The Council of the Royal Society of Victoria records with sadness the passing of a much valued member in Mr William Fenner on 21 August, 2017 at the age of 95.
A member since 2001, Bill was a regular feature at the Society’s lectures and events until moving into care last year. An engineer with expertise in quality and productivity improvement and a keen interest in geology, geophysics, evolutionary biology and international politics, he was a forthright individual, brim full of ideas and a memorable feature of the Society’s meetings, forums and events.
Fondly remembered by all who knew him. Our thoughts and condolences are with Monnie and family at this sad time.
We are absolutely delighted to welcome Simon Torok and Paul Holper of science communication agency Scientell to the Society’s historic building.
Simon and Paul are seasoned science communicators, writers, editors, marketers, media strategists and business developers. They have acquired extensive experience as program managers and communications specialists with CSIRO over many years.
Scientell recently won the 2016-17 Monash Business Award in the “Micro Business” category in recognition of their significant achievements and innovations, which includes one of their pieces being included in The Best Australian Science Writing 2017 – in some very fine company indeed.
As those registered to participate in the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey receive and return their forms over the coming weeks, the Executive Committee and Council of the Royal Society of Victoria wishes to express and explain its support for marriage equality in Australia, acknowledging there will be a plurality of views on this matter within our broad membership.
Many are questioning why legislation recognising the rights of couples from the same gender to marry is legally required. We’ve examined the matter carefully and this position paper presents our conclusions.
We are delighted to announce Dr Kaye Susannah Morgan is this year’s recipient of the prestigious Phillip Law Postdoctoral Award for the Physical Sciences.
Dr Morgan is currently a VESKI Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the School of Physics at her alma mater, Monash University, and is the Chair of Biomedical Physics with the Technische Universität München in Germany. In addition to her remarkable research into soft-tissue, multi-modal, x-ray imaging techniques, Kaye also supervises the next generation of physics PhDs and teaches a Masters course in image processing for physics.
As finalists from a very competitive applicant pool of 41 final year PhDs from across Victorian research institutions, our newest members of the Royal Society of Victoria had already demonstrated the excellence of their scientific research before they even walked in the front door; the final task before them was to communicate the methods and significance of their complex work to a general audience of scientists and science enthusiasts in a clear, concise and engaging presentation of no more than 10 minutes!
