the general staff numbers to in the processes of filling two positions for be commensurate with the number of continuing continuing academic staff. One, in the area of academic staff. The result is that the School biological physics, will allow the School to expand now consists of research groups with a central present research efforts in this area. The other administrative structure in place of the previous position is in the area of computational physics, internal research departments with their individual where the School already has considerable expertise. administrative structures. Although the number of In 2002 the School offered for the first time, with The new Head of School, continuing academic staff has fallen significantly great success, Junior undergraduate units of study Assoc. Prof. Brian James over the last ten years or so, this has been in computational science. Both these initiatives accompanied by a large increase in research-only are indicative of the ways in which physics staff supported by external research grants, to the departments can make significant contributions in extent that their number is about twice that of the research and teaching to areas somewhat outside academic staff. This change is symptomatic of the the traditional physics discipline. changes in the research universities, where Another new development is the School’s postgraduate students and research-only staff contribution to high school physics teaching. funded by external grants are essential for most As part of the Faculty’s Kickstart Science program, Contact Details: research programs, and teaching loads for academic the School provides opportunities for high school School of Physics Alumni staff have risen. students to perform experiments from the new Dr John O’Byrne Don’s restructuring has positioned the School Higher School Certificate (HSC) physics syllabus. email well to seek new opportunities, and by the end of Unfortunately, many schools are not able to provide [email protected] phone +61 2 9351 3184 2002 we received very clear evidence of the success this essential component of the syllabus. fax +61 2 9351 7726 of this strategy. Federation Fellow Professor Ben In another connection to high schools, Matt Eggleton, who took up his position at the beginning Ryan, a science teacher at Brigidine College International Science of 2003, together with the School’s Professors Randwick, has been awarded the inaugural Science School Alumni Martijn de Sterke and Ross McPhedran were Teachers Fellowship at the University of Sydney. Dr Jenny Nicholls awarded one of eight successful Australian Research This fellowship will provide Matt with his salary email Council Centres of Excellence funded to commence for 12 months to allow him to pursue full-time his [email protected] in 2003. Their centre, the Centre for Ultrahigh- proposal to build a radio observatory and satellite phone +61 2 9351 3622 bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) communications centre for high school students. fax +61 2 9351 7726 will be based in the School of Physics. This is a major success for the School, which will bring Brian James Postal Address many new people to the School, and confirms the Head of School School of Physics A28 The University of Sydney School as one of the major Australian centres for NSW 2006 Australia photonics research. web site One of the consequences of this success is a http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au major rearrangement within the School to provide See a profile of © School of Physics office and laboratory space for the Centre. At the Brian on page 4 1 Honours to School Members The members of the As the last issue of Alumni News was going to press, School of Physics it was announced that Prof Marcela Bilek was awarded have recently logged a the $35,000 Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical pretty impressive record Scientist of the Year for her work in creating invaluable in terms of awards designer materials for industry. This award is and accomplishments, presented annually by the Federal Government by anyone’s judgment. “for outstanding achievement and potential in the physical sciences that advances, or has the potential to advance, human welfare or benefits society. This prize is awarded to individuals who are no more than 35 years of age at the time of the award.” Dr Karl receiving his Ig Nobel Prize from the 1976 For more information on the work Marcela does, Chemistry Nobel Laureate William Lipscomb her career highlights and a brief biography visit www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~mmmb/ to Associate Professor, as of 1 January 2003. Martijn The 2002 recipient of the Boas Medal from the is a theoretical physicist working in the field of optics, Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) was Prof Peter with close links to people in the Optical Fibre Robinson. The Walter Boas Medal is “to promote Technology Centre amongst others places. His work excellence in research in Physics and is awarded on is outlined on www.physics.usyd.edu.au/theory/ the basis of Physics research carried out in the five martijn_new.html, and elsewhere in this newsletter. years prior to the date of the award.” Peter’s work Dick Hunstead leads the Astrophysics group that runs includes the neurophysical modelling of brain the Molonglo Observatory. His wide-ranging interests dynamics as outlined in the research article in the are covered on www.physics.usyd.edu.au/astrop/ last Alumni News. Other areas of his extensive people/rwh.html. Tim is also an astronomer with research are outlined at www.physics.usyd.edu.au/ his major research topic being asteroseismology – theory/peter_new.html studying the way stars vibrate to gain information Long service medals were awarded to three staff about their interiors that are otherwise hidden. of the School during November. Duncan Campbell- He’s involved with a Danish group that will Wilson, has been with the School’s Molonglo launch Australia’s first space telescope into orbit Observatory near Canberra for 15 years and has been to discover more of the secrets of stars – see the Officer-in-Charge for many of them. Terry Pfeiffer www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~bedding/ has been a technical officer with the School for 20 years, Harry Messel’s motto is “The pursuit of with much of that time spent in Applied Physics. Bill excellence”. When he retired in 1987, the Messel Tango joined the School in 1976 and first worked on Award for Excellence was set up to recognise Prof Marcela Bilek, the prototype Michelson stellar interferometer that excellence in staff and students. The Award is given Malcolm McIntosh Physical Scientist of the Year, 2002 was constructed at Lindfield. This work led to the about every three years and Joe Khachan was the development of the Sydney University Stellar recipient in 2002. Joe works in the Plasma group Interferometer (SUSI) and he continues to play a major and his work on a portable neutron device was role in this project (see the October 2001 issue). reported in the August 1999 issue of the Alumni Martijn de Sterke and Dick Hunstead have been News. More information on his work is available on both been promoted to Professor and Tim Bedding www.physics.usyd.edu.au/app/people/j.khachan/ Last but surely not least, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki was honoured with an Ig Nobel Prize in inter- disciplinary research for his comprehensive survey of belly button lint – who gets it, when, what colour and how much. The “Igs are inflicted on you by the science humour magazine the Journal of Improbable Research” whose website (www.improb.com/ig/ig- top.html) explains that “the Igs honour people whose achievements ‘cannot or should not be reproduced’.” For more information on Karl’s prize-winning research 2 Long service medal winners: Bill Tango, Duncan Campbell-Wilson and Terry Pfeiffer see www.abc.net.au/science/k2/lint/default.htm March 2003 School News Research Funding Success The School of Physics has enjoyed astounding success recently in funding competitions, with a long list of large-scale research projects getting the nod KickStart from the government. The School’s funding allocation from the Australian Research Council (ARC) grants for 2003 alone was $1.4 million spread across Physics ten different projects. In addition to this, the University’s largest grant was In April last year, the School of Physics started its awarded to Professors Ben Eggleton and Martijn de Sterke for research into KickStart program for Year 12 high school physics new devices for nonlinear optical signal processing through the new Centre classes. Many high school teachers lack access to the for Ultra-high band-width Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS). The School experimental equipment required by the new HSC of Physics will act as the lead institution for CUDOS, in collaboration with syllabus, and are still adjusting to the new topics. researchers at four other universities. See page 6 for more info. High school students are now studying super- conductivity and special relativity! The KickStart New Staff program provides hand-on experiments and in-depth The School community has grown over the last few months. Among the knowledge of physics to high school teachers and new faces wandering the halls are Professor Ben Eggleton (Federation Fellow their students.