The 2016 Macquarie University Amazing Race is on again, and all staff are invited to get involved. So dust off that fancy dress costume, bring out your competitive spirit and get ready for an afternoon of fun and team building.

Teams of four can register now through the Macquarie website, or individuals can sign up and be allocated a team. On race day, teams will leave the start point with a map and their first clue which they must crack to determine their next check point. At each destination, teams must work together quickly to complete a fun, physical or mental challenge in order to gain points and to receive the clue to continue the race.

“The race only took a couple of hours but our team talked about it for months afterwards; it was a real hoot!” said Campus Engagement Development Officer Lauren Hargreaves, who was one quarter of the ‘Welcome 1’ team from Campus Engagement in 2015.

The event is focused on fun, participation and community spirit. For Macquarie staff, it is the perfect opportunity for an afternoon team-building activity or some friendly office rivalry; the crew from Campus Engagement entered two teams in 2015!

For any staff new to Macquarie, it’s also a nice occasion to get out of the office and find areas of the campus they might have not yet discovered.

“We were probably the slowest team but it really didn’t matter; it was good fun and a great way to get everyone out of the office and around the campus,” said Robert Ephraums, Team Leader, Campus Engagement and part of the 2015 ‘Welcome 1’ team.

Giveaways and prizes will be awarded for the fastest team, the team with the most points and the most creative team costume. A free barbecue will conclude the event for participants.

For more details and to register, visit the Amazing Race website.

If racing isn’t your thing, but you’re still keen to get involved, you can volunteer to help out at one of the checkpoints during the event. Contact Manager – Sport Development, Kate Butler (kate.butler@mq.edu.au) to register your interest.

Date: Thursday 31 March
Time: 1pm, with a barbecue presentation from 4pm
Where: All around campus, starting from the Central Courtyard

From our very beginnings, Macquarie has been consciously inclusive. From paving a path for women to pursue tertiary study, to the incredible number of nationalities and cultures to be found amongst our staff and students, ours is a place where different perspectives are welcomed and celebrated.

On Wednesday 23 March we will celebrate the diversity of our Macquarie community at a free Harmony Day event for all students and staff.

From 12pm to 2pm, the Central Courtyard will be alive with colours, sounds and tastes from around the world, with plenty of delicious food on offer.

Award-winning slam poet Abe Nouk will be performing a selection of poems reflecting on his upbringing in war-torn Africa and his new life in Australia.

As a signatory organisation to the Racism. It stops with me campaign, there will also be a screening of Unified Ryde – a film produced by Macquarie students and staff in partnership with the City of Ryde and the Salvation Army.

Harmony Day at Macquarie University
When: Wednesday 23 March
Time: 12pm – 2pm
Where: Central Courtyard

Learn more about the event.

Tuesday 8 March, International Women’s Day, is an opportunity to acknowledge the contributions made by Macquarie women to our University, the economy and our communities.

With this year’s theme being “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”, it is also a time to look at how women are progressing at Macquarie, especially in terms of positions of leadership and influence.

There is much to celebrate in this regard. Figures published in The Australian last month rank Macquarie as the third best university in Australia in terms of female representation in management.

The broader picture is also encouraging, as this snapshot – prepared with the assistance of the Equity and Diversity Unit – shows.

Kate Wilson, Director of Equity and Diversity says that while these are excellent results, there is always more to be done.

“The top areas of concern right now are the need to attract and keep women in the sciences (STEMM – Science, Technology, Engineering,  Mathematics and Medicine); the need for flexible workplaces which appreciate the complexity of women’s lives; and the need to address the perennial issue of the gender pay gap.”

“Macquarie continues to take action on all of these and gender is now explicit in the Vice-Chancellor’s Key Performance Indicators and in high level University plans.”

Kate encourages all University staff to join tomorrow’s festivities, where they can find out how to support these initiatives and gender equality more broadly.

“I’d like to wish everyone a fabulous International Women’s Day tomorrow. It’s a day to celebrate, a day to reflect and a day to take action!”

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International Women’s Day at Macquarie
Date: Tuesday 8 March
Time: 12pm to 2pm
Location: Central Courtyard

Register now.

The free screening of the movie Whiplash, starting at around 8pm following the sunset, will be held on the iconic Macquarie lakeside lawns. Guests are encouraged to invite friends, bring a low-lying deck chair or blanket, enjoy the food stalls, and sit back and relax.

The film, Whiplash, follows the intensely inspiring experience of an ambitious first-year jazz student, Andrew Neiman, as he attends the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory in New York. When a famed conductor, Terence Fletcher, discovers Andrew practicing the drums one night, he invites him into his studio band. What follows is an exploration of the power struggle between the abusive master musician and his aspiring pupil, as Andrew learns the true price of musical excellence. The film has wowed critics with its alluring representation of jazz music and depiction of how musical excellence can come at a great cost.

The screening is open to all, and will be wheelchair accessible and contain closed captions for the hearing impaired. This is a smoke free event, and an adult must accompany children under the age of 15.

Learn more about the event.

“I commend each and every one of you for your hard work. You are at the top end of the leading edge of the performance of this University and it’s a great privilege for me to acknowledge each and every one of you,” said the Vice-Chancellor, Professor S Bruce Dowton, as he congratulated all the recipients.

With more than 100 nominations made, Nicole Gower, Director, Human Resources says “It was pleasing to see the high number of nominations across all parts of the University, and the acknowledgement from those nominating their colleagues for the outstanding work done by professional staff.”

Below, our winning individuals and teams who will receive $4000 individually and collectively, to spend on professional development.

COLLABORATION AND CONNECTION AWARD WINNER

Tori Hocking, Executive Officer, Research, for her commitment to building connections and actively collaborating across the University during the planning and delivery of the Strategic Research Framework.

Quote from Tori’s nomination
It is through her patience, attention to detail, strategic thinking, and understanding of Macquarie’s overall research vision, coupled with her collaborative and connective style of working that Tori was able to deliver a framework that has been so widely and positively embraced by the University community.

On winning the award, Tori says:
I feel very humbled Sakkie nominated me for this award and that the University holds my work in high esteem. The development of the Strategic Research Framework was very much a team effort with stakeholders from the Faculties and the Research Portfolio all generously sharing their expertise and offering invaluable insights and guidance. I couldn’t have done it without them and I can’t thank everyone enough for their patience and generosity. Special thanks needs to go out to Erin Semon who provided a continuous stream of practical, encouraging and calming support throughout the process.

I hope everything I do supports the achievement of the University’s research objectives and targets. The breadth, depth and ingenuity of the research undertaken here is truly inspirational and I can’t help but be impressed, excited and honoured to be a small part of it. I encourage anyone who has the opportunity to go and listen to a research presentation on campus – it really puts into perspective the very high calibre of the research our researchers are involved in and how they are making a difference to our understanding of the world around us.

LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNER

John Durbridge, Campus Security Manager, for his commitment to creating a culture of service and engagement in his leadership of the Security team.

Quotes from John’s nomination
John has been a great mentor and leader throughout his role as Campus Security Manager. As a security guard I have been very fortunate to work under a person like him…He has vision and I am nominating him for that vision.

John has changed the face of University Security by ensuring all staff members including the contractors take on a customer service approach.

On winning the award, John says:
The award is the pinnacle of all the work done by the Security Services team over the four and a half years I’ve been here. When I first arrived, there were lots of challenges my team faced in terms of performance and customer service, but with hard work and a great team attitude I feel we have been able to produce what I consider to be a great service to the University community.

With security and people’s safety becoming a greater challenge every day, my team has an important responsibility to our University community to help maintain our campus as a safe environment. In turn, that allows staff, students, and visitors to go about their tasks and achieve both their goals, and the University’s.

OUTSTANDING SERVICE AWARD WINNERS

The Faculty of Arts Research Office team for their commitment to delivering outstanding service to the Faculty on all aspects of research management.

Quote from the team’s nomination
The Arts Research Office is widely respected and admired by academic and professional staff across the Faculty, due to its outstanding service, strong client focus, and exemplary work ethic.

Gill Ellis on behalf of the team, says:
It is a great feeling, we were all delighted when we read the nomination, to realise our Associate Dean Research and our colleagues valued what we do so highly.  We’ve had more than a hundred ‘congratulations’ emails, it’s wonderful.

Our core activity and focus is to support the Faculty’s researchers and what we do is directly linked to achieving the goals in the University’s Strategic Research Framework.

INNOVATION AND PROCESS IMPROVEMENT AWARD WINNERS

The Library Rapid Improvement Event team for their commitment and active contribution to process improvement across a number of the Library’s key operations.

Quote from the team’s nomination
The Library has made a significant contribution this year to the Macquarie Business Process Improvement operations. Library-focussed Rapid Improvement Events have involved whole teams of Library staff. This work has impacted both staff and processes in significant ways, resulting in measurable improvements to processes in important but troublesome areas across Library operations.

Jenny Bremner on behalf the team, says:
It is wonderful to have the whole team recognised for their teamwork and accomplishments.  It has been a whole-of-Library effort and we were very proud to have received the award. Our work is about improving support services to provide quality client-centred service with continuous improvement.

Our Highly Commended staff

Highly Commended [L-R with the Vice-Chancellor Professor S Bruce Dowton]

Outstanding Service: Lachlan McPhail, Health and Safety Coordinator, Risk and Assurance

Outstanding Service: Maria Brittain, Receptionist, Human Sciences

Leadership Excellence: Lilia Draganov, Student Support Coordinator, Faculty of Business and Economics

Innovation and Process Improvement: Suchitra Patki, Research Reporting Accountant, Finance

Collaboration and Connection: Leigh Staas, Executive Officer, Climate Futures and Biodiversity Node, Science and Engineering

Congratulations to all our winners, and well done to all who were nominated for their hard work.

More than 30 leading academics and researchers from around the world will converge on campus from Wednesday 9 December to take part in a conversation that will define and dictate our future – the Big History Anthropocene Conference.

International and Australian expert speakers will tackle the challenges of the ‘Anthropocene’, the current era where the earth systems are now dramatically altered by humans.

Speakers from a diverse range of disciplines will tackle climate change, biodiversity, sustainability, and the changing face of law and economics during the Anthropocene.

Staff are welcome to attend and will have the opportunity to engage with Macquarie experts and international academic leaders to explore significant global challenges and potential solutions.

“Are we close to a tipping point on the issue of climate change? The Big History Anthropocene conference will bring together scholars from many different disciplines to discuss some of the major global challenges of the next few decades – challenges that are also being tackled at the Paris conference on climate change. Do consider joining us,” says Big History founder Professor David Christian.

Register to attend and find out more about the Big History Anthropocene Conference.

“Our international reputation is built upon the excellence of the research undertaken by our highly committed and talented researchers across a broad spectrum of research activity,” says Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Sakkie Pretorius. “The night was a true showcase of the outstanding research and innovation being undertaken at Macquarie.”

The 2015 Research Awards were this year aligned with our five Future-shaping Research Priorities which were developed as a means to support the University’s current and emerging areas of disciplinary research strength with the significant challenges of today and tomorrow.

“Their breadth and local, national and global relevance offer researchers a considerable level of stability over the next 10 years. Each recognises the world-leading research with world-changing impact undertaken across the range of disciplines by researchers at Macquarie,” says Sakkie.

The Awards also honoured Excellence in Higher Degree Research, Excellence in Higher Degree Research Supervision, Early Career Research and Excellence in Research Leadership.

Congratulations to six staff, recognised with Excellence in Research – Five Future-Shaping Research Priorities Awards

Professor Jennifer Hudson
Healthy people: Improving emotional health
ARC Future Fellow and Centre for Emotional Health Director Professor Jennifer Hudson is working to stamp out childhood anxiety. Through international collaboration with more than 15 different institutions and anxiety clinics from around the world, the team is able to create tailored, individualised treatment for children with anxiety disorders. “If we can improve the emotional health of young people, then we can have an impact on individuals across their lifespan – improving their life satisfaction, their happiness and their emotional health,” she says.

Professor Wendy Rogers
Resilient societies: Supporting surgical innovation
ARC Future Fellow Professor Wendy Rogers is on a mission to make surgery safer for patients around the world. Her team developed the Macquarie Surgery Innovation Identification Tool (MSIIT), a questionnaire that identifies how much a surgical intervention differs from usual practice. If it meets a certain threshold, the tool triggers support to make it safer for the patient. “My grand plan is to use the conceptual tools from moral philosophy and ethics to identify and understand practical issues in healthcare and to try to resolve them in ways that make healthcare safer and better for people,” she says.

Professor Stefan Trueck
Prosperous economies: Modelling electricity prices
Centre for Financial Risk Co-director Professor Stefan Trueck wants to keep utility prices reasonable in Australia. He creates statistical or econometrical models to forecast the price behaviour of electricity. This is particularly important for large customers such as retailers who buy electricity on exchange and could be at risk with extreme price fluctuations. His models help hedge those risks. “I want to do things that help people, that help the economy and help financial markets to achieve better outcomes,” he says.

Associate Professor Brian Atwell
Secure planet: Improving our crops
Associate Professor Brian Atwell wants to feed the planet. Conservative estimates show that the Earth’s temperature will rise on average 0.9 degrees Celsius over the next century, which could mean disaster for plants that are highly sensitive to their environment. Atwell’s team has found a gene in heat-tolerant rices in northern Australia that allows photosynthesis at higher temperatures, enabling higher productivity of the plant. “There will be a group of people who have an open mind about using wild plants in Australia to try to improve the 15 or 20 major foods that feed almost everybody on this planet,” he says.

Professor Nicolle Packer
Innovative technologies: Understanding disease
Professor Nicolle Packer is helping in the fight against every disease in humans. Data from all over the world come together in her team’s project, UniCarbKB, to understand how sugars attach to the surface of cells and interact to bring about diseases. With the innovative technologies and the informatics needed to analyse data, the project makes it possible to develop new targets and diagnostics for these diseases. “I truly believe these molecules are important in the way our bodies function and how they stop functioning,” she says. “As one of my post-docs has said to me, ‘It’s all about sugars. It always was and always will be.’”

Professor David Raftos
Innovative technologies: Safeguarding our oyster industry
Professor David Raftos is working to future-proof Australia’s oyster industry. Besides being New South Wales’ largest aquaculture industry, oysters are instrumental in forming estuarine ecosystems such as that in Sydney Harbour and the Hawkesbury River. Working with the Australian oyster industry, Raftos’ team discovered a set of genes in oysters that allows them to survive disease and tolerate environmental changes. “So far our results are remarkable,” he says. “In just a single generation of breeding using this new technology, we’ve had a 30 per cent improvement in the number of oysters that survive disease outbreaks.”

See the full playlist of videos online, including those highly commended in these award categories.

Distinguished Professor Award: Seven of our academic finest bestowed with a mark of distinction

Also announced during the 2015 Research Excellence Awards, the Distinguished Professor award is the highest academic honour Macquarie can bestow on a member of our academic community, recognising professors who have made an outstanding contribution to their field of scholarship or discipline and to the University.

Seven staff will carry this title in 2016, including six renominated from the first cohort awarded in 2010.

The six continuing recipients of the 2015 Macquarie University Distinguished Professor Award are:

• Professor Mark Westoby, Faculty of Science and Engineering
• Professor Naguib Kanawati, Faculty of Arts
• Professor Sue O’Reilly, Faculty of Science and Engineering
• Professor David Throsby, Faculty of Business and Economics
• Professor Stephen Crain, Faculty of Human Sciences
• Professor Ronald Rapee, Faculty of Human Sciences

Newly nominated in 2015:

• Professor James Guthrie, Faculty of Business and Economics

Congratulations to all our award winners.

Read about our Early Career Research and Higher Degree Research Award winners.

November, or more importantly ‘Movember’ is here, providing the perfect excuse to grow a mo, or support a ‘mo bros’ (men with a moustache), and start thinking about men’s health.

To date, more than four million moustaches have been grown worldwide in an effort to spark conversation and raise vital founds for men’s health programs. And to show support, throughout the month of Movember the Macquarie University Hospital (MUH) will match staff and doctor donations dollar for dollar, up to an overall contribution from the hospital of $1500.

This year this hospital will support Movember in two ways and all staff are welcome to get involved.

1. The 24 hour treadmill relay
From 4pm on Tuesday 24 November, staff can take part in a 24 hour treadmill relay in the hospital foyer.

To take part

• Email your interest using the subject line ‘MOVEMBER’ to events@muh.org.au along with your name and contact details. The organising team will be in touch.
• Once you’ve received confirmation, register on the MUH Movember site so people can sponsor you.

2. Grow a mo
Like always, mo bros can encourage their friends, families and colleagues to  sponsor them in their efforts to grow moustaches throughout the month of November. All you need to do is register on the Movember site then follow the five rules of Movember below.

The close shave close: Barber Shop BBQ
At 12.30pm on Friday 27 November, MUH will host a barbecue outside Harley’s Café where mo bros will shave off their month’s worth of work. All staff are welcome to attend . $5 donation.

This week, we focus on two award categories: Excellence in Research – Five Future Shaping Research Priorities (Healthy People, Resilient Societies, Prosperous Economies, Secure Planet and Innovative Technologies) and the Jim Piper Award for Excellence in Research Leadership.

Excellence in Research – Five Future Shaping Research Priorities

The awards in this category recognise the creation and application of research outcomes, the discovery of new knowledge or the use of existing knowledge in a new and creative way to generate new concepts, methodologies and understanding.

There are five awards within this category – see below for our 10 highly commended applicants and their research stories:

• Associate Professor Brian Atwell (Science and Engineering)
• Dr Nicholas Badcock (Human Sciences)
• Associate Professor Andrew Barron (Science and Engineering)
• Professor Jennifer Hudson (Human Sciences)
• Professor Nicki Packer (Science and Engineering)
• Professor Joseph Pugliese (Arts)
• Professor David Raftos (Science and Engineering)
• Professor Wendy Rogers (Arts, Medicine and Health Sciences)
• Professor Mark Taylor (Science and Engineering)
• Professor Stefan Trueck (Business and Economics)

 The Jim Piper Award for Excellence in Research Leadership

This award is to recognise, encourage and reward those researchers who are on a path to becoming research leaders at Macquarie.

Below are our two highly commended applicants and their research stories:

• Professor Amanda Barnier (Human Sciences)
• Professor Stephen Foley (Science and Engineering)

This week, we focus on the Macquarie University Early Career Research of the Year award. This category recognises outstanding performance in research by an early career researcher who is within five years post-completion (formal award) of his/her PhD, MPhil or MRes degree.

There are two awards within this category – see below for our six highly commended applicants and their research stories:

Business, Humanities and Social Sciences

• Dr James Martin (Arts)
• Dr Ross MacKenzie (Human Sciences)
• Dr Alexandra Woolgar (Human Sciences)

Engineering, Medicine and Science

• Dr Simon Gross (Science and Engineering)
• Dr Lee Spitler (Science and Engineering)
• Dr Edwin Lim (Medicine and Health Sciences)

Applicants are selected based on ‘high quality publications or non-traditional outputs’, ‘originality and quality of research’, ‘success in obtaining external research funding’ and their alignment with our strategic research goals.