CSIRO Alumni
CSIRO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea, and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. View our vision towards reconciliation.
In this month’s newsletter you can read about our latest news, events, courses, job opportunities and hear from some of our alumni members.
Ending plastic waste
CSIRO’s Ending Plastic Waste Mission is aiming for an 80 per cent reduction in plastic waste entering the Australian environment by 2030.
For every metre of coastline across the globe, there’s the equivalent of seven grocery bags full of rubbish. Soft plastics, like food packaging, are the biggest killers to marine life. And of the litter found along Australia’s coastlines, three-quarters of it is plastic. In addition to this, plastic use is expected to double by 2040. This is unsustainable.
Therefore, we’ve announced our Ending Plastic Waste Mission. We’re joining forces with government, industry, researchers and the Australian community to transform plastic pollution into a useful resource.
We're also partnering in the Plastics Innovation Hub Indonesia to support the scaling of innovative solutions to end plastic pollution in the Indo-Pacific. Our recent Moonshot Event invited researchers, investors, businesses, and community and government leaders from across the Indo-Pacific and beyond to explore key challenges through facilitated partner discovery conversations.
National Bushfire Behaviour Research Laboratory
In the face of more extreme events, we have unveiled our new world-class bushfire research facility to better understand how bushfires behave, what conditions make them worse, and the best ways to respond.
Help grow our alumni network
We now have over 4,500 members but we know that there are many more former colleagues out there. Help us build the alumni network and forward this newsletter on or share the link to alumni registration.
Many presentations and seminars are now being held online – so you can attend from the comfort of your own home. Our alumni calendar lists both CSIRO and external events, so you can find out about a wide range of events.
Upcoming events
Complementary Proteins – how do we manufacture the products consumers want?
7 Apr 2022: 4.00pm to 5.00pm AEST
Australia’s food and agriculture sector has the opportunity to become a high quality and high value exporter of sustainable, healthy and consistent products. An area identified with huge potential for growth is the alternative proteins area. Current challenges for Australian primary producers, ingredient companies and manufacturers include developing products that meet consumer needs and ensuring the ability to manufacture protein and food products at commercial scale.
The La Trobe Research and Innovation Precinct in collaboration with CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, invites you to the fourth webinar in our series on advances in food and agriculture. This 1-hour session will highlight consumer insights in acceptance of complementary proteins and the practical challenges and opportunities in scaling manufacturing of protein products and ingredients.
Innovate to Grow: NSW Defence Industry
Applications close Monday, 11 April 2022
Open to NSW-based small to medium-sized businesses, Innovate to Grow is a free 10-week program designed to support established businesses who are either interested in investigating new R&D opportunities.
Through Innovate to Grow, participants will be connected to innovation facilitators and mentors, as well as hearing from research and industry experts from across the defence sector. The self-paced virtual program will guide participants through the skills they need to identify innovation opportunities and understand the R&D viability. Participants will also receive guidance on how to prepare a strong funding application.
CSIRO Innovate to Grow is delivered in partnership with Practera and co-funded by Investment NSW.
Find out more about Innovate to Grow.
Pint of Science 2022
9-11 May 2022
Not limited to your usual pint at the local pub, we deliver science stories of all sizes and flavours. We aim to knock down stereotypes, build science appreciation and highlight the amazing science brewing in your own backyard.
As self-confessed science enthusiasts, we enjoy talking about science with everyone. We want to be the spark that ignites inspiration in people of any background to talk passionately about science.
Want to be part of the fun? You can join the Pint of Science organisation and team up with our amazing crew of passionate volunteers. Just fill out our expression of interest form.
In case you missed it!
CSIRO Alumni Scholarship in Physics
23 March 2022, Online event
The 2022 CSIRO Alumni Scholarship ceremony was held online due to Covid-19 restrictions.
This year’s winner was Trey Guest and the award was presented by Prof Bronwyn Fox, Chief Scientist of CSIRO.
Trey’s project is “Wavefront Characterisation of MHz XFEL Pulses” and is a collaboration between the La Trobe University and the European XFEL and aims to leverage Australian expertise in x-ray physics to develop suitable phase-retrieval methods for application at the European XFEL. Trey gave his presentation from Hamburg and explained how he is implementing wavefront sensing schemes designed using wavefront simulations he has performed, as well as preliminary experiments undertaken at the Imaging and Medical Beamline (IMBL) at the Australian Synchrotron.
The event was opened by Dr Scott Martin. Dr Bob Steele, Chair of the CSIRO Alumni NSW Chapter, then spoke about the history of the scholarship and how grateful we are to all those who have donated to keep the scholarship going each year.
A recording of the event will soon be available on the alumni website.
The Secrets of Healthy Ageing
24 March 2022, Online event
Professor Cassandra Szoeke is one of our CSIRO Alumni members and director of the Healthy Ageing Program at the University of Melbourne.
She talked about her research-based approach to ageing well. The event was hosted by Peggy Stasinos with a Q&A session after the main presentation.
We will be posting some highlights from the recorded Webcast on the alumni website.
Convergence 2022
30 March 2022, Online event
We’d like to thank our alumni members who joined a panel and spoke about their careers in research to our CERC Fellows.
Promote your own events
To help connect alumni with one another, we encourage you to list your own events on our website. 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
We feature a range of alumni stories on our website celebrating the achievements of our members. We encourage members to get in touch and send in their stories of trials and tribulations – all in the name of scientific research!
On a sadder note, if you would like to let the alumni network know about the passing of one of our members, please email us and we can post a notice to the news page and also feature an obituary within our stories section.
If you have received an award, written a book or have any stories that you’d like to share with the alumni network, please email alumni@csiro.au
Vale Dr Trevor William Scott 1936-2022
Dr Trevor William Scott was the Chief of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisations (CSIRO) Division of Animal Physiology/ Animal Production 1975-1989
Trevor had a distinguished career as a lipid biochemist and worked in laboratories in Australia, England and the USA before joining CSIRO
From CSIRO software engineer to start-up CEO: Silvia’s journey to revolutionising healthcare
If you’ve logged on to one of the six million medical consultations that have been delivered using the Coviu platform in the past five years, you’ll already be familiar with the work of CSIRO Alumni Dr Silvia Pfeiffer.
Silvia is the CEO and Co-Founder of CSIRO spin-out and a successful ON alumni Coviu.
Silvia first joined CSIRO’s Data61 in 2012 as a software engineer before becoming a team lead.
Read more about Silvia’s career through CSIRO to her current role leading one of Australia’s leading telehealth providers and her advice for anyone thinking of making the move from researcher to CEO.
Hazel MacTavish-West and Seedlab Tasmania
Hazel MacTavish-West is one of our CSIRO Alumni members. She is the founder of Seedlab Tasmania, an incubator that helps start-up and small businesses create, grow, and share their products and services with Australia and the world. They provide a proven, practical training program, and hands-on support from experts to take the guesswork out of business growth.
“Seedlab Tasmania has supported 105 Tassie businesses to start, scale and grow,” Dr MacTavish-West said.
“We have built community, despite the pandemic. And we have created outcomes for businesses that were beyond their wildest dreams.”
Seedlab Tasmania has recently gone national with a recent investment of $4 million from Woolworths for Seedlab Australia.
There is now the opportunity for people to apply for Round #3 of Seedlab Australia Bootcamp by 9am AEST Wednesday the 20th of April, 2022.
Apply online at www.seedlabaustralia.com.au
CyberTaipan 2022 Mentor Opportunity
The CyberTaipan competition give participants an insight into the world of cyber defence and network security.
As a CyberTaipan mentor, you’ll have the opportunity to shape the future of Australian digital natives by highlighting your career in cybersecurity or a STEM related field and support their learning of cybersecurity principles. Registrations to be a mentor are now open and close on the 2nd of May 2022.
The CSIRO Lindfield Collaboration Hub is a deeptech and hardware incubator; based at CSIRO’s Lindfield facility. It is a dedicated space for start-ups and SMEs to develop unique, high-tech products and devices.
Early stage and established companies can move to CSIRO’s Lindfield campus and access our facilities, science know-how, experience, business networks and commercialisation savvy; along with a community of peers and advisors to support the realisation of dreams.
We are keen for alumni to get involved as mentors, workshop presenters and guest speakers, so please contact us if you are interested and send an email to Katie.green@csiro.au
New events connect STEM Professionals in Schools volunteers
Over 1200 people from science, technology, engineering, or maths backgrounds are sharing their expertise in primary and secondary school classrooms through the CSIRO STEM Professionals in Schools program.
It’s the largest volunteering program for STEM professionals and educators in the country and includes a number of CSIRO Alumni among its ranks.
Our team works to match STEM Professionals with teachers that can advise how to incorporate real-world knowledge and experiences into the curriculum. From there, the STEM professional and teacher work together in a partnership to create engaging lessons to inspire students.
Volunteers can be as engaged as they want to be. For example, some may take part in a class once or twice a term throughout the year, others may participate in an annual learning module – coming in for a regular lesson over a couple of weeks. Some volunteers choose not to be in class at all, instead helping a teacher behind the scenes with mentoring and lesson planning. It’s entirely flexible.
Applications are open for volunteers that want to inspire the next generation. The program has also recently launched a series of webinars to help participants feel even more connected and supported.
For those that have recently joined, the “New Starters” webinar lays out everything they need to know about the program, while the “Kickstart Your Partnership” sessions provide helpful tips on how to plan, deliver and evaluate engaging activities. There are plenty of sources for inspiration from guest speakers in the “Partnership Share” webinars, where volunteers can discuss their experiences in the program.
It’s all part of building a community for those volunteers that are doing something to help in their own community.
Interested in making a difference? Head to the STEM Professionals in Schools website for more information, inspiration or to apply as a volunteer.
Already registered for the program? See the STEM Professionals in Schools events page for upcoming webinar dates and join the STEM Professionals in Schools LinkedIn group
Professor Cassandra Szoeke is one of our CSIRO Alumni members and director of the Healthy Ageing Program at the University of Melbourne. She is offering CSIRO Alumni members 20% off RRP $32.99 on her best-selling book, “Secrets of Women’s Healthy Ageing.”
To place your order, email Dominika at MUP: dominika.greinert@unimelb.edu.au with the below details.
+ Number of copies you would like to order
+ Delivery address. Delivery is free for orders of $50+ to one address within Australia
This is the health book for women open to tips on how to live healthier, longer lives. Best of all, the advice is evidence based and readable.
We are hiring – please feel free to share these opportunities with anyone who might be interested:
Program Leader, Immune Resilience Future Science Platform
The Program Leader - Immune Resilience Future Science Platform (IR-FSP) will be an impact driven, entrepreneurial and a collaborative science leader who actively develops and manages an exciting portfolio of science across several application domains and across CSIRO.
- Lead the Future Science Platform to advance the immune resilience of humans and animals
- Continue the ACDP’s important work in advancing vaccines for emerging pathogens
- Senior leadership role in Australia's national scientific and technology research organisation
Research Director - Sustainability Program
The Sustainability Program is one of 6 research programs in the Agriculture and Food business unit and aims to drive innovation and build pathways for sustainable and inclusive agrifood and fibre systems. The three key focus areas of the program are Soil and Landscapes, Climate Smart Agriculture, and Food Systems and Global Change.
- Drive innovation and build pathways for sustainable and inclusive agrifood and fibre systems
- Support transitions to more sustainable, inclusive and profitable agri-food systems in Australia and the Asia-Pacific
- Engage with collaboration partners, industry, government and across the business to advance world-class science delivery
Check out our other career opportunities
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