ALUMNI AND COMMUNITY MAGAZINE 2020 edition Take the Merle Pledge THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND ALUMNI AND COMMUNITY MAGAZINE and advance gender equity UQ has launched the Merle Pledge – an initiative that aims to substantially improve women’s representation in public and professional forums. The Merle Pledge is named after legendary feminist, activist, author and UQ academic Adjunct Associate Professor Merle Thornton AM, who received an Honorary Doctor of Letters in November this year. Merle – alongside friend Rosalie Bognor – famously chained herself to the bar at the Regatta Hotel in 1965 to protest against women not being allowed to be customers at public bars in Queensland. The protest is considered a pivotal moment in Australian women’s liberation movement. CONTACT 2020 EDITION CONTACT The Merle Pledge requires pledgers to request gender equity as a condition of their participation on or attendance at any conference, panel, or event. Hundreds of UQ staff have already taken the pledge and we are now asking our alumni community to join this movement. Join UQ and take the Merle Pledge today to advance gender equity. Learn more: bit.ly/merlepledge UNITED IN #merlepledge New US President WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR AUSTRALIA? SCIENCE From UQ to the FBI PAYING TRIBUTE TO OUR AMAZING LIFE ON THE FRONTLINE RESEARCHERS AND THE GENEROUS An initiative of the SAGE Athena SWAN program at UQ OF NATIONAL SECURITY SUPPORT OF THE UQ COMMUNITY Image: Glenn Hunt Message from the Chancellery Contents without its bright spots, including the THE BIG QUESTION return of Professor Deborah Terry AO as UQ’s 4 How far should governments go in Vice-Chancellor and President. Debbie is well restricting people’s freedoms in the known to our community, having worked name of public health? here for 24 years and rising to become UQ’s Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, before being appointed Vice-Chancellor at Curtin INDIGENOUS LEADERSHIP University in 2014. 6 UQ graduate Professor Megan Davis Within this edition, Debbie has outlined reflects on her career dedicated to how we have responded to the pandemic, achieving constitutional reform. and discusses the role universities can play in driving Australia’s economic recovery. I thank Debbie for her calm and steady VALIANT VACCINE TEAM leadership and her work with the senior 8 How UQ’s amazing researchers and leadership team to steward UQ through this the community banded together to disruptive period. help fight back against COVID-19. Thanks must also go to our alumni community, whose generosity of spirit was he accuracy of Bill Gates’s stark again evident in the annual Giving Day and BACK IN TIME FOR CLASS warning at the 2017 World Economic particularly through philanthropic support of 14 Contact heads to the photo archives Forum in Davos of the risk of a the UQ COVID-19 vaccine. to show how UQ has changed flu-like epidemic rapidly spreading To return to Bill Gates, not only was he over the past 110 years. Twith devastating consequences through our correct about the pandemic but also about the inter-connected world might seem eerily interconnected world we live in. prescient in 2020. But perhaps it shouldn’t. As a university, our global connections are THE IMPOSSIBLE ROW After all, Gates’ prediction was undoubtedly one of our great strengths. We are anchored 32 How UQ graduate Cameron Bellamy shaped by the weight of evidence generated in our community, but we are also traders in survived the world’s most dangerous by the world’s foremost experts on the subject. the global marketplace of ideas and we must stretch of ocean – in a rowboat. While there may be no single expert view continue to engage deeply with our region and on anything, following the evidence is what the beyond. So too must our country. pursuit of knowledge is based on and certainly There has been much recent commentary GRAND FINAL GLORY on sovereign capability and there is sense better than succumbing to the pull of prejudice 50 Queensland won the right to host the in this including diversifying supply lines for or instinct. AFL grand final this year. But what will critical goods. Public policy must weigh many competing it mean for the state and the game? considerations. As anchors of expertise, But while globalisation may well slow, universities can make a significant contribution it will not disappear. At the heart of to grappling with complicated public policy globalisation sits comparative advantage in issues such as the health and economic trade and the efficient allocation of resources, consequences of the pandemic. and we abandon these concepts at our COVER IMAGE CONTACT is produced by Marketing and Material in this publication does not GET MORE ONLINE Within the pages of this print edition of economic peril. Communication and Advancement, necessarily reflect the policies of Stay up to date with the big issues and connect Contact for 2020 – the first of what will now Our wealth as a nation and the living UQ COVID-19 The University of Queensland, Brisbane, The University of Queensland. with your UQ peers on the Contact website. be an annual publication, complemented by a standards of our citizens are best served by an vaccine project QLD 4072, Australia Printing: printcraft.com.au With more online content than ever before – co-leader monthly e-newsletter – this expertise is manifest. outward looking community, an open economy Telephone: +61 7 3365 9723 Contact is printed on FSC certified paper including news, features, opinion, advice, Professor Email: [email protected] manufactured from sustainably managed forests. picture galleries and videos – Contact brings Alongside alumni highlights of 2020, there and a liberalising trade system. COVID-19 does Paul Young. Website: contact-magazine.uq.edu.au you the latest UQ and alumni news, plus expert is expert commentary on the big issues and not change that. © The University of Queensland 2020 commentary and analysis. Image: Editor: Michael Jones events throughout the year: the heroic efforts Nor does it change the fundamental CRICOS Provider Number: 00025B Anjanette Webb purpose of the University to push out the Design: Michael Jones, James North, Craig Oddy We also encourage you to have your of UQ’s COVID-19 vaccine development team; say on the stories and issues that Indigenous leadership and constitutional boundaries of knowledge and create informed Contributors: Dr Rebecca Ananian-Welsh, Professor matter to you. citizens who contribute to their community – Peta Ashworth, Marc Barnbaum, Professor Shaun reform; the US election; and the bushfires that UPDATE YOUR DETAILS Visit contact-magazine.uq.edu.au. whether that community is local, national, or Bond, Robert Burgin, Mikaeli Costello, Harriet devastated swathes of our country early in Dempsey-Jones, Professor Charles Gilks, Bruce To update your details, visit the year. This commentary helps us to better global – and who are committed to enriching Ibsen, Dominic Jarvis, Professor Jolanda Jetten, alumni.uq.edu.au/ understand the issues and reach our own our society. If anything, it only reaffirms it. Stacey King, Professor Justin Kenardy, Professor update-your-details Kristen Lyons, Professor Martine Maron, Zoe conclusions about their significance. McDonald, Paul O’Farrell, Suzanne Parker, Dr April While 2020 has been a year of Peter Varghese AO Reside, Elliot Stein, Professor Karen Thorpe, Greta considerable challenge, it has not been Chancellor Usasz, Associate Professor Gabby Walters 2 UQ CONTACT 2020 UQ CONTACT 2020 3 The Big Question Professor Charles Gilks The second is that humans have huge School of Public Health capacity for innovation. During restrictions Faculty of Medicine there have been many everyday examples Preserve and of individuals innovating, discovering new There is a social contract in representative interests – and rediscovering old. democracies that governments have the power The pandemic has shone a light on some WHAT YOU to restrict individual freedoms to protect the social inequities and maybe presents an SAID ONLINE Image: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images Image: Quinn Rooney/Getty public’s health, with citizens trusting their opportunity for social reform. elected representatives to use whatever means There is one PROTECT are necessary but not to abuse these powers. Dr Rebecca Ananian-Welsh restriction which Contact put the question to UQ experts across a range of disciplines: how far should In a pandemic, the state therefore has Law School I believe has the Australian and state governments go in restricting people’s the right and obligation to put in place the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law gone too far: the freedoms in the name of public health? necessary measures to reduce and interrupt current passenger transmission to protect individuals and society. Governments are vested with incredible entry restriction The interventions need to be informed by powers that infiltrate most aspects of our for Australians public health experts with the most accurate daily lives. Getting it right when it comes to stranded overseas. Professor Jolanda Jetten As government officials have repeatedly JOIN THE and up-to-date information. It is critical that protecting safety, security and liberty is no Aussies overseas governments clearly and regularly communicate easy task, but our constitutional frameworks have been forced School of Psychology pointed out, the COVID-19 restrictions are CONVERSATION Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences introduced to save lives — not just our own to their citizens what needs to be done and why, and values have evolved with this in mind. to wait months but also that of others. This alone would To have your say, visit so that individuals and communities understand While governments have (and need and to enter Australia For a number of reasons, the answer to this seem a sufficient reason for Australian contact-magazine. and accept the restrictions and act accordingly. must exercise) invasive powers, legal measures despite the fact that question should be straightforward: very far.