From john.obyrne at sydney.edu.au Mon Jan 4 10:12:26 2016 From: john.obyrne at sydney.edu.au (John O'Byrne) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2016 23:12:26 +0000 Subject: [ASA] Fwd: Happy new year from the ASA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <78AFF4DE-69A2-449E-A4B3-90D647A1504D@sydney.edu.au> Dear ASA members, As we begin the new year, it's a good time to take the opportunity to reflect on some of the events and highlights of the past year. There were a number of successes, awards and scientific breakthroughs from those in our community - far too many to list everything in a single email - but some achievements that stand out include: -Shari Breen won a L'Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science Australia Fellowship; -Warrick Couch was appointed as an ASA honorary fellow; -Lisa Kewley and Matthew Bailes were awarded ARC lauriate fellowships; -Nine astronomy groups being rated at ERA 5 "above world standard"; -The large number of future fellowships, DECRAs and ARC DPs and LIEF grants that will ensure Australia's world class astrophysics research can continue in 2016. One of the highlights of the year was the launch of the 2016-2025 Astronomy Decadal plan. This document serves the whole community, and thanks must go to Stuart Whyithe, the editors, working group leaders and members and all who contributed to the document. Unfortunately along with the good news, we heard of the passing of two of the society's long-standing members. In January Jim Caswell passed away - a vibrant member of ATNF who contributed to many areas of radio astronomy, Jim had been a member of the ASA since 1976. Ray Protheroe sadly passed away at age 62 - Ray was an outstanding cosmic ray physicist at Adelaide university. The community was also saddened at the loss of Peter McGregor last year - Peter was well known in the astronomical community for both his research and his astronomical instrumentation. 2015 brought about some changes in Australian telescope access, including a new Australian Keck agreement, the first science from ASKAP BETA being published, progress on GMT, and a funding commitment from the Australian government for the SKA. The governance of Australian telescope facilities continues to be assessed by the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science - the ASA is a representative on the committee and welcomes input from the community at any time. The ASA's annual scientific meeting was held in Perth in July, and was a vibrant meeting at a fantastic venue, including parallel sessions and a large number of excellent student talks. The meet was preceded by the Harley Wood School for Astronomy held on Rottnest island. Thanks to Cath Trott, Andrew Walsh, the SOC/LOC for the ASM, and Rebecca Lang, Angus Wright and the LOC/SOCs for the Harley Wood school. Other ASA meetings in 2015 included the ANITA theory workshop at ANU, and the Women in Astronomy meeting at the University of Queensland. The ASA council brought in a new code of conduct in 2015, which attendees all future ASA-endorsed activities are expected to follow (see http://asa.astronomy.org.au/code_of_conduct.php) The ASA council had a number of changes this year - many thanks to Amanda Karakas and Gavin Rowell for their time as ASA councilors, Kate Brooks as councilor, president and immediate past president, and Emily Petroff as student representative, who all finished their terms in July. Special thanks goes to Andrew Hopkins who finished his term as ASA president, and now remains on council as immediate past president. Welcome to newly elected council members Chris Power, Naomi McClure-Griffiths and Stuart Whyithe, and student member Alex Codoreanu. The society wouldn't run without the dedication of council, particularly the work of the longstanding secretaries Marc Duldig and John O'Byrne, and I'd like to extend my personal thanks for their help and support this year. Looking forward to 2016, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ASA at the ASM in Sydney from July 3-8, and I hope to see many members at this special meeting. Council will continue working towards out goals for 2016, including increasing our engagement and support of student members and raising awareness of a broad range of career opportunities, strategic planning with the ASA chapters, conducting a census of the membership and implementing the Peter McGregor award for instrumentation. We look forward to working with and supporting all our members in this coming year. Happy new year, and best wishes for a successful 2016! Virginia Kilborn, President, ASA -- Virginia Kilborn Chair, Department of Physics and Astronomy Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology Swinburne University of Technology Ph (w) +61 (0)3 9214 4380 http://www.astronomy.swin.edu.au/~vkilborn/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thill at museum.vic.gov.au Mon Jan 4 11:46:30 2016 From: thill at museum.vic.gov.au (Hill, Tanya) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2016 00:46:30 +0000 Subject: [ASA] ASA Prizes Open for Nomination - Bok, Heisler and Webster Prizes Message-ID: <48b89074fa484750a7f6b83664d99d56@Bullet.mv.vic.gov.au> Nominations are now open for the following ASA prizes ? the Bok Prize, the Charlene Heisler Prize and the Louise Webster Prize The ASA is also strongly committed to improving the representation and status of women in astronomy. The Society expects that female candidates should comprise at least 25% of the nominations for each prize and acknowledges the support of institutions for helping to achieve this goal. A listing of the percentage of female candidates nominated for each prize across the last three years is included in the descriptions below. Bok Prize - Closing Date: Monday 1st February For most outstanding Honours/Masters thesis in astronomy or a closely related field. Eligible Masters students are those who have entered their Masters degree directly from a 3 year undergraduate degree (without undertaking an Honours year). All degree requirements must have been completed in 2014. A maximum of 2 nominations can be submitted by an Australian University and nominations must be endorsed by the Head of Department and submitted by the candidate?s supervisor. Percentage of female nominations in previous years: 83% (2015), 50% (2014), 0% (2013) Please follow the nomination guidelines at: http://asa.astronomy.org.au/bok.php Charlene Heisler Prize - Closing Date: Friday 4th March For most outstanding PhD thesis in astronomy or a closely related field. The PhD thesis must have been accepted (but not necessarily conferred) by an Australian university during 2014. A maximum of 2 nominations can be submitted by an Australian University and nominations must be endorsed by the Head of Department and submitted by the candidate?s supervisor. Percentage of female nominations in previous years: 40% (2015), 33% (2014), 25% (2013) Please follow the nomination guidelines at: http://asa.astronomy.org.au/chp.php Louise Webster Prize - Closing Date: Friday 11th March For outstanding research by a scientist early in their post-doctoral career, based on the scientific impact of a single research paper (within astronomy or a closely related field), which has the applicant as first author. The applicant is required to have been an ASA member for the last 2 years. Percentage of female nominations in previous years: 100% (2015), 33% (2014), 0% (2013) Please follow the nomination guidelines at: http://asa.astronomy.org.au/lwp.php regards, Tanya Dr Tanya Hill ASA Prizes and Awards Coordinator Planetarium Manager | Senior Curator, Astronomy Melbourne Planetarium, Scienceworks MUSEUM VICTORIA | GPO Box 666, Melbourne 3001 t: 03 9392 4503 (except Mondays) twitter: @nightskymelb museumvictoria.com.au/planetarium This e-mail is solely for the named addressee and may be confidential. You should only read, disclose, transmit, copy, distribute, act in reliance on or commercialise the contents if you are authorised to do so. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, please notify postmaster at museum.vic.gov.au by email immediately, or notify the sender and then destroy any copy of this message. Views expressed in this email are those of the individual sender, except where specifically stated to be those of an officer of Museum Victoria. Museum Victoria does not represent, warrant or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained nor that it is free from errors, virus or interference. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Philip.Edwards at csiro.au Mon Jan 4 12:05:36 2016 From: Philip.Edwards at csiro.au (Philip.Edwards at csiro.au) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2016 01:05:36 +0000 Subject: [ASA] =?windows-1252?q?ATCA_Legacy_Projects_=96_Call_for_Expressi?= =?windows-1252?q?ons_of_Interest?= Message-ID: <0DB5128466F42945A167990E4C451BD663E200A5@exmbx05-cdc.nexus.csiro.au> CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science intends to implement a program of ATCA Legacy Projects from the 2016OCT semester. Legacy Projects will be large, coherent science investigations, not reproducible by any combination of smaller projects, that generate data of general and lasting importance to the broad astronomy community. ATCA Legacy Projects will typically require more than 2000 hours over the lifetime of the project, with the expectation of over 300 hours to be allocated per semester. This call is part of the process to gauge the level of community interest and to assist CASS in ensuring appropriate arrangements are in place to conduct Legacy Projects. Submitted Expressions of Interest will be publicly available, enabling teams to consider options for merging, data sharing or commensal observing, and for other astronomers to register their interest in joining a team. Expressions of Interest are neither binding nor mandatory, but for the reasons given above are strongly encouraged. If there is a sufficient level of interest, CASS will organize a one-day workshop in April for the community to discuss ideas for Legacy Projects in more detail. The Expression of Interest is a free-format document which should be no more than two pages, and which should address as concisely as possible the following points: * (Provisional) Title * Point of contact * Scientific aims (~half-a-page) * Number of objects, or area of sky * LST range(s) * Frequency(/ies) * CABB mode(s) * Array Configuration(s) * Observing strategy * Required Sensitivity * Approximate number of hours in total, and per semester * Indicative resources/Representative team members & skills available * Specific team expertise not yet identified or non-standard ATCA capability required Expressions of Interest should be submitted as a pdf file to Douglas.Bock at csiro.au by 5pm AEDT, Wednesday March 9th, 2016. Submitted Expressions of Interest will be made publicly available from the ATNF website before the end of March. For further information please see the Director?s announcement: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/news/news.php?action=show_item&item_id=1480 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bolejko at physics.usyd.edu.au Mon Jan 4 16:00:17 2016 From: bolejko at physics.usyd.edu.au (Krzysztof Bolejko) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2016 16:00:17 +1100 Subject: [ASA] Save the date: The 2016 Annual Scientific Meeting and Harley Wood School of Astronomy, 30 June - 8 July 2016 Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, It is our pleasure to announce the 2016 Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) of the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) and the 2016 Harley Wood School of Astronomy (HWSA). As 2016 will mark the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Astronomical Society of Australia, the 2016 Annual Scientific Meeting will be hosted by The University of Sydney, where the first ever meeting of the ASA was held in 1966. The Annual Scientific Meeting will be held on 3-8 July 2016, at The University of Sydney, while the preceding Harley Wood School will be held on 30 June - 3 July 2016, at the Tops Conference Centre, Stanwell Tops. Registration for both will open in mid-January 2016. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Chair of the Local Organising Committee at (02) 911 42 168 or via e-mail at krzysztof.bolejko at sydney.edu.au Best regards, Krzysztof Bolejko (Chair of the LOC), on behalf of the LOC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thill at museum.vic.gov.au Mon Jan 4 21:51:18 2016 From: thill at museum.vic.gov.au (Hill, Tanya) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2016 10:51:18 +0000 Subject: [ASA] CORRECTION ASA Prizes Open for Nomination - Bok, Heisler and Webster Prizes In-Reply-To: <48b89074fa484750a7f6b83664d99d56@Bullet.mv.vic.gov.au> References: <48b89074fa484750a7f6b83664d99d56@Bullet.mv.vic.gov.au> Message-ID: <3D513AFD-3BAA-4A5F-8DDD-AD60AFEBDD1C@museum.vic.gov.au> Apologies for the confusion - the degree requirements for the Bok and Heisler prizes must have been completed in 2015 (not 2014 as stated in the email). Obviously I haven't clicked over my calendar for the new year! Closing dates are all correct for 2016. Thanks to those who alerted me of the error. Happy 2016 to all! Tanya Sent from my iPad On 4 Jan 2016, at 12:24 pm, Hill, Tanya > wrote: Nominations are now open for the following ASA prizes ? the Bok Prize, the Charlene Heisler Prize and the Louise Webster Prize The ASA is also strongly committed to improving the representation and status of women in astronomy. The Society expects that female candidates should comprise at least 25% of the nominations for each prize and acknowledges the support of institutions for helping to achieve this goal. A listing of the percentage of female candidates nominated for each prize across the last three years is included in the descriptions below. Bok Prize - Closing Date: Monday 1st February For most outstanding Honours/Masters thesis in astronomy or a closely related field. Eligible Masters students are those who have entered their Masters degree directly from a 3 year undergraduate degree (without undertaking an Honours year). All degree requirements must have been completed in 2014. A maximum of 2 nominations can be submitted by an Australian University and nominations must be endorsed by the Head of Department and submitted by the candidate?s supervisor. Percentage of female nominations in previous years: 83% (2015), 50% (2014), 0% (2013) Please follow the nomination guidelines at: http://asa.astronomy.org.au/bok.php Charlene Heisler Prize - Closing Date: Friday 4th March For most outstanding PhD thesis in astronomy or a closely related field. The PhD thesis must have been accepted (but not necessarily conferred) by an Australian university during 2014. A maximum of 2 nominations can be submitted by an Australian University and nominations must be endorsed by the Head of Department and submitted by the candidate?s supervisor. Percentage of female nominations in previous years: 40% (2015), 33% (2014), 25% (2013) Please follow the nomination guidelines at: http://asa.astronomy.org.au/chp.php Louise Webster Prize - Closing Date: Friday 11th March For outstanding research by a scientist early in their post-doctoral career, based on the scientific impact of a single research paper (within astronomy or a closely related field), which has the applicant as first author. The applicant is required to have been an ASA member for the last 2 years. Percentage of female nominations in previous years: 100% (2015), 33% (2014), 0% (2013) Please follow the nomination guidelines at: http://asa.astronomy.org.au/lwp.php regards, Tanya Dr Tanya Hill ASA Prizes and Awards Coordinator Planetarium Manager | Senior Curator, Astronomy Melbourne Planetarium, Scienceworks MUSEUM VICTORIA | GPO Box 666, Melbourne 3001 t: 03 9392 4503 (except Mondays) twitter: @nightskymelb museumvictoria.com.au/planetarium This e-mail is solely for the named addressee and may be confidential. You should only read, disclose, transmit, copy, distribute, act in reliance on or commercialise the contents if you are authorised to do so. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, please notify postmaster at museum.vic.gov.au by email immediately, or notify the sender and then destroy any copy of this message. Views expressed in this email are those of the individual sender, except where specifically stated to be those of an officer of Museum Victoria. Museum Victoria does not represent, warrant or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained nor that it is free from errors, virus or interference. This e-mail is solely for the named addressee and may be confidential. You should only read, disclose, transmit, copy, distribute, act in reliance on or commercialise the contents if you are authorised to do so. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, please notify postmaster at museum.vic.gov.au by email immediately, or notify the sender and then destroy any copy of this message. Views expressed in this email are those of the individual sender, except where specifically stated to be those of an officer of Museum Victoria. Museum Victoria does not represent, warrant or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained nor that it is free from errors, virus or interference. _______________________________________________ ASA mailing list ASA at physics.usyd.edu.au Change membership status or contact information via ASA's Edit Membership page http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~asamail/asa_membership/asa_members_user_edit.php From swyithe at unimelb.edu.au Mon Jan 4 23:55:56 2016 From: swyithe at unimelb.edu.au (Stuart Wyithe) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2016 12:55:56 +0000 Subject: [ASA] Call for nominations to the NCA Message-ID: The National Committee for Astronomy (NCA) is one of twenty-two National Committees of the Australian Academy of Science (AAS). The NCA exists to foster astronomy in Australia, to liaise with international scientific bodies, and to advise the Council of the Australian Academy of Science on relevant matters. One of its main activities is to oversee the Decadal Plan process for Australian Astronomy. The NCA is made up of eight members appointed by the Executive Committee of the Academy. The current members of the committee are listed at https://www.science.org.au/national-committee-astronomy There are three vacancies on the NCA from 2016, to replace John Dickey, Steven Tingay and Stuart Wyithe who completed their terms in December. To make the process of selecting new members as open as possible, the NCA is calling for nominees from the broader astronomy community. Members of the NCA should be respected members of the Australian astronomy community with a broad spread of institutions and specialisations. Interest in these new appointments from female members of the community is encouraged to ensure gender balance of the National Committee. The National Committee guidelines can be found at https://www.science.org.au/guidelines-national-committees The guidelines relating to membership can be summarised as follows: * Members should be scientists active in the field * Membership shall be appropriate to 'the best interests of Australian science' * Membership will not usually exceed 8 people * Members will usually be appointed for up to 3 years * Re-appointment for one further year is possible in ?exceptional circumstances' Note that all appointments are made by the AAS Executive Committee on the basis of a nomination forwarded by the Chair of the NCA. Nominations will be reviewed by a panel consisting of the NCA Chair (Lisa Kewley), the President of the ASA (Virginia Kilborn) and one Fellow of the Academy who is not an NCA member (Elaine Sadler). This review panel (in consultation with the Academy's Secretary for Physical Sciences) will make a recommendation on the vacant position, which will be forwarded to the AAS Executive Committee for approval. Please send your nominations by email to the new NCA Chair (Lisa Kewley >) before 5pm (AEST) on Friday 5th February 2016. Nominations can be brief (name, institution and a very short outline of expertise are all that's needed, and self-nominations are also acceptable). Best regards, Stuart ============================= Professor Stuart Wyithe Australian Laureate Fellow Deputy Head, School of Physics University of Melbourne Vic, Australia 3010 Phone: +61 3 8344 5083 Fax: +61 3 9347 4783 Email: swyithe at unimelb.edu.au ============================= -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: