Student sporting excellence celebrated
Olympic diver Melissa Wu was named Macquarie’s female athlete of the year at the recent Blues Awards ceremony. Melissa also won the Chancellor’s Award on the night, and is pictured above with Elizabeth Crouch, Deputy Chancellor, at the awards.

In total, 11 elite athletes were recognised at the event for their outstanding sporting achievements representing Macquarie University, their state, or the nation in 2015. A full list of winners can be viewed online.

Black holes make gravitational waves across the science community
Macquarie physicists, astronomers and others from the campus science community gathered last Friday to celebrate and discuss the announcement of the first direct detection of gravitational waves through the Advanced LIGO project. The detected waves were a result of two massive black holes merging around 1.3 billion years ago. They are a long-awaited vindication of the predictions made by Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

“The discovery represents the beginning of a completely new form of astronomy,” explains Associate Professor Michael Steel, Head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Photo caption (clockwise from top):  Associate Professor Michael Steel speaks to the gathering; (Left to right) Professor Mark Wardle, Associate Professor Michael Steel, Associate Professor Daniel Zucker and Professor Orsola De Marco of the Department of Physics and Astronomy; Associate Professor David Coutts demonstrating how an interferometer works; Associate Professor Daniel Terno explains the use of squeezed light in LIGO to some students.

Build a bot – students scramble to complete their robot as Australia’s largest robotics competition approaches
If you walk past F9C this week, you might hear the sounds of drills, electric saws and general tinkering. No, it’s not just coming from the construction work in the area – groups of school students, Macquarie students and engineering mentors are now meeting daily to complete the design, construction and programming of their robots in time for day one of the Australia Regional FIRST Robotics Competition at Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre on 17 March. Learn more about FIRST and this exciting competition.

Bondi classroom: The Biggest English lesson
Last Friday, 12 February, around 3000 English language students met at Bondi Beach to take part in a four-hour event to break a Guinness World Record: the biggest English lesson ever undertaken. More than 100 Macquarie students participated and Trish Behan, a senior teacher at the English Language Centre, conducted part of the lesson on stage. The lesson also featured in SBS coverage.

[pictured above] Academic economist and Greece’s ex-Minister of Finance, Yanis Varoufakis was the guest of honour at an exclusive one-off Macquarie Graduate School of Management (MGSM) event last Monday 30 November.  As well as giving a riveting address, Mr Varoufakis was joined by Dean of MGSM, Professor Alex Frino, for an in-depth public discussion on the current Greek economic climate. The event was attended by more than 250 guests, including Macquarie University Chancellor, The Hon Michael Egan AO, former Premier of NSW, The Hon Kristina Keneally and Dr John Hewson AM.

Associate Professor Richard Appleyard from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science (pictured right), along with his good friend Tim Lockrey, recently took on the Mystery Box Rally 2015. Dubbed as the ‘mad baby brother of the Shitbox Rally’, the Mystery Box Rally sees participants arrive at the departure location with no car and no idea of where they’re heading, all the while raising funds for the Cancer Council. At this year’s event Richard and Tim (team ‘Autopaedic’) overshot their target of $3000 and raised $12,481 for their participation in the event, the fourth highest team fundraising effort out of 85 teams. They also took home the award for ‘Best Themed Team’, managing to stay in their medical scrubs for the duration of the five-day event!

The Macquarie University Hospital (MUH) has always been a great supporter of ‘Movember’, and this year was no exception! To date, more than four million moustaches have been grown worldwide for this annual initiative, sparking conversations and raising vital funds for men’s health programs. In 2015, the team at Movember introduced a ‘Move’ component to its fundraising initiatives and in support of this, MUH raised funds by hosting a 24-hour treadmill relay in the Hospital foyer. The activity commenced at 4pm on Tuesday 24 November, with Hospital CEO Carol Bryant taking the first shift. Over the course of the 24 hours, the treadmill did not stop running for 24 hours and the MUH team covered a total of 133 kilometres.

Celebrations continued on Friday 27 November with the Hospital’s ‘Barber Shop BBQ’. Staff enjoyed a delicious barbeque, while keeping entertained by watching a professional barber remove the moustaches of the MUH’s Mo Bros who had grown facial hair in support of this great cause. A total of $9,467 was raised by staff for this fantastic initiative.

In the upcoming Art Gallery exhibition Homecoming, two artists, Chris Stevenson and Teong Eng Tan, who spent an important part of their working lives at Macquarie University, explore aspects of their personal history and memory. While Chris draws inspiration from her visits to the family farm in the Blue Mountains, Teong engages the abstract, saying his time at Macquarie prepared him “for yet another leap into a dizzy engagement with ‘art’”.

The exhibition opens in the Macquarie University Art Gallery this Wednesday 9 December 2015, closing for the Christmas break (Friday 25 December to Monday 4 January, inclusive), and will resume on Tuesday 5 January until Friday 15 January 2016.

Featured artwork above: Ruminations 1, Chris Stevenson

Last Wednesday 2 December, more than 250 members of our Macquarie community gathered at a lunch to celebrate the achievements of Macquarie women and highlight gender equity initiatives throughout 2015. At the event, Vice-Chancellor Professor S Bruce Dowton acknowledged the ongoing contribution of women to the success of Macquarie and highlighted some particularly outstanding achievements during 2015

The Career Service recently held an awards ceremony for the 22 students who completed the Career Success Program. The program is designed to help students enhance their employability skills by boosting their confidence, job seeking strategies and networking skills.

As part of National Science Week earlier this year, the National Indigenous Science Education Program (NISEP) ran an Indigenous Science Experience event, demonstrating the value of traditional knowledge and Aboriginal culture in science and the relevance of science. Based at Macquarie, the NISEP aims to increase the level of engagement with science of rural and regional communities of Australia with high Indigenous populations, increase confidence in science and promote continuing involvement in science through secondary and tertiary education.

Kiss Goodbye to MS
To launch MS Research Australia’s ‘Kiss Goodbye to MS’ campaign on 1 May, MS research teams around Australia, including Macquarie’s Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Group (pictured above) swapped their white lab coats for red ones and shared their photos on social media. Dozens of posts appeared on Twitter (and other social platforms) from multiple sclerosis researchers around the country, showcasing the amazing people who dedicate their time to finding a cure for multiple sclerosis, and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Indian students receive $1 million scholarship boost
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor S Bruce Dowton, met with Mr Amit Kumar Das last week. Mr Das was instrumental in the establishment of the Moti Babu Institute of Technology (MBIT) in India. In this capacity, Mr Das has made a $1 million pledge in support of scholarships that encourage high-achieving MBIT undergraduates to undertake an early career Masters program at MGSM. Read more on the VC’s blog.

Austral Ark Book Launch
Last Monday saw the launch of Austral Ark: The State of Wildlife in Australia and New Zealand. Edited by Macquarie’s Adam Stow, the book highlights Australia and New Zealand’s many historical and contemporary environmental differences as well as commonalities, providing an insight into the threatening processes occurring worldwide as well as the unique conservation problems faced in this region. The event was attended by a number of staff, including Faculty of Science and Engineering Executive Dean Professor Barbara Messerle. Also in attendance was Senator Christine Milne, leader of the parliamentary caucus of the Australian Greens.

Bangladeshi relations strengthened
On Friday 24 April, a delegation from the North South University (NSU) of Bangladesh, led by Professor Amin U. Sarkar, Vice-Chancellor, and Mr Benjir Ahmed, Chairman & Founder, visited Macquarie University. NSU is a leading private university in Bangladesh which provides quality undergraduate and Master programs. A collaboration MoU was signed to mark the establishment of formal partner relationship between Macquarie and NSU. The delegation was met by Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning, Teaching & Diversity) Professor Sherman Young, and senior staff members from Faculties of Arts and Business & Economics, and Macquarie International.

Movies at Macquarie
The E7B Courtyard came alive with bean bags, cheap eats and a great night of entertainment for all involved at the first instalment of the newly-revamped Movies at Macquarie. The event featured a screening of The Dish, a film celebrating the space era and the exciting role Australia played in bringing the first Moon landing to audiences around the world. Following the film, Dr Lee Spitler from the Department of Physics and Astronomy led an insightful and engaging panel discussion, featuring astronomers and other experts who use the Parkes telescope. Check out what’s up next for Movies at Macquarie.

Filex presentation for one of our group fitness gurus
Leisl Klaebe, Group Fitness Team Leader from the Sport and Aquatic Centre travelled to Melbourne earlier last month to present a lecture to her industry peers as part of ‘Filex’, the largest fitness convention in the Asia Pacific region. Leisl spoke about creating ‘tribes’ within the group fitness workplace and provided fellow delegates with a ‘tribal toolkit’ with tips and tricks to take back to their clubs and encouraged managers to embrace inspirational and motivational leadership, transparent management, teamwork, authenticity and empowerment of their tribes. As well as presenting, Leisl also joined hundreds of group fitness professionals in learning new Les Mills group fitness choreography.

Nepalese Student Society raises much-needed funds
In response to the devastating Nepal earthquake, the Macquarie University Nepalese Student Society has been working to fundraise for the relief effort, teaming up the Campus Engagement team and with other student societies including Los Latinos and the Thai Laos Student Association. Last Thursday, the groups hosted a barbecue to raise funds for the Red Cross Nepal Region Earthquake Appeal. With some delicious food, music, megaphones, and a strong community spirit, the team raised $4300! The Nepalese Student Society will be continuing their work to raise funds and awareness for the relief campaign, and donation boxes for the appeal will remain around the Campus Hub. Donations can also be made online directly to the Red Cross.

English PD Fest at Macquarie
Last Saturday 2 May, the English Language Centre was proud host to the University English Centres of Australia (UECA) biannual PD (Professional Development) Fest. The theme of the PD Fest was ‘Creative People – Creative Spaces’, and was attended by over 170 English language teachers from various ELICOS Centres in New South Wales and interstate. There were 16 workshops conducted throughout the day, followed by a closing keynote delivered by Sue Blundell, the Executive Director of English Australia.