The UQ in America Foundation has been established to boost alumni relations and philanthropy

The University of Queensland has officially launched its new American strategy at a special event at the Australian Embassy in Washington DC.

The function in June, which also formed part of the Global Challenges Lecture Series, coincided with the opening of a new University office on 15th Street, with dedicated staff to facilitate and support the University’s engagement initiatives in the USA.

The move comes as UQ advances its international agenda to expand linkages and partnerships with American businesses, government bodies, universities and alumni.

The University’s strategy in the USA will encourage and support research collaboration and commercialisation, foster student exchange, and rally the support of UQ’s USA-based community of alumni and friends.

The University of Queensland is currently involved in more than 2300 research projects with collaborators in more than 50 countries, $43 million of which involve a USA-based partner.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield said the strategy signalled the serious commitment of the University to deepening its collaboration with its USA partners.

“The new office in Washington DC will support us to build strategic research and educational collaborations and increase student and staff exchange with our American partners,” Professor Greenfield said.

“We want to continue to be a university that is connected with the global community and one that addresses the issues that are impacting on today’s world.

“To do this, we are strengthening our connections in America and establishing The University of Queensland in America Foundation as a separate entity, which will be dedicated to supporting the University in delivering excellence in teaching and the perpetuation of cutting edge research and discovery.”

(From left): Secretary of UQ in America Karen Van Sacker, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Advancement) Clare Pullar, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International) Dr Anna Ciccarelli, Professor Paul Greenfield, Professor Debbie Terry and Associate Director (Education) UQ Washington DC Office Jen Nielsen outside the foundation building

The mission of The University of Queensland in America Foundation is to encourage sustained philanthropic support from alumni and friends, with the foundation established as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organisation.

“Strategic philanthropy has enabled The University of Queensland to dramatically increase its capacity to contribute to global problem-solving through support of the University’s eight research institutes and to offer life-changing education to the best and brightest students regardless of their background,” Professor Greenfield said.

“Truly great global universities have significant philanthropic engagement from their alumni and friends. A key factor leading to The University of Queensland’s success is due to our philanthropic supporters who have engaged their networks across the globe.”
The inaugural Chair of the foundation is the Chairman and CEO of Dow Dr Andrew Liveris.

Dr Liveris graduated from UQ with first-class honours in chemical engineering in 1975, and joined The Dow Chemical Company’s Australian offices in 1976. Throughout his career, Dr Liveris has maintained strong links with the University and was its 2005 Alumnus of the Year.

The Global Challenges Leadership event in Washington DC featured Director of UQ’s Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, Professor Robert Henry, who spoke about food security and biofuels.

In attendance were members of the UQ senior executive, American alumni and partners, and guests including former Premier Peter Beattie, who is an advisor and guest lecturer at Clemson University in South Carolina.

To learn more about The University of Queensland in America Foundation, contact Karen Van Sacker – k.vansacker@uq.edu.au

By Kathy Grube

UQ veterinary science alumnus Ivor Harris at the Auster emperor penguin rookery near Mawson station

Experiencing two weeks without sunlight while withstanding average temperatures of -20°C would be enough to send most Queenslanders packing.

But for UQ alumnus Ivor Harris, it’s all part of the challenge of living and working on the coldest, driest and windiest continent on Earth – Antarctica.

Whether it’s travelling on quad bikes along sea ice, getting up close to the largest royal penguin colony in the world, or catching baby fur seals for tagging, the veterinarian and former UQ staff member has come to call the isolated continent his second home.

Mr Harris has completed three tours as manager for the Australian Antarctic Division’s (AAD) Casey (2003), Mawson (2006) and Macquarie Island (2010–2011) stations – spending up to one year at a time at each base.

“Going to Antarctica had always been an ambition of mine and the idea of spending a year down there in a such challenging role and in such extreme environmental conditions was very attractive to me,” Mr Harris says.

“Even though I’ve now spent just under three years in total living there, I can confidently say I’m still not sick of it.”

Often referred to as “the freezer”, Antarctica has been visited by fewer than 200,000 people. Mr Harris is one of only a small number of Australians who live there in any given year.

AAD staff venture to Antarctica to carry out environmental management and research programs that are critical to understanding global change and human impacts on the continent.

Summer is the busiest time for researchers, with much smaller numbers staying to see out the harsh winter. With a mere four hours of twilight a day for two weeks and temperatures falling to -40°C on the coastline and -80°C inland, the season is considered the most difficult time of year in Antarctica.

“It was certainly challenging, not only because of the climate, but also due to the confinement and isolation of a small community,” Mr Harris explains.

“You can’t leave from March to November, because no planes can fly in or out.

“So, for nearly eight months we were physically alone, even though we had good electronic contact with the rest of the world.”

Despite the difficulties endured during the Antarctic winter, Mr Harris is continually drawn back to “the freezer” by his passion for the continent’s unique wildlife.

Ivor Harris inspects a rabbit-devastated coastal grass slope on Macquarie Island

“The animals you find there are such marvels of biological adaptation,” he says.

“Their sheer numbers on land is a remarkable trait of living in such a harsh environment and while they rarely see humans, they have little fear of people.”

Mr Harris has witnessed firsthand spectacular scenes that most of us only see in wildlife documentaries, including the “extraordinary experience” of standing amongst colonies of hundreds of thousands of emperor and king penguins.

“The noise, smell and huge size of the group are prominent at first, but as your nose and ears adjust you notice more of the characters and behaviours of the individual animals. You become more conscious of each penguin on its own rather than the vast group,” he says.

One aspect of Mr Harris’s work on Macquarie Island involved catching and handling fur seals to tag, micro-chip and retrieve skin scrapings for DNA analysis.

“Fur seals are one of the dominant predators of the Antarctic ecosystem. Understanding their health helps us understand whether the environment is under stress,” he says.

But traversing the unrelenting terrain of ice, rock and snow to get to the animals was sometimes no easy task.

“Vehicular sea ice travel requires a high level of awareness of the environmental hazards such as areas of thin ice, tide cracks in the ice and accumulation of deep snow on the sea ice, which can mask the danger underneath,” Mr Harris explains.

“It was scary at the time, but I look back on it now and think it was great fun.”

Knowing how to travel safely in Antarctica is just one of the skills taught in the intensive training undertaken by AAD staff.

Selection for a station manager role is very competitive and involves a number of steps including a week-long selection process in Tasmania focusing on survival skills, leadership exercises and psychological training.

“They really want to make sure you have the physical, emotional and mental attributes to cope with the isolation and confinement, as well as any people challenges that may emerge during the year,” Mr Harris says.

“I was very fortunate to be selected as a station manager on my first application. After being in the role once, it was easier to apply for the position on Mawson and Macquarie Island.”

In between his stints to Antarctica, Mr Harris works as a scientific officer with the rank of Major at the Army Malaria Institute at Enoggera in Brisbane, where he is responsible for operations and logistics, and is involved in anti-malarial drug development and veterinary supervision.

In recent years, he has also contributed to malaria elimination activities in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands as part of an AusAID-funded project.

Early in his career, Mr Harris worked as a UQ lecturer in veterinary science before taking on the role of Director at the central animal breeding house at the Pinjarra Hills farm.

His interest in microbiology and parasitology grew during his employment at the centre and he returned to his alma mater to complete a Master of Philosophy (veterinary microbiology) – researching novel ways of treating difficult types of biological wastes, particularly piggery and other animal effluents.

During his time on Macquarie Island, his expertise in this field was greatly sought after.

“Although I wasn’t at Macquarie on a scientific basis, I assisted in several biology projects where my professional abilities were put to good use, in particular for a pest control program for feral rabbits,” Mr Harris says.

Drilling ice to place a bamboo cane track marker at Casey Station

“But my studies in biological sciences also gave me grounding for a broader spectrum of research activities, which assisted me greatly in my work in Antarctica.”

When asked about plans to return to “the freezer”, Mr Harris’s response is telling.

“I’d love to go to the Davis station to complete all four of the Australian bases,” he says.

“Preferably in winter.”

By Caroline Bird

Margaret Olley in conversation (2009) from The University of Queensland on Vimeo.

The University of Queensland joined with the Australian arts community earlier this year to mark the passing of singular artist and philanthropist Margaret Olley AC.

Awarded a UQ honorary Doctor of Letters in 1999 in recognition of 50 years of service to the arts and philanthropic endeavours, Ms Olley passed away in Sydney on July 26 at age 88.

At a special memorial service at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Governor-General Quentin Bryce was among those who paid their respects. Ms Bryce discussed how she had visited the artist at her home just a few days before she died, and how they had discussed a Picasso that was to be gifted to the National Gallery of Australia.

Reflecting Ms Olley’s love of music, the service incorporated performances by didgeridoo player William Barton, pianist Alexey Yemtsov, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. In attendance were many artists and gallery directors including Betty Churcher, Edmund Capon, John Olsen and Ray Crooke. Also present were the two Archibald Prize-winning portraits of Olley – William Dobell’s entry from 1948 and the radically different likeness by Ben Quilty that was named this year’s winner.

Lismore-born and Somerville House educated, Ms Olley was best known for painting still lifes and interiors of her own house and landscapes.

Following some initial controversy, the 1948 Archibald Prize-winning portrait became a sensation and attracted visitors in their thousands. Ms Olley reacted to this early fame by escaping to Europe for four years. While there she worked and studied in London, before moving to Cassis in the South of France. Following studies at La Grande Chaumiere school in Paris she held a critically successful one-woman exhibition, but returned to Australia in 1953 citing homesickness.

In the 1960s, Ms Olley enjoyed a series of artistic successes, winning multiple regional awards in areas as far apart as Redcliffe in Queensland and Bendigo in Victoria.

As prolific as she was popular, Olley’s work can be found in the majority of public galleries in Australia. A 2009 retrospective staged at the UQ Art Museum – Life’s journey – set attendance records for the gallery. Focusing on pen and ink watercolours, it provided visitors a unique insight into the artist’s world from the early 1950s to the 1970s. The works were drawn from national, state and private collections (including the artist’s own), and featured scenes captured in places as diverse as Paris, Papua New Guinea and the old gold mining town of Hill End.

Ms Olley’s work looked to a modernist French tradition that generally pre-dated cubism. She particularly admired artists including Fantin-Latour, Bonnard, Vuillard and Gauguin.

Her many achievements included being awarded Australia’s highest civilian honour in 2006 – the Companion of the Order of Australia – for service as one of Australia’s most distinguished artists, for philanthropy to the arts, and for encouragement of emerging artists.

University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield said there “will never be another Margaret Olley”.

“Although tiny in physical stature, she was a towering figure in Australian art, philanthropy, and cultural and public life,” Professor Greenfield said.

“The UQ Art Museum is one of the many institutions that she enriched with her generosity and her vision. Among other things, Margaret sponsored the inaugural UQ National Artists’ Self-Portrait Prize in 2007, and gifted the winning painting, by Ben Quilty, to the University.”

Ms Olley was an astute businesswoman, and as her wealth grew she became a generous donor to institutions including the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 2009, she gave the gallery $1 million towards the purchase of Cezanne’s famous landscape Bords de la Marne.

“Giving is part of the receiving,” she once said. “It’s a natural turn of the wheel.”

Ms Olley lived permanently in Sydney from about 1980 and her iconic Paddington home was filled with colourful objects, furniture and art collected from her travels around the world. The jury is still out on how to best create a lasting memorial to Olley’s incredible life and work, although a photographic survey of her house was recently completed, with plans for an interactive website.

She may not have been the nation’s most critically acclaimed artist throughout her long career, but she was arguably the most loved.

“Visitors to our art museum adored Margaret and her art,” Professor Greenfield said.

“Generations of artists, arts administrators and art lovers were saddened by her death. However, we will never really lose her, because Margaret Olley lives on in the art, through the younger artists she mentored, and in her extraordinary portfolio of gifts to galleries and museums all over the country.”

By Fiona Kennedy. Additional reporting courtesy The Australian

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An occasion to remember: Max Olding and Pamela Page receive their honorary doctorates from Academic Registrar Linda Bird and UQ Chancellor Mr John Story

Renowned concert pianists Max Olding and Pamela Page shared the concert stage in Brisbane earlier this year for a performance of a different kind.

On May 29, the long-serving UQ staff members were not seated at the piano, but standing before Chancellor Mr John Story at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre to receive the University’s highest honour.

The pair’s contributions to music and music education in Australia were recognised with the degree of Doctor of Music honoris causa. It was a special occasion for the couple, who first met on stage in London 56 years previously when they tied for first place in the inaugural Royal Trust Fund Competition.

Both were studying in London at the time of their first encounter. Mr Olding had graduated from the University of Melbourne and won the ABC Young Performers Competition in 1952. Ms Page had given her first ABC broadcast at the age of four and completed concurrent AMusA and LMusA awards by 15 before moving to London to study at Trinity College. There she won the Maude Seton Prize as the most outstanding student.

Mr Olding says he was smitten at first sight, and the couple’s lifelong personal and professional partnership has contributed enormously to the musical life of Australia.

Ms Page joined UQ in 1968 to teach into the new Bachelor of Music degree, serving as a full-time staff member until 1996 before returning in a part-time capacity. Mr Olding joined the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and started teaching at UQ on his retirement. Though 82, he is still a familiar face in the corridors and piano studios on campus.

Head of the School of Music Professor Margaret Barrett said she was delighted to see the pair recognised for their enduring contributions to music.

“Max Olding and Pamela Page have given so much to music in Australia over many years – as teachers, performers and recording artists; through their service to the AMEB, and as adjudicators at so many competitions. It was very fitting that their contributions be recognised by the University in this way,” Professor Barrett said.

Mr Olding said the ceremony was an occasion of great personal significance.

“These awards mark the point at which the wheel has turned full circle. They are in a sense the culmination of the duality that has been the basis of a wonderful partnership, in both our personal and professional lives,” he said.

However, their journey is not over. A proud moment for the couple occurred last year when their talented UQ music student Oliver She won the prestigious ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year Award – the same prize Mr Olding had himself secured in 1952.

Mr Olding says his award-winning pupil is an extraordinarily talented and highly motivated performer who is unflappable under pressure – the attributes of someone who will make his mark in the music profession.

Oliver She performs Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto

Following the acceptance of their honorary doctorates on stage, Mr She was on hand to demonstrate the results of the pair’s fine teaching, performing Beethoven’s Emperor Piano Concerto. The young musician joined with the UQ Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Warwick Potter, in a stirring showcase of pianism that was warmly received.

Throughout their long careers, the couple have performed in venues ranging from the Sydney Opera House to air force hangars. Their passion to communicate the joy of music and respect for each others’ musicianship have been defining aspects of their lives. Their involvement in music remains undiminished and their motto remains: “While we can, we shall.”

By David Mayocchi

Cindy Shannon from The University of Queensland on Vimeo.

The University of Queensland has confirmed its commitment to supporting educational and employment opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with the creation of a new Pro Vice-Chancellor role to lead all Indigenous initiatives across the University.

Indigenous health expert Professor Cindy Shannon has been appointed UQ’s inaugural Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Education).

A Ngugi woman and descendant of the Quandamooka people of Moreton Bay, Professor Shannon will initially be responsible for leading the implementation of a comprehensive Indigenous strategy.

She will aim to strengthen leadership within the University in relation to Indigenous education and build links with the community as part of UQ’s new Strategic Plan 2011–2015.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield said by creating the new Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Education) position and appointing Professor Shannon, the University was declaring its commitment to stronger leadership in Indigenous higher education.

“UQ has a responsibility to extend to young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the same excellent opportunities that we offer all young Australians,” he said.

“For maximum impact we must work alongside Indigenous Australians, and the respect earned by Professor Shannon in academic and Indigenous circles makes her the ideal person to fill this demanding leadership role.

Professor Cindy Shannon, The University of Queensland's inaugural Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Education) at the St Lucia Campus

Professor Shannon is the Chair of the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Foundation, which was established in 2008 and currently funds 450 scholarships to support Indigenous students in grades 11 and 12. She said her core goals as Pro Vice-Chancellor were to improve the participation and success of Indigenous students at university.

As part of her new role, Professor Shannon will be Director of UQ’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit (ATSIS), which was formed in 1984 as a centre of excellence and expert opinion on teaching, research and consultation in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.

Professor Shannon, who was previously Director of the Centre for Indigenous Health at UQ, also brings a unique relationship with Aboriginal community controlled health services to the University. She has an ongoing affiliation with the Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health Council and led the establishment of the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health in South East Queensland in 2010 with a continuing role as its Academic Director.

“Through partnerships such as this, UQ can make a significant contribution to the COAG Closing the Gap targets for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” Professor Shannon said.

“UQ will play a major role in supporting program design and delivery, high quality health services and related research and capacity building through education and training.”

By Kathy Grube

UQ alumnus Professor Michael Steer has used his skills and knowledge to tackle improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the Middle East

Imagine trying to defuse an explosive device from a distance, in the dark, and with no hands.

That was the challenge faced by UQ alumnus Professor Michael Steer, one of the world’s leading electromagnetic experts and an unlikely hero in the fight against improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

For four years the electrical engineer devoted himself to remotely disabling these weapons – a leading cause of casualties in modern warfare, particularly in the Middle East.

His research has been no less than “a game-changer” according to Major General Nick Justice, who last year presented Professor Steer with the Commander’s Award for Public Service at North Carolina State University, where he now teaches.

Professor Steer says improvised explosives have steadily gained popularity since the Nazis employed them to lethal effect in World War II.

“Of course back then the IEDs were not radio controlled and relied on timers and signals sent over wires to set them off,” he explains.

“What has happened over the last 10 years is that low-cost radios have become ubiquitous. Insurgents have been able to leverage the results of a multi-trillion dollar industry. The bombings in Bali, UK, Spain and Russia have all used IEDs. We can be pretty certain that IEDs will be an important part of conflicts for a very long time.”

So how did a UQ-educated engineer help save the lives of service personnel in distant, dangerous battlefields?

With the support of his family, Professor Steer worked through weekends and holidays from 2002–2005 to lead a crack research team at North Carolina State University. The project was an all-consuming one, and saw him dedicate 80 to 90 hours a week to the task. Even Christmas was not off limits, requiring 5.30am starts to get the job done.

But despite receiving one of the US Army’s highest civilian honours, Professor Steer – a naturalised American citizen – insists he was simply an academic doing his job.

Professor Steer (left) receives the Commander’s Award for Public Service from Major General Nick Justice

It’s telling that such groundbreaking research had an equally extraordinary beginning: the September 11 attacks in New York.

Stuck in San Francisco on business and unable to return home, the electrical engineer started thinking about how his unique skills could be put to good use.

“I had no idea of what to do but I knew that I had a better understanding of how circuits, that is communication devices, and electromagnetic fields interact,” he recalls.

“If this was ever going to be a solution to a problem then I needed to make sure that I worked on it. It seemed that my entire career was getting me ready to solve this type of problem.”

Upon returning home, Professor Steer continued work that had started in Brisbane several decades before as a postgraduate student.

In the 80s, he completed his Bachelor of Engineering, honours and PhD at UQ, tinkering with microwave circuits to gain a better idea of their behaviour and composition. He did this by embracing complex non-linear equations that allowed him to visualise and test the circuits’ design more accurately.

The details of Professor Steer’s IED work remain classified, but the quest for answers began when he beamed electromagnetic energy at communications devices to test their response. Research based on this work has helped prevent terrorists from triggering roadside bombs wirelessly.

“If you want to learn about your environment from a distance there are not too many kinds of physics that you can use,” he explains.

“You can use electromagnetic fields (radio waves). You can use imaging say from a video camera, or you can use acoustics or sound. About half my work concerns using acoustics to probe the environment.”

A creative way to visualise this process is to look to the tricorder device from sci-fi favourite Star Trek.

“A tricorder was a handheld cellphone-sized device that would tell the user if there was something unusual in the environment. That is one of the concepts I had, to find out if there is something there that should not be there. It seems that science fiction is a good predictor of science fact,” he says.

While the breakthroughs eventually came, there was a long period where Professor Steer and his team struggled to find focus and adequate support. Growing tolls on the battlefield compounded their frustration.

“About halfway through no one had shown particular interest and we thought that perhaps we had it all wrong,” he recalls.

“We had the passion and eventually people of goodwill really came to understand what we were saying. We were asking people to think in an unconventional way and we were also covering an incredible breadth of concept – from the physics involved to communication theory.

“When the right people were convinced, lots of resources were brought into play to turn the concept into reality. This was a courageous move as a large number of scientists and engineers had to drop other promising concepts that they were working on at the time.”

Although the team hoped their work would make a difference, Professor Steer says the true impact was measured in the responses he received after the award from those serving on the front line.
“The messages from soldiers and marines who were in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 and later stick in my mind. The common theme is that they were wondering if anyone cared or was working on the problem of improvised explosive devices,” he says.

“It must be a terrible feeling to be doing your country’s duty and be faced with what looked like insurmountable life-threatening difficulties and have doubts that anyone back home cared. I think that all members of our militaries need to be reassured that there are many people who work hard to support them.”

Professor Steer’s belief in the importance of giving back reflects the provenance of his current position as Lampe Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

“I have an endowed chair that enables me to do those things that I could not do otherwise. The endowment is used to host visitors, conduct workshops and meetings, to do high-risk research that no one would ever fund, and to travel to meetings outside my research area,” he explains.

“Universities in the US would not be nearly so strong if it were not for alumni donating buildings, providing scholarships to students, and supplementing the salary of academics.”

Professor Steer is also a proud member of the Association of Old Crows, an international fraternity named after the “ravens” who were involved in electronic warfare during World War II.

He says one of the simplest concepts has proven to be the most pivotal in his career to date – the importance of networking and sharing ideas with others.

“Diversity is the spice of ideas. It does not matter what you do or what business you’re in. People must be exposed to a range of different ways of thinking to be in a position to make a difference,” he says.

“It has been incredibly true for me. It is as though my whole professional career was designed to solve some of the very challenging terrorism and insurgency problems that the world faced in the last decade.

“Always try and learn from whatever situation you are in; don’t tune out. It is surprising how much this approach bears fruit.”

By Cameron Pegg

Volunteers help clean the running track at the UQ Athletics Centre

“A positive outcome of the flooding has been greater community acceptance of the University as being an integral part of it, and not so much a world set apart from everyday problems.”

So wrote UQ publication University News, discussing the inundation of the St Lucia campus in the 1974 Australia Day floods.

Fast forward to January 2011 and UQ was again both the recipient of community help and an important resource for others.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield said although the St Lucia and Gatton campuses sustained damage in the extensive flooding, most of the University’s teaching and research buildings were untouched.

The flood peak of 4.46 metres in Brisbane on January 13 was below the 1974 highwater mark of 5.45 metres.

In low-lying areas, sporting facilities, some research infrastructure, two childcare centres and International House were damaged.

Customs House temporarily lost power and there was some flooding at the Pinjarra Hills and Indooroopilly facilities. While the Gatton campus was isolated and became a temporary home to 55 people, the Herston and Ipswich campuses were not affected.

“The University is grateful to its dedicated staff, students, contractors and volunteers who helped recovery operations to proceed at a faster pace than expected so UQ was in an excellent position to resume operations within a week of the floods,” Professor Greenfield said.

Griffith University, Southern Cross University and the University of the Sunshine Coast generously provided assistance with routine tasks to free UQ Property and Facilities staff for flood recovery efforts.

The University’s students, staff and alumni also took to the streets assisting people in nearby suburbs and regions.

UQ researchers contributed intellectual firepower, providing expert media commentary and investigating the floods’ effects on the community and environment — just as their predecessors had in 1974.

By Jan King

Spreading the word

UQ utilised a variety of traditional and new media to keep staff, students and the general public updated during the January floods.

The UQ homepage was transformed into a resource centre with regular updates and answers to frequently asked questions for staff and students. The University also established an SMS inquiry service and two 24-hour flood hotlines which received more than 1000 calls.

UQ communications staff regularly posted messages and news releases via the @uqnewsonline Twitter account, and also loaded daily photo updates to UQ’s flickr page, which peaked at almost 50,000 views per day.

With Summer Semester classes ready to resume, two UQ News TV stories were also produced to share the latest images and information with viewers around the world.

In a spectacular result, UQ has been assessed above world standard in more broad fields of research than any other Australian university.

The inaugural Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) exercise rated 21 broad fields of UQ discovery at well above and above world standard (the highest two ratings). (Read Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and International) Professor Alan Lawson’s perspectives here).

Run by the Australian Research Council (ARC), ERA is the first assessment of its kind in Australia to evaluate research in higher education institutions using a combination of indicators and expert review.

ERA evaluates research in eight discipline clusters, identifying areas that are internationally competitive, and those where there are opportunities for development and further investment.

The 2010 ERA round captured research undertaken between 2003 and 2008, with the ARC publishing the much-awaited results in February.

In ERA’s broad categories, UQ’s research in biomedical and clinical health sciences, biotechnology, engineering, biological sciences, environmental sciences, chemical sciences, and physical sciences was rated well above world standard (rating 5).

The broad fields of research in which UQ was rated at above world standard (4) were: economics, education, law and legal studies, history and archaeology, technology (engineering and environment), mathematical sciences, philosophy and religious studies, language, communication and culture, studies in creative arts and writing, built environment and design, psychology and cognitive sciences, studies in human society, medical and health sciences (public and allied health), and commerce, management, tourism and services.

None of UQ’s broad research areas were rated lower than world standard (3).

Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield said credit for UQ’s impressive results went to researchers and support staff, who had demonstrated they could match the world’s best.

“ERA shows that outstanding quality is a hallmark of researchers in all of UQ’s major fields,” Professor Greenfield said.

“The outcome also reflects the impact of strategic investments in UQ discovery by the Queensland and Australian governments, philanthropists, business and the University itself.”

The ERA results confirm UQ as one of the nation’s most comprehensive research universities: it is active in 24 out of a possible 25 broad fields of research.

Only two other universities — Melbourne and Sydney — matched this assessment.

“UQ’s goal is for all its research fields to be well above or above world standard, and the ERA results will be used to lift performance in areas that show room for improvement,” Professor Greenfield said.

In the 101 specialised categories in which UQ was assessed, 97 were rated at world standard or above.

The University’s engineering research was one of many stand-out areas. It received only the most prestigious ratings – scoring well above or above world standard – in all nine fields in which it was assessed.

Twenty-eight of UQ’s specialised research areas were in the top band (full list below), with a further 42 assessed at above world standard.

UQ scored well above or above world standard rankings in all categories in physical sciences (four categories), education (four categories), language communication and culture (four categories), and technology (three categories).

UQ medical and health sciences put in a particularly strong showing, with research in cardiovascular medicine and haematology and neurosciences rated well above world standard.

In biological science, five categories were judged to be at the highest level: ecology, evolutionary biology, genetics, plant biology and zoology.

UQ’s specialised areas rated at above world standard include oceanography, information systems, architecture, urban and regional planning, curriculum and pedagogy, accounting/auditing and accountability, marketing, anthropology, archaeology, political science, social work, psychology, cognitive sciences, law, art theory and criticism, performing arts and creative writing, communication and media studies, linguistics, literary studies, and history.

The next ERA assessment will be conducted in 2012, covering research output from 2005–2010.

By Fiona Cameron

UQ’s highest-ranked fields of research (specialised fields)

Specialised fields at UQ acknowledged as “well above world standard” are:

• Astronomical and space sciences
• Banking, finance and investment
• Business management
• Cardiovascular medicine and haematology
• Cultural studies
• Ecological applications
• Ecology
• Economic theory
• Environmental biotechnology
• Environmental engineering
• Evolutionary biology
• Genetics
• Industrial biotechnology
• Macromolecular and materials chemistry
• Materials engineering
• Mechanical engineering
• Medicinal and biomolecular chemistry
• Nanotechnology
• Neurosciences
• Numerical and computational mathematics
• Plant biology
• Quantum physics
• Resources engineering and extractive metallurgy
• Sociology
• Specialist studies in education
• Statistics
• Theoretical and computational chemistry
• Zoology

UQ alumnus Dr Bob Bryan has used his success in the mining industry to assist others

UQ alumnus and mining entrepreneur Dr Bob Bryan has this advice for aspiring businesspeople: be persistent and have courage, but never put at risk the family home!

Dr Bryan has made a life-long contribution to the mining industry, which was recognised when he was made an inaugural inductee to the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame in 2009 and also awarded a UQ honorary doctorate in December.

He credits his success to having a nose for opportunities and the powers of persistence.

One of his most significant achievements was founding Pan Australian Mining Ltd, including the development of a major new gold mine at Mt Leyshon, near Charters Towers.

However, things might have been very different if it wasn’t for a missed opportunity some years before.

“I had the opportunity to secure a personal half-interest in a major gold deposit in Meekatharra, WA, which later grew into a major mining operation,” Dr Bryan said.

“I didn’t even think of this lost opportunity at the time, but I did later on. And so I thought, if I ever had another chance, I wouldn’t let it slip through my fingers again.”

Since then, Dr Bryan has played a pioneering role in the coal seam gas industry as a founder of Queensland Gas Company (QGC).

Under Dr Bryan’s chairmanship, QGC grew from an initial investment of half a million dollars to $5.6 billion in just eight years.

Dr Bryan attributes his success to a good education and supportive family.

“There was an inevitability about me studying geology,” he said.

“When I was a kid, my pop, who was the Professor of Geology at UQ, would take students out on geological excursions.

“I’d traipse along with them, and as the Prof’s lad probably made a proper pest of myself, especially with the older students, many of whom were ex-servicemen.”

However, Dr Bryan credits his mother as being the driving force behind his education, probably due to her own experience of being forced to leave school while in her early teens.

Years after his own UQ experience, Dr Bryan’s son Scott followed in his footsteps to become the third generation of geologists in the family.

Dr Bryan has generously supported his alma mater for many years, including helping to establish the WH Bryan Mining and Geology Research Centre, named in honour of his father.

It is one of six centres that together form the Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI) at St Lucia, of which Dr Bryan was a founding Director.

“The mining industry is extremely important to Queensland. And so it has to be a priority for Queensland tertiary institutions as well,” he said.

“I think the future will see the SMI research projects becoming bigger and broader, accessing the talents from the various centres and working in collaboration.”

Another passion is the Bryan Foundation, which was recently established to support education and leadership initiatives, with a focus on Indigenous communities.

“We have to generate Indigenous leaders, by encouraging the mentoring of Indigenous kids while they are at school – to boost their self-esteem so that they see themselves capable of success,” Dr Bryan said.

“It would give me a huge buzz to see my kids and grandkids take over the Bryan Foundation and re-focus it to match their interests, and the needs of the day.”

Dr Bryan’s passion for giving is contagious, and he views giving back as an obligation.

“I think that those of us who have opportunity and capacity to do something, should do it,” he said.

“And it is every bit as much fun as making the money in the first place”.

By Melissa Jeffreys

Browsing the news, checking emails and eating breakfast are early morning priorities for many people.

But not Professor Craig Franklin. The first thing he does at home in Brisbane each day is check on the whereabouts of 13 estuarine crocodiles — which are spread across Cape York in far north Queensland.

After numerous trips to the remote Wenlock River region, Professor Franklin’s research team from the School of Biological Sciences has attached satellite trackers to the crocodiles, allowing their individual movements to be monitored remotely, in precise detail.

“Each colour here is a different crocodile, and each point is a position fix,” he says, pointing to the Google Earth image that he scans so intently each morning.

“The amazing thing about this new technology is its accuracy. You can go right in and find a spot like this here – a high-activity zone. You can see, even along creek beds, exactly where the crocodiles are.”

It’s all about the science for the researcher and his colleagues, but their involvement with the Cape’s ecology has also thrust them into a high-profile battle involving the State and Federal Governments, the “wildlife warrior” Irwin family, Indigenous groups and a bauxite mining company.

Professor Franklin and his team work on the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve, a 1350sq km area of spring-fed wilderness wetlands about 80km north of Weipa.

The Irwin family – which runs the Australia Zoo tourist park north of Brisbane — bought the Cape York land in 2007 with the help of a $6.3 million Federal Government grant, and runs it as a conservation and scientific reserve in memory of Steve Irwin, the conservationist and international media star who died in 2006.

After the Irwins acquired the Cape York property as part of the National Reserve System, it seemed the land and its wildlife would be protected forever — but then in 2008, lease applications were lodged with aims to establish one of the world’s 10 largest bauxite mines there. In October the project was put on hold, with the mining company citing political and environmental issues.

The Queensland Government’s Wild Rivers legislation, first passed in 2005, was designed to protect the ecological integrity of Cape York and its river systems, and the Wenlock was declared as a wild river this year.

Terri Irwin said her late husband regarded the area around the Wenlock as “the most beautiful place on earth”.

Professor Franklin and his team have been working in the area for seven years, but began a long-term research project — now on its second linkage grant from the Australian Research Council — in 2007.

He said the Wenlock River had the richest freshwater fish diversity of any Australian river, and supported a critically endangered population of spear-tooth sharks, about which almost nothing was known.

The area is also home to the endangered freshwater sawfish, rare birds and threatened, highly vulnerable plant species.

“The Wenlock River is hugely important because of its impressive biodiversity,” Professor Franklin says.

The area is largely uncharted scientifically, but one startling early discovery is that the area’s spring water is naturally acidic.

“What’s fascinating is that if you look at the pH, it is approaching the phenomenon of acid rain that has been seen in the northern hemisphere,” Professor Franklin says.

“Here we have almost equivalent pH levels occurring naturally, yet life is abundant and the organisms have evolved to cope.”

He said the team hadn’t even scratched the surface in terms of the discoveries waiting in these springs and the surrounding rainforest.

Professor Franklin said crocodiles were a threatened species on the Cape, and their numbers and densities remained low after being almost hunted to extinction in the 1970s.

His team’s research has also shown that estuarine crocodiles travel far larger distances than was previously known. They make lengthy journeys in open sea, riding tidal flows right around the top of Cape York and between Pacific islands.

Through the intensive capture and tagging procedures – which require enormous planning, logistics and manpower – the team attaches satellite transmitters, which function for a year to 15 months before falling off.

But Professor Franklin said a long-term study – using acoustic transmitters inserted under the crocodiles’ skin – was needed to provide detailed data on the effects of environmental change.

He said working on Cape York was “exciting, but challenging”.

As well as the political and mining issues, the area’s remoteness and inaccessibility during the wet season can make for gruelling work.

Indigenous groups on the Cape remain divided over the Wild Rivers legislation, but Professor Franklin said there was plenty of local support for conservation and research.

“A big part of our work is educating people, local residents. So we — Terri Irwin and myself — give talks to schools and community groups wherever possible,” he says.

Professor Franklin said the Irwins deserved praise for their commitment to conservation on Cape York, noting the family privately funded maintenance on the reserve.

“It is purely because they believe it is an area that deserves our protection, which I strongly agree with.”

Professor Franklin said the overriding factor for him is the area’s enormous scientific potential.

“I feel extremely privileged, and humbled, to be able study there, with the support of such committed partners,” he says.

“It is very clear that the flora and fauna are related to the unique water composition of the region. This is a totally new discovery to mankind and deserves much further research.”

To follow the crocodiles by satellite, visit www.uq.edu.au/eco-lab

By Fiona Cameron

Video by Jeremy Patten

Dr Chadden Hunter explores ravines on the Antarctic ice cap while filming the BBC series Frozen Planet

Sharing the rugged mountains of Ethiopia with a group of inquisitive monkeys was a far cry from the science labs at The University of Queensland, but Chadden Hunter couldn’t have been happier.

That was 1997, when the 24-year-old had recently begun his journey as a PhD student.

A decade later, swimming with beluga whales and stalking snow leopards is all in a day’s work for the award-winning filmmaker, whose documentaries have been beamed into millions of households worldwide.

After being discovered by the legendary Sir David Attenborough while studying baboons in Ethiopia in 2000, Dr Hunter has worked as a scientific consultant and documentary maker for major networks including the BBC and National Geographic.

Earlier this year he took time out from his latest project, narrated by Sir David, to be the keynote speaker at the UQ Science Centenary Alumni Reunion in July.

On returning to his alma mater, Dr Hunter shared some of his incredible experiences and discussed the critical role the media plays in promoting conservation and biodiversity.

He told of his amazement upon first exploring the Simien Mountains in Ethiopia and meeting their rowdy inhabitants – the screeching Gelada baboons.

“When I first encountered the Gelada, I thought I was wandering into a riot of werewolves,” he recalls.

“Their screeches and fangs are intimidating – but as I got closer and closer to the group, I began to realise that underneath all the bravado and showing off, the males are a bunch of show ponies.”

Dr Hunter was eventually accepted into the primate family to the point he could lounge in the middle of clusters of them.

However, his love for these loud and colourful monkeys was not shared by the locals, who viewed them as vermin for devouring precious barley crops.

Dr Hunter quickly became the primates’ PR man as the government and farmers moved to cull the animal.

“The main thing I did to help the Geladas was to get enough public awareness out there about them being unique and something worth protecting,” he says.

It was this challenge that introduced him to the power of the mass media to change public opinion, and steered him towards the path of making wildlife documentaries.

This new career course was further reinforced by Sir David’s visit.

“My mother claims as a child I got so excited when an Attenborough show came on that I’d crawl up the back of the sofa, hardly breathing, eyes glued to the TV with my back pressed to the lounge room wall,” Mr Hunter says.

“At the age of 28, I found myself on a mountain top in Ethiopia. Sir David Attenborough was standing beside me listening intently as I advised him on what to say and not say on camera about the Geladas.

“It felt like only days earlier, I was a young undergraduate sifting through the biology courses on offer at UQ.”

Recognised for his research and documentary achievements, Dr Hunter was chosen to present the prestigious UQ/Brisbane Institute Annual Steve Irwin Memorial Lecture on July 6. In 2008, Mr Irwin was also honoured with a posthumous Adjunct Professorship to mark his commitment to conservation and the research links he established between UQ and Australia Zoo.

Titled “From Clipboard to Camera: the Role of Media in Conserving Nature’s Biodiversity”, Dr Hunter’s lecture was a sell out within days.

To the delight of the audience, he unveiled raw footage from his latest project Frozen Planet. The seven-part series, to be released in 2011 and narrated by Sir David, explores life in the polar regions and the effects of climate change on glaciers, ice shelves and sea ice.

Audiences were treated to vivid footage of a mother polar bear with cubs in an icy den, arctic wolves bringing down bison and emperor penguins huddling together for warmth.

Dr Hunter also detailed the incredible lengths the documentary team went to in order to capture the life cycle of a polar bear in captivity.

“The polar bear mother in winter is an amazing story – to give birth she climbs on a mountainside slope where she knows snow will build up on her in autumn,” he says.

“She curls up and goes to sleep while this snow cave builds around her.

“In this ice cave she gives birth to very small young and suckles them through the winter while storms rage outside.”

After talking to experts about how best to film the sequence, the BBC decided it was safest to capture the footage at a Dutch zoo, where a polar bear den was built from scratch.

“Inside this fake den we put cameras into the walls and ceilings for five different angles and they’re all infrared because it has to be dark,” Dr Hunter explains.

“We couldn’t move the cameras so we had to aim them at a spot where we thought the mother polar bear would roll over – we didn’t know what we would get…like CCTV we would eventually get glimpses of one of the cubs suckling.

”Other spectacular footage from Frozen Planet includes a pack of killer whales creating waves to knock seals off an ice ledge.

Dr Hunter said some of the underwater shots required diving at temperatures of minus two degrees in a specialised suit which he likened to an “enormous full-body doona”.

“You’ve got a mask around your head, and your lips are exposed. For the first 20 minutes it’s absolutely excruciating, and they say the second 20 minutes are dangerous.

“You start to feel your lips stinging and there’s so much pain they go numb – at the end of a 40-minute dive the skin from the lips starts to die and bits of flesh are coming off…and you can just never keep your extremities like your fingers warm enough.”

It’s no wonder Dr Hunter is seeking a warmer experience for his next project.

“I would like my next job to be South America where it’s green and warm. In the polar regions you have to travel a long way to find animals and it’s very sterile with only snow and no smells,” he says.

Dr Hunter said he hoped to inspire UQ science students to keep an open mind when pursuing a career.

“My advice is to look much broader than one might think when hitting the job market and look for overseas opportunities,” he says.

Born in Mt Isa, Dr Hunter travelled from an early age, attending school in the USA and Iran before returning to Australia and falling in love with the rainforests and the Great Barrier Reef.

“During my childhood it was always about a love for nature. It is what obsessed me, what my passion was about,” he says.

“The first time I went snorkelling on the reef as a kid, it just blew my mind – the colour and the fact that it is another planet or world down there.”

Originally wanting to become a biology teacher, it seems both his childhood dreams have come true, as he travels the globe educating others about the wonders of the natural world.

“What I love about the job is there’s something new to experience and it stimulates your hunger for new adventures and subjects.”

By Belinda Berry

After years of detailed planning and fundraising, The University of Queensland’s $100 million-plus School of Veterinary Science complex was officially opened in August at the Gatton campus.

The Federal Member for Blair, Shayne Neumann, opened the state-of-the-art facilities at a function attended by hundreds of industry, academic and community representatives.

Dean of Veterinary Science Professor Jonathan Hill said the relocation was an exciting development for Australian veterinary education.

“This complex is the most modern in the southern hemisphere and the most comprehensive animal research and teaching centre in Australia,” he said.

“The development unites the school in a setting suited to learning and discovery in veterinary science.

“It provides state-of-the-art teaching facilities for UQ’s 550 veterinary science students and a vitality and economic boost to the Lockyer Valley.

“We see the arrival of the school at Gatton as an opportunity for greater industry collaboration, particularly in the areas of dairy and beef cattle, swine production and equine operations.”

Professor Hill said construction of the new facilities and recruitment of additional staff had transformed the student experience and enhanced learning outcomes.

“This development ensures UQ will remain a leading centre of excellence in veterinary teaching and research for future generations,”
he said.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield said $71 million from the Australian Government (including $47.2 million from the Education Investment Fund) and the generosity of donors, including many UQ alumni, had made the facilities a reality.

“The new-generation Gatton campus opens opportunities for students and staff, and shores up our capacity to deliver strong learning and research returns on the investments of the Australian and Queensland Governments, industry and private donors,” he said.

This investment complements the $33 million Centre for Advanced Animal Science (funded by the Queensland Government and UQ), and a $6.9 million upgrade of dairy teaching and learning facilities, in partnership with the State Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation.

The new infrastructure includes the Veterinary Science Building, pre-clinical teaching laboratories, and the Veterinary Clinical Studies Building.

UQ also recently unveiled the $23 million Veterinary Medical Centre within the complex.

By Jan King

Sir James Foots at the unveiling of his official portrait with artist John Rigby

Former UQ Chancellor Sir James Foots passed away in August at the age of 94. Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield pays tribute to an Australian mining industry leader, distinguished philanthropist and renowned businessman.

Sir James Foots served as UQ Chancellor from 1985–1992, an era in which his business acumen was harnessed and philanthropic foresight embraced.

I can’t pretend to do justice to how Sir James’s vision, wisdom and generosity have helped position UQ for the 21st century.

Successful researchers will admit that their “breakthroughs” often hinge on serendipity – and Sir James’s ascent at Mount Isa Mines (MIM) was serendipitous for UQ.

He was the right man, with the right ideas, at the right time.

In an era when mining departments in some Australian and overseas universities were being diminished, he knew what higher education and research could do for MIM.

He galvanised mining education and research at UQ, and then expanded the relationship over more than five decades to touch virtually every facet of the University.

From the get-go, in the 1950s and 60s, the collaboration was mutually enriching.

For instance, academics and students earned an industry perspective when they conducted detailed research at the Mount Isa processing plant.

Sir James, a believer in the power of universities to contribute to the export economy, had created the environment for both parties to make global advances.

The partnership cranked up when he won the board’s backing to release funds to help build and run (for an extended period) a new centre at UQ’s Indooroopilly mine.

The Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (named after the former Mount Isa Mines General Manager and Chairman) opened in 1970.

JKMRC spawned JKTech – a roaring success in disseminating UQ research to the global minerals industry.

Today, JKMRC is organisationally within the Sustainable Minerals Institute – and that has headquarters in the Sir James Foots Building at our St Lucia campus.

Sir James became the inaugural Chair of MIM Holdings in 1970, and in the same year became a member of UQ’s governing council, the Senate.

He sustained this voluntary role for more than 20 years – but in reality he remained a trusted adviser well into the 21st century.

When UQ gave him an honorary doctorate in engineering in 1982, the Vice-Chancellor of the day, Professor Brian Wilson, said he was “a man with no too-hard basket”.

Brian saw Sir James as the natural choice to chair the new “UQ Foundation” – a serious attempt to link up with industry for research purposes.

To this day, that foundation provides hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual grants to promising early career researchers.

Within weeks of Sir James stepping aside as Chair of MIM Holdings in 1983, the UQ Senate unanimously voted him Deputy Chancellor. By mid-1985 he was Chancellor, unanimously elected when Sir Walter Campbell resigned to become Governor of Queensland.

At UQ, the Chancellor is the Chair of the board – but it’s all gratis.

And Sir James was already excessively busy with voluntary service.

For decades, he had given back to communities, both personally and through MIM. He was an inspired choice for Chancellor, and he and Brian made a gutsy duo.

As Brian says, Sir James presided over UQ at a seminal time – characterised by an improving national reputation for research, and the addition of both Customs House and Gatton Agricultural College to the University’s portfolio.

Sir James continued as Chancellor until 1992, giving invaluable counsel while Australian higher education endured major structural change.

He was a foundation board member, and later Chair, of UniQuest, our globally-recognised research commercialisation company.

Then, in the early 90s he chaired UQ’s first “Chancellor’s Appeal” – a precursor to the current age, when philanthropy is of unprecedented importance to the University.

Sir James himself was an extremely generous but unassuming giver to the University.

Students and graduates in mining-related disciplines continue to benefit from the Sir James Foots Scholarships, expressly for people who can demonstrate genuine need as well as all-round merit.

That kind of support is priceless.

Perhaps he was acting on his experience as a semi-orphaned, brilliant boy who clambered out of poverty after winning a scholarship to the University of Melbourne.

He was the epitome of the self-made man who never forgot his roots, or the opportunities that a few kind people and a fine education gave him.

His clarion call to graduating students included: “Each generation has an obligation to make things better for the rest.”

Clearly, he led by example.

Each year, thousands of successful students and their families celebrate their hard-won graduation – and since 1971 well over 100,000 graduates have attended their own ceremonies.

In 1971 Sir James – on behalf of MIM – gave us something unique: a mace made from Mount Isa copper, silicon-bronze, brass and silver.

Since then, the mace has followed a great number of students into their ceremonies.

That tradition won’t change – it’s as solid as the Mt Isa metals in the mace.

This is just one of the countless gifts from Sir James Foots that will keep on giving.

Professor Emeritus Brian Wilson was UQ Vice-Chancellor from 1979–1995. He paid tribute to Sir James from France, where he now resides.

When I arrived at The University of Queensland in January 1979 to take up appointment as Vice-Chancellor, I received an invitation from Sir James Foots, then a Senator of the University, to visit Mount Isa Mines, staying at the guest house and visiting the site the following day. What an experience!

This visit to the spinifex and the enormous physical plant facilities, above and deep underground, initiated a very positive personal and professional relationship with Jim as a Senator, Jim as my boss as Chancellor, and Jim as my friend – a friendship that lasted for 30 years.

His election as Chancellor in 1985 was in part a recognition of his enormous contributions to the Australian mining industry.

It also demonstrated the appreciation of the individual members of the Senate, which he had already served for 15 years, acknowledging his love of the University, his chairmanship skills, his fairness, integrity and approachability.

UniQuest, the University’s technology-transfer company, was initiated in 1984.
Jim was a founding member of the board and later became its Chair.

Jim’s business acumen, enthusiasm and energy carried the company through its initial growing pains – a company which has been successful beyond all expectations and is recognised now as a model for new developments of this kind.

Despite his other external commitments to industry and business while Chancellor, he was a wise adviser who made himself readily available to the University.

This accessibility and good counsel continued throughout the tumultuous years of the late 1980s, when the major structural changes to the Australian university system, introduced by John Dawkins, were being implemented.

In latter years, while living in France, I had less opportunity to meet with Jim and Thora.

When my wife and I visited with them two years ago in Caloundra, Jim’s gentle care of Thora was a clear testament to their 70-year-long partnership, and when we met with Jim for the last time two months ago, we found ourselves enjoying greatly a meeting with a man who though frail, still housed the indomitable spirit, humour and intellect of the Jim of old.

I am proud that he was my friend.

Vale, Jim.

A large crowd gathers to witness the dusk spectacle at the end of UQ's Centenary Celebration Day

Fun and festivity were on the minds of an estimated 15,000 people on April 18, as they converged on UQ’s St Lucia campus to celebrate the University’s 100th birthday.

The first major event of the Centenary calendar, the day included live music in the Great Court, a Writers’ Hub, campus tours, science and innovation talks, and information sessions on global change.

David Malouf, Nick Earls and Janet Turner Hospital were among the featured writers in attendance, while the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble performed their popular Half-Hour Hamlet production.

The day ended with a dusk spectacle – a light show set against the front entrance of the Forgan Smith Building and accompanied by a 16-piece orchestra.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield thanked everyone who attended, worked or volunteered to make the day a success.

“This was about saying ‘thank you’ to the community for supporting UQ over the past 100 years,” he said.

“It was great to see the mix of students, staff, alumni and interested members of the community taking advantage of what the day had to offer.”

Professor Greenfield said the day was the perfect start to a year-long program of events and was complemented by the successful Alumni Reunion Weekend held in July.

“I encourage and invite members of the public to come to campus more often, and explore the sporting and cultural facilities that are open to them, year-round, such as cafes, museums and the gym,” he said.

On April 16 at St Lucia, thousands of staff and students marked the precise day UQ had been founded 100 years before with a giant birthday cake.

The event also saw the launch of the official Centenary book, The People’s University: 100 Years of the University of Queensland.

The University was formally created on April 16, 1910, with the publication of the names of the first senators in the Government Gazette.

Among UQ’s 180,000-plus graduates are a Nobel laureate, an Academy Award winner, Queensland Premiers and Governors, and the current Governor-General.

The University first operated from Gardens Point in the city, and then established its Herston campus in the 1930s – the same decade construction began at St Lucia.

There are now four campuses: Gatton, Herston, Ipswich and St Lucia.

By Shannon Price

Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon in the Broadway production of Exit the King. Images courtesy Boneau/Bryan-Brown

When UQ alumnus Geoffrey Rush won a Tony award for his Broadway performance in Eugene Ionesco’s Exit the King in June, he was anointed as acting royalty. He is one of only 16 actors – and the first Australian – to win the so-called triple crown: an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony.

The triple crown means mastery in three media: film, television and stage. In 1953, Thomas Mitchell, best known for his role as Scarlett O’Hara’s father in Gone with the Wind, was the first actor to put all three trophies on his mantelpiece, and since then triple crowners have included Paul Scofield, Vanessa Redgrave, Ingrid Bergman, Maggie Smith and Al Pacino. This puts Rush in some distinguished company.

It is the culmination of a career that, after its achievements, is striking in its modesty. For all his fame and multiple honours, Rush has always been an actor first.

Unlike Russell Crowe or Nicole Kidman, Rush has never embraced the celebrity circus of Hollywood. He lives in Melbourne with his wife, actress Jane Menelaus and their two children. Of our internationally celebrated home boys and girls, Rush is perhaps most like Cate Blanchett. Perhaps this isn’t surprising; Rush picked Blanchett to co-star with him in David Mamet’s Oleanna, her first big stage role, recognising her luminous talent when she had barely graduated. They are actors who have never forgotten their theatrical roots and who, perhaps for this reason, display a virtuosic versatility in their work, with movie performances ranging from serious roles to outrageous popcorn villains.

Rush’s over-the-top swashbuckling as Captain Barbossa in the box-office smash Pirates of the Caribbean guaranteed his hero status to a generation of 10-year-old boys. But what made his international reputation were his portrayals of sensitive, disturbed men on the brink of sanity: his Peter Sellers in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, the marquis de Sade in Quills (which garnered him an Oscar nomination) and his Oscar-winning role as pianist David Helfgott in Shine.

These roles demonstrate Rush’s meticulous attention to detail, a clue to his versatility and the kinds of depth he can bring even to a part such as Barbossa, surely one of the most charismatic villains on the contemporary screen. For the role of Helfgott, for example, he befriended the pianist and closely studied his speech and mannerisms for years.

Rush brings to these roles a lot more than virtuosic skill, although he has plenty of that. He suffered a breakdown in 1992 from overwork and anxieties over his career, and there’s little doubt this experience feeds into the emotional complexities of the characters he creates. International fame came late. Until he won the 1996 best actor Oscar for his role in Shine, prompting an avalanche of praised film roles, Rush was simply one of the best stage actors in Australia.

Geoffrey Rush as King Berenger in Exit the King

It is this background that generates the richness of his screen roles. He was born in 1951 in Toowoomba, Queensland, and took an arts degree at The University of Queensland. He was talent-spotted in a university revue by the Queensland Theatre Company, where he began his theatre career. He made his debut in 1971 in a QTC production of Wrong Side of the Moon. He worked with the company for four years, appearing in roles ranging across classical plays to pantomime, from Juno and the Paycock to Hamlet on Ice.

After that he followed a trail trod by many Australian actors and travelled to Paris, where he studied with famed acting teacher Jacques Le Coq for two years, developing his clowning and mime skills. When Rush returned to Australia he began his theatre career in earnest, becoming one of the leading figures in Australian theatre on and off the stage.

In the following years he starred in a variety of plays, most famously with Mel Gibson in Waiting for Godot. In 1981 he joined Jim Sharman’s Lighthouse troupe, an ensemble of outstanding actors that premiered radical interpretations of classics and new works by Patrick White, Louis Nowra and Stephen Sewell.

When the Lighthouse foundered, he was one of the syndicate members who bought the Belvoir St Theatre, then fallen on hard times with the folding of the Nimrod, and was, with Neil Armfield, one of the founding members of Company B. In the mid-80s he also directed Adelaide’s Magpie Theatre for Young People, where he directed and starred in the hit play The Small Poppies.

Rush played a brilliant John Worthing in Simon Phillips’s celebrated 1988 production of The Importance of Being Earnest, in which he co-starred with his new wife, Menelaus. The play was effectively their honeymoon and, as he famously said, he got to propose to his wife each night and was paid for it.

Rush’s collaboration with Armfield, which culminated in his award-winning performance as King Berenger in Exit the King, has produced some of his most lauded stage roles. Memorable among many remarkable performances are his roles in productions of works by Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. In Armfield’s 1989 production of Gogol’s Diary of a Madman, Rush played the downtrodden and comically deluded clerk Poprishchin. Rush’s entrance on stage in an improbably high red wig was one of the great moments in Australian theatre. Armfield and Rush followed up with a carnivalesque production of Gogol’s The Government Inspector.

Geoffrey Rush at the renaming of the Cement Box Theatre foyer in his honour in 2005

It’s easy to see how this collaboration, which demonstrated that Rush is one of the greatest theatre clowns working today, led to his Tony-award winning performance as King Berenger in Armfield’s production of Exit the King. A co-production between Company B and Malthouse Theatre, the show began life in the workshops of the Malthouse in Melbourne, with a new translation nutted out by Armfield and Rush. It received rave reviews in its Melbourne and Sydney seasons, but Ionesco’s existential comedy seems an unlikely Broadway hit. The central theme is, after all, death.

However, Rush’s role as the egocentric 400-year-old king who refuses to die exploits his considerable capacities as a clown and, just as crucially, his ability to explore the darker regions of the human psyche. The final 10 minutes of Exit the King, in which Berenger’s world gradually vanishes around him as he enters the final kingdom of death, is some of the most powerful theatre I’ve seen. It’s the kind that makes you hold your breath with a joy that’s like anguish.

Anyone who has seen Rush on stage will know he is first of all an animal of the theatre, at his best at play in his natural habitat. And the Tony, the final jewel in Rush’s crown, is perhaps the award that most justly reflects his talent.

By Alison Croggon. Article reproduced courtesy The Australian

The east coast of Tiga Island

Living in primitive surrounds with no proper shower or bed for a month would have many people on the first flight back to Australia, but for UQ’s Professor Ian Lilley, the search for a breakthrough find is too overpowering to ignore.

For days on end, the archaeologist can be found confined to a small pit in some of the world’s most remote and undeveloped destinations.

“You’re living in very close and usually very public quarters with people and it can be extremely basic, no shower for a month, no toilet for a month, no proper bed for a month,” Professor Lilley said.

“My kids wonder why we don’t camp for leisure – you’ve got to be kidding!”

Most of the time, a single dirt airstrip is his only escape back to civilisation – a reassurance as his travels can sometimes take him through regional conflicts.

A graduate of UQ’s School of Social Sciences, Professor Lilley has worked in archaeology and cultural heritage management in Australia and the surrounding region for nearly 30 years, and is currently based in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit (ATSIS).

A recent project saw him pack up his tool kit and set flight for Tiga Island, a rugged speck of raised coral in the South Pacific – commonly referred to as the “lopsided wedding cake”.

Last year was the fifth year he had visited Tiga, first on a pilot study jointly funded by the French and Australian Governments and since 2007 on an ARC Discovery project he directs.

Professor Lilley (centre) with Jacques Bole and UQ student Silas Piotrowski on Tiga Island

One aspect of the work has been the discovery of a unique ancient water harvesting system, found deep within the island’s many caves.

“When whites first went there, there were probably 200 to 300 people living on this tiny island with no water,” Professor Lilley said.

“There is no surface water on Tiga Island…though you can occasionally find water leaking out of the bottom of the coral cliffs at low tide.”

Professor Lilley was captivated by the intelligence of the harvesting system, which in some caves included structures that resembled modern-day bathroom basins.

Along with the water systems, the team also discovered Lapita and other pottery, human remains and ash mounds from fire torches used by the caves’ previous occupants.

“Lapita pottery is highly distinctive and was used by the first humans to colonise the remote Pacific beyond the end of the main Solomon Islands. It is found from New Britain near New Guinea out to Samoa and Tonga,” Professor Lilley said.

“The earliest Lapita dates from 3300 years ago in New Britain to around 2900 years ago in Tonga, tracking the west-east movement of the colonisers.

“The human remains are being studied by specialists with the permission of the Tiga community. This work will reveal a great deal about diet, disease, social relationships and migration patterns.”

The thrill of helping piece together the history of ancient civilisations is the “elixir” that keeps the World Heritage Assessor searching.

“There’s always some little quirk…there’s always the unexpected, it usually always comes on the last day of the trip,” he said.

“The work I did in New Britain in the early 80s with the Australian Museum…it was the whole Indiana Jones trip, it was 20 people carrying big boxes on their heads walking through the jungle for days.

“We were taken off to a cave deep in the mountains…just as we were finishing up we found this very thin little layer and it turned out to be from the end of the last Ice Age.

“It was the first time anyone had found evidence that old beyond mainland New Guinea. There are lots of sites in the islands much older than that now, but at the time it was very impressive, especially to a 22-year-old.

“Not long afterwards I was part of a big international National Geographic project on Pacific colonisation. We hired a sailing boat from Dick Smith and went cruising through the islands.

“I was by far the most junior person involved as a team leader. I took time out of my PhD…it was all pretty thrilling.”

Professor Lilley has reached several career milestones, including being elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the UK’s second most ancient Royal scientific society, and becoming Secretary General of the ICOMOS International Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management. ICOMOS is the statutory advisory body to UNESCO on cultural heritage.

“I remember two of my very senior colleagues being elected as Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries when I was doing my PhD at ANU. It was really quite a big deal and it’s been in the back of my mind since then as something that you aspire to,” he said.

In late 2007, Professor Lilley was chosen by ICOMOS to assess Papua New Guinea’s first World Heritage nomination, at Kuk in the highlands near Mt Hagen.

“Kuk is a site of immense importance because it demonstrates that people in New Guinea independently invented agriculture at the same time as people in the Middle East,” he said.

“Although I worked in PNG for many years, I was last in Mt Hagen when I was about nine-years-old, so it was a fascinating trip!”

Professor Lilley works with research assistant Michelle Langley sieving sediment in a cave

Professor Lilley is currently working with his New Caledonian and French colleagues on two bilingual publications about Tiga, one in French and English, and the other in French and Maré, the language of Tiga.

He is also co-authoring a new book on Australian archaeology for Cambridge University Press.

By Eliza Plant

Biologists from UQ assess the health and reproductive status of wild dugongs in Moreton Bay

In a world first study, UQ biologists have teamed up with Sea World scientists to discover more about the dugongs of Moreton Bay.

Leader of the UQ Dugong Research Team Dr Janet Lanyon, said determining reproductive status of individuals was one of the most important factors for population modelling and effective management of a vulnerable species.

“Once we understand seasonality and timing of reproductive patterns, we will be able to develop useful models of population dynamics for vulnerable dugongs,” Dr Lanyon said.

“Assessing the health of these animals is a valuable tool in determining the fitness of wildlife populations, and marine mammals such as dugongs may be used as sentinels for emerging threats to coastal seagrass ecosystems.”

Researchers in Moreton Bay

The team of researchers completed field research in Moreton Bay last May, sampling a selection of dugongs that was representative of both sexes and from adult, sub-adult and juvenile size classes. Over seven days the group took approximately 30-40 minutes to sample each animal.

Researchers collect blood to look at haematology, blood biochemistry, immune factors as well as screen for disease. Urine and faecal samples are also collected to be cultured for microbes and screened for parasites and zoonotic disease.

Dr Lanyon said blood and urine sampled from this study were important because it had been shown to represent active circulating hormone levels in other species, such as Florida manatees.

Biologists and vets carried out comprehensive medical examinations on the dugongs

As well as collecting samples, comprehensive medical examinations by biologists and vets were carried out to assess the body condition of the animals, including girth and weight measurements.

“The hormone data will be used along with gender, body size and social association data gathered during mark-recapture studies, to determine the reproductive status of individual dugongs,” Dr Lanyon said.

Sea World Director of Marine Sciences Trevor Long said the sampling involved lifting wild dugongs out of the water using a specially designed stretcher to hoist the animals from the water on to the deck of research vessel Sea World One.

“This is a very exciting study, and allows us to capture data that will help to establish reference blood parameters for the species,” Mr Long said.

“Along with Sydney Aquarium, a partnership with dugong experts such as Dr Lanyon and The University of Queensland is an ongoing priority for Sea World.”

Story and video by Andrew Dunne

Joshua Soderholm gathers data with a theodolite

There is no denying South-east Queensland and storms are a match made in heaven, and on a field trip to Kooralbyn, near Beaudesert, in October, it was startling to see just how quickly this destructive relationship could unfold.

During the 2009 summer storm season, a team of UQ researchers set up a site at the country setting to collect real-time data for better storm warnings in the region.

The project, headed by Associate Professor Hamish McGowan and Bachelor of Science Honours student Joshua Soderholm, marked the first time the researchers – from the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management – placed themselves in the field before, during and after a storm hit.

The project aims to provide a greater understanding of the relationship between the pre-storm atmosphere and a storm’s evolution, direct impact areas and the weather it would produce.

“We collected a very wide set across as many storm days as possible, thereby allowing us to develop a climatology of thunderstorm events. We were then able to better understand the relationship between pre-storm conditions and the ensuing thunderstorm weather,” Mr Soderholm said.

As I travelled to Kooralbyn on October 13, the temperature was already about 26 degrees and the wind was howling through the dry terrain.

If you view a storm like a theatre production, the opening number had been forecast for late afternoon.

Mr Soderholm prepares to launch a radiosonde

“It’s a bit of a waiting game,” Dr McGowan says as we arrived on site.

“I’m still reasonably hopeful and optimistic. It’s a shame that the wind wasn’t more round in the north east rather than the north west to bring that moisture in.”

From about 8am, the team had been busy releasing radiosondes – small instrument packages attached to large helium-filled balloons – every two hours.

The technology aims to provide information on the ambient atmosphere in terms of temperature, humidity and wind speed and direction.

“If nothing is kicking off by 3.30pm then we can call it quits,” Dr McGowan says as he surveys the sky.

At about noon, the latest in a series of radiosondes is released – a big red balloon fading into the distance.

While the balloon becomes less visible, the monitor on the ground beeps to alert the team to new information on the developing weather conditions.

Every 20 seconds the optical telescope makes a measurement of the balloon’s position and the information is scanned into the computer for download.

Looking at the data on the computer screen, Mr Soderholm is excited by the balloon’s quick ascent into the atmosphere.

“It’s blowing up to 40 knots at 500 metres now,” he says.

“It’s gone over 1000 metres now.”

A quick scan of the surrounding environment and it appears the clouds are starting to thicken.

Associate Professor Hamish McGowan

“Fingers crossed, it’s only 1.15pm, hopefully by 3pm things will be a bit more organised and we’ll see some deeper convection,” Dr McGowan says.

“We should be getting pretty impressive storms under typical conditions but at present things are still relatively dry.

“That’s what you look for on thunderstorm days, conditionally unstable atmospheres that remain stable as long as it’s dry but as soon as it becomes moist it becomes unstable and remains so.”

Time continues and more data is collected. The sky is beginning to blacken as the clouds become thicker. Before we know it, the conditions have drastically changed and it is obvious that a storm is on the horizon.

Droplets of water begin to bucket down as the sound of rolling thunder echoes in the distance.

While we take cover, Dr McGowan and Mr Soderholm are busy releasing another radiosonde into the atmosphere. The red balloon is immediately whisked up into the turbulence.

Mr Soderholm interrupts the conversation excitedly to report that the radiosonde is caught in the storm’s updraft and is hovering at 8400 metres – “we’ve never tracked it this high before,” he says.

As the storm passes, a quick glimpse at the radar shows a series of severe cells rolling in from the west towards Brisbane, the bayside and the Sunshine Coast.

My ears remain pricked as talk of another storm passing through the Beaudesert area gains momentum.

“We’re measuring the structure of the lower atmosphere from the surface to about 6000 metres,” Dr McGowan adds, peering into a theodolite (a kind of telescope).

The research will hopefully allow the team to better identify what conditions are needed to predict the type of developing storms.

“For example, whether or not you are going to have a big super-cell thunderstorm or whether you are going to have a squall come through, a line of storms, that often passes through South-east Queensland in the spring.

“The more and more people that decide to reside in South-east Queensland, the greater the potential for severe impact on those urban environments in those communities.”

It’s about 4pm and the build-up for another storm begins to gain momentum just north of the research location.

It’s amazing to see how selective the storm path can be. Even though we can see the storm, it appears on the radar to be just shy of our location.

The storm’s ferocity is evident by the cloud dimensions and its increasing speed. Soon the panorama of black clouds is but a distant sight, closing the curtain on our storm-chasing adventure. At least until next time…

By Eliza Plant. Video by Jeremy Patten

Yalin Ozucelik as Burger Force character Mercury

When pop culture is in danger, you need the right team to rescue it: Burger Force, the guys who serve justice with a side of fries.

The creation of UQ graduate Jackie Ryan, Burger Force is a comic that follows an espionage agency located beneath a fast food store.

Its operatives are tasked with protecting the perilously delicate balance of pop culture.

“The agents serve thickshakes and fries by day and thwart diabolical masterminds by night,” Ms Ryan said.

“There are two defining moments in my pop culture life: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Avengers (Diana Rigg period).

“Burger Force, to my mind, is what would happen if these two entities met up on a dark and stormy night.”

What makes Burger Force different to many other comics is that it stars real people – using graphic design software to transform photographs into comic book-style images.

“From a practical point of view, real people and locations can be ‘comified’ through a laborious combination of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Flash,” Ms Ryan said.

The pop culture theme made comics an obvious outlet for the Burger Force story, and it was also a more affordable format than film, she said.

For someone with a background in cinema, creating a comic strip meant Ms Ryan had to approach storytelling in a new way.

Instead of having ongoing action, as is the case in film or theatre, she had to choose discrete points in time to tell the story frame by frame.

“The actors are faced with the challenge of communicating the emotional amalgam of a line or situation in that frame,” she said.

One of the actors, Ms Ryan’s friend and fellow UQ graduate Yalin Ozucelik, said Burger Force was different from anything he had been part of before.

Having studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and acted in plays around Australia, the prospect of starring in the “intelligent and laugh-out-loud funny” comic was an appealing change of scenery for Mr Ozucelik.

“I know that Jackie conceived the idea of Burger Force many years ago and has been writing the series ever since,” he said.

“We reconnected last year and she told me of her brilliant, dastardly plan to turn it into a comic and asked me if I wanted to play Mercury: a hapless, lovelorn, nerdy uni student-turned-secret agent.

“I saw more than a little bit of me in Mercury I think, so I happily donned a fabulous wig and slumped nerdily in front of the camera.”

Burger Force goes online in June and will become available in print later in the year.

Visit www.jackieryan.net for more on Burger Force and other projects

By Tegan Taylor

Annette with Ikata the gorilla

If crossing the Sahara Desert in a Kombi van, dodging civil war and interacting with great apes sounds like an adventure and a half, you may want to read Annette Henderson’s memoir.

Published by Random House in May, Wild Spirit formed part of Annette’s Master of Philosophy (Creative Writing) degree which she received at a UQ graduation ceremony last year, capping off a dream that had been decades in the making.

The book was inspired by the time Annette and her husband Win spent in Gabon, West Africa, while attempting to cross the continent from north to south 30 years ago.

“Many people over the decades have told me: ‘you really must write this book’,” she says.

“Completing the memoir and having it published means a great deal to me. It’s like closing the circle that began in 1975 – an outcome I never could have envisaged.”

Annette and Win arrived in Gabon during the Angolan war and, unable to travel to South Africa as planned, found themselves working at an iron ore exploration camp 600km from the coast.

“The first night we were in Gabon we were robbed. One $20 traveller’s cheque was all we had left,” Annette says.

“So we knew no one, we had almost no money and we couldn’t go anywhere because of the war further south – we were totally stuck.”

By chance, the couple met the New Zealand director of the mining project, who offered them employment and accommodation for a year.

Annette’s work was demanding and varied, relying on her knowledge of French to co-ordinate via radio the movements of dugout canoes that transported people and supplies up and down the river.

Click on the image to read an exclusive excerpt from Wild Spirit

Among her more unusual tasks was to issue shotgun shells to the Gabonese hunters who were employed to feed the workers and their families, and calculate how much they were to be paid.

“At the end of the day when they brought in their kill, I had to weigh it on a set of rusty old scales that sat on a log, and note down in a book the weight that they’d brought in for that day because they were paid by the kilogram,” she says.

During their time in the forest, Annette, Win and a colleague became surrogate parents to Josie, an injured orphaned baby gorilla, but it was an encounter with Ikata, an eight-year-old male blackback who had been raised in captivity, that changed Annette’s life.

“We were visiting a research station where orphaned gorillas and chimpanzees were being rehabilitated to the wild. I was coming up the pathway as he was coming down and I thought ‘I’ll have to indicate to him that I’m very peaceful in my intent’, so I stretched out my arms towards him palms upwards and he just kept walking towards me,” she says.

“When he got within reach he just enfolded me with a gentle embrace and he put his face beside my cheek and I rubbed the top of his head. It was just the most wonderful moment.”

From the outset, Annette sought practical ways of protecting the gorillas in their natural habitat.

“The first thing I did when I was offered the opportunity to have a work role was to say ‘I don’t think we should pay for gorilla meat and I think the hunters should be told that right away.’ Our project director agreed, so we didn’t pay for gorilla meat again.”

Having read about the pioneering work with great apes by primatologists such as Jane Goodall, Annette ultimately decided to pursue tertiary studies in anthropology upon returning to Brisbane.

After several years working in London, she completed her Bachelor of Arts with first-class honours in anthropology at UQ in 1983, and used her skills to contribute to Indigenous land and cultural projects in the Northern Territory.

She then took up university teaching in Brisbane before spending a memorable five months in Indonesia – teaching social science in the local language, which she learned in just four months before taking up the position.

Annette’s life took another unexpected turn when she began what would be a 17-year career as a senior administrator within UQ’s School of English, Media Studies and Art History (EMSAH).

Over the years, the gorilla photos in Annette’s office intrigued former EMSAH colleague and award-winning author Amanda Lohrey, who encouraged her to return to study in 2006 under an APA scholarship and finish the book she’d always wanted to write.

With the assistance of supervisors Dr Stuart Glover and award-winning poet Dr Bronwyn Lea, Annette produced the manuscript of Wild Spirit and a 10,000 word critical essay, “Great Apes, Humans and Epiphanies: Profound Interspecies Encounters”, for her Masters.

Interest in the memoir took off last year after Annette was interviewed on ABC Radio, and within hours she was contacted by major Australian publishers and literary agents eager to read the story in full.

Annette is now focused on ways she can help protect great apes around the world. She is a zoo parent of the lowland gorillas at Taronga Zoo and has adopted an orphaned orangutan in Borneo through the Australian Orangutan Project in addition to sponsoring German mountain gorilla research.

“I’m looking for other ways to become immediately involved,” she says.

“I plan to spend the rest of my life writing and continuing my involvement with conservation.”

Wild Spirit by Annette Henderson is published by William Heinemann Australia, RPP $34.95

By Cameron Pegg

A sketch from Margaret Olley: Life's Journey

Fans of Margaret Olley were in for a treat when they visited the UQ Art Museum earlier this year.

Running from February 6 until April 19 before opening in Sydney and Newcastle, Margaret Olley: Life’s journey traced the many places the artist has lived and worked over the years, from romantic Paris to the remote and exotic New Guinea highlands.

The exhibition included more than 80 pieces drawn from public and private collections, as well as the artist’s own, and provided a unique look at Ms Olley’s celebrated career.

Museum director Nick Mitzevich said the artist’s popularity in Australia was immense, and a record 10,831 visitors had enjoyed the exhibition during its time at UQ.

“Her oil paintings of still life and interior subjects invariably receive enormous public attention,” Mr Mitzevich said.

“So popular is she that a huge marquee needed to be erected in front of the Art Museum for the crowd attending the official opening event with Governor-General Quentin Bryce.”

The University of Queensland awarded Ms Olley an honorary Doctor of Letters in 1999 in recognition of her 50 years of service to the arts and philanthropic endeavours.

Mr Mitzevich said assembling the show had been a colossal but enjoyable task, as his research team tracked down many works that had dropped off the art world’s radar.

“Our visitors have told us how they have been surprised and enchanted by these works, which offer such an unexpected spectrum of the artist’s experience,” he said.

“Margaret Olley herself was delighted to rediscover works also, some of which she had not seen for 60 years.”

Mr Mitzevich encouraged interested alumni to make the most of upcoming exhibitions and events by joining the museum’s mailing list.

Listen to a podcast of co-curators Nick Mitzevich and Michele Helmrich discussing the exhibition:

Margaret Olley: Life’s journey

Sydney – National Trust S.H. Ervin Gallery (8 May–28 June)

Newcastle – Newcastle Region Art Gallery (15 August–25 October)

To join the museum’s email list, contact artmuseum@uq.edu.au

By Cameron Pegg

An image from Hope Endures

Blind faith can work miracles, but Dr Colette Livermore will tell you it can also cause heartache.

The UQ graduate joined Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity (MC) at 18 after watching the famous documentary Something Beautiful for God, but turned her back on her beliefs a decade later and has recently written a book about the experience.

Published by Random House, Hope Endures is the first official account from a sister within the order, and tells how Dr Livermore left disillusioned after 11 years of service to pursue a new career in medicine.

Dr Livermore’s work with the MC took her to Calcutta, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea, but her story began in Moss Vale, New South Wales, where the nuns at her secondary school urged pupils to find compassion for the suffering of others.

Although not a devout Catholic at the time, Dr Livermore was moved by the shocking images of starving children in Biafra (now Nigeria), and gave up a place studying medicine at the University of New South Wales to join the MC in 1973.

Click on the image to read an exclusive extract from Hope Endures

“The immediacy of Mother Teresa’s compassion attracted me,” Dr Livermore says.

“I felt people needed simple things like food and clothing more than complex medical care so I swapped my jeans for a sari and left home to join her.”

Dr Livermore took her first vows before Mother Teresa in Melbourne in 1975 before travelling with her and three other sisters to start a house in Papua New Guinea’s Gulf province.

There she taught literacy and numeracy to low achieving primary-school students, but moved to Port Moresby after contracting cerebral malaria.

Central to Mother Teresa’s teachings was the acceptance of poverty and suffering, and Dr Livermore (then known as Sister Tobit) committed herself to difficult tasks in the Philippines, where she worked in shantytowns and tended to those with tuberculosis.

She also spent several years in Melbourne working in soup kitchens, assisting the elderly and pitching in at homeless shelters.

But the strict obedience and unwavering routine of the MC led Dr Livermore to question her path in life, and she left the order in 1984 and began to doubt her faith.

“I was in turmoil because I had vowed to obey my superiors but also to serve the poor and desperate who are not able to conform to a rigid timetable,” she says.

“When a person comes to you asking for help, such as the parents of a very ill child I met in Manila, I felt conscience-bound to respond in the best way I could, but was told to send them away because it was a day of prayer for part of our community.

“Moreover, when I wrote to Calcutta of this I was told that my hands were tied by obedience.

“Another problem was that I felt very poorly prepared for the work we were to do. For example I received no training in teaching, basic medicine and nursing or in the language and culture of the people we served.”

Although her faith had been compromised, the desire to help those less fortunate had not, and she resurrected her goal of becoming a doctor as a mature-aged student in 1985.

“The University of Queensland gave me the chance to study medicine,” Dr Livermore says.

“I applied as an undergraduate with a 13-year-old matriculation and was accepted on the basis of my NSW Higher School Certificate pass.

“I had a rough transition from the convent to university life and my classmates were amazed to know someone so ancient who had used log tables at school was now doing medicine and struggling to use a scientific calculator.”

Dr Livermore recalls many memorable experiences with her new group of friends, and remembers carting skeleton bones from tutorials in her backpack while riding to and from her rented house in Milton.

She busied herself with her studies until graduating in 1990, landing shortly after in the Toowoomba Accident and Emergency department.

She then completed rural service in Bundaberg before heading to Katherine in the Northern Territory, where she worked as a hospital doctor and also with the Air Medical service.

“I flew out to communities for routine clinics and was also on call for emergencies.  I visited most settlements in the district but my main communities were Kalkaringi – famous for its struggle for land rights – and Wulgar,” she says.

Her next calling took her to East Timor as a volunteer doctor with the Uma Ita Nian Clinic run by the Maryknoll sisters in Aileu.

“We did general, antenatal, and tuberculosis clinics and had a ration distribution for malnourished children and the TB patients,” Dr Livermore says.

“We went out on mobile clinics once or twice a week travelling on roads which defied belief or in the dry season drove up river beds. With the nurses I saw over a hundred people while sitting on a box in a hut or school room.”

After two-and-a-half years she returned to Australia in 2003 for family reasons and joined a general practice in Gosford, New South Wales.

That year also marked Mother Teresa’s posthumous beatification (the becoming of a saint), and it was with mixed feelings Dr Livermore took her place with thousands of others at the Vatican to witness the proceedings.

“She was a dynamic, energetic woman whose word was law,” Dr Livermore says.

“She seemed very certain of her beliefs and convictions but after her death letters were published which showed she struggled with a terrible pain of the loss of God and felt he may not exist.

“She was afraid to confront the doubts and questions within her because she feared committing blasphemy and prayed that ‘if there be a God forgive me’.”

It was standing in St Peter’s Square, trying to reconcile her journey from nun to non-believer, that Dr Livermore decided to write Hope Endures.

“I hope readers will take my point that no matter what organisation we belong to we must be true to our inner truth, for if we betray that, we betray our whole purpose and the people we serve,” she says.

“There is a great difference between the obedience of co-operation and cohesion that stops us running a red light and the obedience of cowardice which silences us when we should speak and paralyses us when we should act.

“The truth can defend itself in open debate. It is not a weakling that needs to be closeted away.”

Hope Endures by Colette Livermore is published by William Heinemann Australia, RRP $34.95

By Cameron Pegg