2020 RSV Fellows Appointed

I am delighted to advise the RSV Council Meeting of 27 February, 2020 unanimously agreed to appoint four leaders in the Victorian science community as Fellows of the Royal Society of Victoria.

Being elected a Fellow is the highest membership honour the Society can bestow on a person and entitles the Fellow to use of the postnominals ‘FRSV.’ Our four new Fellows will be formally inducted as part of the Society’s Annual General Meeting program which will be held on Thursday 14 May between 5 and 8pm. Members, please mark this event in your diary. You will receive an invitation with full details, including an address by Professor Marilyn Renfree AO, in late March.

On behalf of your Council, please join me in congratulating our four new Fellows.

Vale Dr David Maughan Churchill, 1933 – 2019

The contribution of Dr David Maughan Churchill to the life and leadership of our Society has been significant, not just as one of our four Trustees, but also as our President from 1983 to 1984. David’s election was a meaningful moment in our long succession of science community leaders, as his corresponding tenure as the Government Botanist of Victoria and Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG) recalled the role and contribution of our first (Royal) President, Baron Sir Ferdinand von Mueller, in 1859, and perpetuated the long relationship between the RBG’s scientific leadership and the RSV.

Deterring Possums with Pyrethrum

After noticing the presence of both brush-tailed and ring-tailed possums foraging around and damaging the plants in her backyard, zoologist and keen gardener Professor Lynne Selwood came up with the idea to develop a substance that could preserve and protect her beloved plants from browsers, i.e., animal species that use trees for their habitat and something that was readily accessible for all to use. During the first five years, she conducted a series of independent experiments, choosing particular plants from her garden that were inedible to possums.

About Nellie Neild – 130 Years of Women at the Royal Society of Victoria

The Society’s first female member, Helen Harriet Neild (1859 – 1907) was registered as a Member of the Royal Society of Victoria on 10th October, 1889. The second child and eldest daughter of eleven siblings in the Neild household, Nellie had been brought up as a young society woman, notably singing at the Shakespeare Society’s musical gatherings in the late 1880s. She had attended the University of Melbourne to attain a science degree, which in those early years was offered as a Bachelor of Arts under Sir Frederick McCoy’s guidance. She is identified by Dr Allan Madsley as a zoologist.

Research Spotlight: Anna Flanagan-Moodie

PhD Candidate, Deakin University PhD Supervisor: Professor Andrew Bennett Winner, 2015 Young Scientist Research Prize for the Biological (Non-Human) Sciences “Prescribed burning decreases den site habitat of the yellow-footed antechinus” For her PhD thesis, Anna investigated the effect of prescribed burning of the den sites of Antechinus Flavipes, commonly known as the Yellow-footed Antechinus (a small, […]