CSIRO Alumni
During these unprecedented times, we send our best wishes to all our alumni members and their families.
In this month’s newsletter you’ll be able to read about some of our latest research, hear about online events and make the most of our CSIRO Publishing offer.
Our latest research
CSIRO welcomes vaccine agreement with AstraZeneca—Oxford University
CSIRO welcomes the Australian Government’s letter of intent with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, to give Australians access to the University of Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine, should it prove successful, safe and effective.
In March this year, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) engaged CSIRO to undertake a preclinical trial of Oxford’s vaccine candidate at the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (ACDP).
CSIRO has shared early data from the preclinical trial with CEPI and Oxford University, which enabled the vaccine candidate to progress on to phase 3 clinical (human) trials.
New company puts foot on the gas to reduce cows’ methane
CSIRO announced the formation of a new company to take a methane-busting seaweed to market, with $13 million secured from five investors. FutureFeed Pty Ltd will commercialise a livestock feed additive made from the seaweed Asparagopsis, which has been shown to reduce methane emissions in beef and dairy cattle by more than 80 per cent in research trials in Australia and the USA.
World first marine heatwave research
CSIRO is collaborating with Bureau of Meteorology on a new research project to pave the way for a marine heatwave forecasting service.
Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (ACDP)
Come with us as we take you for a look inside the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (formerly known as the Australian Animal Health Laboratory). See what it is like to work in a highly secure facility and join our researchers in this exciting and critically important work.
Through the alumni network, we are keen to keep our members updated on recent developments in research and share our scientific news.
Many presentations and seminars are now being held online – so you can attend from the comfort of your own home.
Space Technology Symposium 2020: CSIRO – Your partner in space
9th – 10th September 2020
Join us to find out about CSIRO’s innovative new capabilities in space technology, and how we can partner with you to support your space R&D needs and transform our space industry together.
CSIRO’s capabilities in operating national space facilities like our radio telescopes and the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex are well-known. But in the last 18 months CSIRO has also initiated 30 new projects through the CSIRO Space Technology Future Science Platform to grow our space technology capabilities. These span satellite technologies, remote operations and resource utilisation, space life sciences, communications and signal processing, and Earth observation data analytics and applications.
Strengthening national resilience - data, science and tech
14 September, 12.00pm- 1.00pm
Join CEDA members and guests from across the country for a discussion on how the right sort of data coupled with expert analysis may assist business leaders and policymakers in better decision making and planning.
Speakers:
Dr Larry Marshall, Chief Executive, CSIRO
Stephen Rue, Chief Executive Officer, NBN Co
The Future of Meetings Symposium
15th-17th September 2020
Human collaboration is fundamental to sustaining and progressing essential economic, scientific and cultural activity. The precipitous governmental and social response to COVID19 enforces physical distancing, and effective climate action relies on making significant shifts towards sustainable commuting. Large parts of the "knowledge" workforce have adapted by scaling and expanding use of existing remote collaborative technologies so that these are ubiquitous, fundamental, and sometimes sole channels of communication. For science, this amplifies and emphasises existing problems in running remote-inclusive, semi-distributed meetings and conferences.
Sir Alan Walsh lecture
1 October 2020
All alumni members will receive an invitation to this online event in a separate email.
The lecture series commemorates the achievements of Sir Alan Walsh.
The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE), CSIRO (including CSIRO Alumni), and the Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) started the prestigious invited lecture series on the 60th anniversary of Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS). AAS is a chemical measurement technology invented in 1952 by Sir Alan Walsh at CSIRO in Victoria and developed and commercialised by CSIRO through the setting up of manufacturing industries in Australia for scientific instruments.
The speaker for 2020 is Mark Hodge (CEO DMTC)
DMTC works collaboratively with many innovative Australian industry, research and government partners. Our focus is on delivering enhanced defence and national security capabilities and strengthening Australian industrial capacity. Our approach delivers outstanding achievements in research excellence and technology adoption, backed by a best-practice quality system.
Mark will give an overview of manufacturing today in Australia and present his vision of the future for Australian jobs and growth of the export business. He will talk about the challenges for innovation, what we can do together to conquer challenges and describe what DMTC is doing and how attendees can help.
2020 Recent Advances in Emergency Animal Diseases Symposium
Every Tuesday night in October, 5pm to 6.30pm AEST
As the fog begins to lift, join Australia’s experts on Emergency Animal Diseases to hear the latest updates on the diseases which have made their mark in the region in 2020. These events are free, but registration is required.
6 Oct: African swine fever (ASF)
13 Oct: Ehrlichia canis
20 Oct: SARS CoV-2
27 Oct: AI in Victoria
In case you missed it
“Mission possible – A vision for Australia’s recovery and future resilience”
Dr Larry Marshall, Chief Executive, CSIRO
National Press Club of Australia
Following his reappointment, CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Larry Marshall outlines his perspective on the critical role of science and technology in driving Australia’s COVID-19 recovery efforts and the power of bold, visionary collaboration to build our future resilience and solve our greatest challenges.
Promote your own events
To help connect alumni with one another, we encourage you to list your own events on our website and discussion forum. Let us know if you are organising, presenting or attending events and we can help promote it to the alumni network – please email alumni@csiro.au
As a member of the CSIRO Alumni we know that you love science. CSIRO Publishing have crafted a selection of books to help you celebrate science. It showcases all the amazing science they publish from books about ocean animals and environments, to kids’ books and field guides. Plus, many of the books are authored by CSIRO staff!
As a special offer for CSIRO Alumni use promo code ALUMAUG at the online checkout to get free standard shipping on these titles until the end of September.
We love to hear from our alumni members, so get in touch and let us know what you are up to – reach out to the network for help or promote your events, research or successes.
Please email alumni@csiro.au