Monash engineering graduate Marc Colella, who is playing a key role in the rebuilding project at the World Trade Centre site, caught up with his former lecturer Associate Professor Riadh Al-Mahaidi at Monash last week.
2 July 2008
2 July 2008
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Monash engineering graduate Marc Colella, who is playing a key role in the rebuilding project at the World Trade Centre site, caught up with his former lecturer Associate Professor Riadh Al-Mahaidi at Monash last week. |
At the age of just 35, Monash engineering graduate Marc Colella is playing a key role in the huge rebuilding project at the World Trade Centre site in New York.
Mr Colella is the structural engineer in charge of building the Freedom Tower, a 105-storey building with a 120m spire that will be the biggest of the four towers being built on the World Trade Centre site.
During a brief trip to Melbourne last week Mr Colella visited Monash to speak to staff and students in the Faculty of Engineering about some of the project's complex considerations -- both technical and emotional.
"As designers you have to divorce yourself from the emotional side of a project, otherwise you'll get nothing accomplished," he said.
"You really just have to treat it like any other project. It just happens to be on a complicated and highly-emotional site."
Mr Colella graduated from Monash in 1994 with a Bachelor of Engineering and worked in Melbourne, his home town, for five years on projects including the 28-storey Clarendon Towers Apartments and the 23-storey Grand Russell building. He became a Chartered Member of the Institute of Engineers Australia during this time.
Mr Colella travelled to London in 1999 to work for British firm WSP Group and when that company acquired US firm Cantor Seinuk, to form the WSP Cantor Seinuk Group, he jumped at the opportunity to transfer to New York to work in the city's high-rise building sector. The move came shortly after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
In 2002 WSP Cantor Seinuk Group won the contract to build three of the four new buildings currently under construction on the World Trade Centre site and Mr Colella was asked to lead a team of engineers on the Freedom Tower also known as Tower One.
"That was pretty exciting," Mr Colella said. "It was out of the blue -- I expected that with something that emotional, that they would have asked an American.
"I feel very fortunate that at 35, I've been given the opportunity to work on one of the most exciting projects in the world."
Mr Colella said the skills he developed at Monash had given him a great grounding and the respect Monash's engineering degree had in the industry had helped progress his career.
"In the States your degree is everything - it's: 'where did you go?' I do mention Monash and senior personnel in particular are familiar with it. I think it's fair to say that Monash's engineering degree is respected as the best in Australia."
For more information on studying engineering at Monash visit the Faculty of Engineering website.
Main page image courtesy of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP/dbox and WSP Cantor Seinuk Group.
2 July 2008
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The Faculty of Law's Diana Bowman received an award for her thesis on the regulation of nanotechnology. |
The most outstanding theses from last year's Monash PhD students have been recognised with the awarding of the annual Mollie Holman doctoral medals.
The Mollie Holman Medal for Excellence is awarded in each faculty to the PhD candidate judged to have presented the best thesis of the year.
The award takes its name from Emeritus Professor Mollie Holman, who held a personal chair as professor of physiology at Monash from 1970 until her retirement in 1996.
The award was created to honour Professor Holman's significant contribution to science and education.
This year's recipients were:
Faculty of Art and Design
Vera Moeller for her thesis Dizzyland: a studio exploration of biological hybridity and hypothetical life forms, which explores the aesthetic, philosophical and cultural ideas linked with hybridity.
Faculty of Arts
Dr Kate Murphy for her thesis Gender and the rural-urban divide: fears and fantasies of the Australian elite 1900-1930, which explores the different ways in which rural ideals functioned within early 20th century elite culture.
Faculty of Business and Economics
Dr George Athanasopoulos for his thesis Essays on Alternative Methods of Identification and Estimation of Vector Autoregressive Moving Average Models, which proposes new methodologies for developing time series models that can forecast several variables simultaneously.
Faculty of Education
Dr John Whelen for his thesis The social and discursive construction of boys' experience of their schooling, an ethnography of the ways boys experience their schooling, challenging the figure of the disaffected schoolboy.Faculty of Engineering
Himal Suraweera for his thesis Peak-to-average power ratio reduction, impulse noise mitigation and synchronisation effects for OFDM systems.
Faculty of Information Technology
Benny Nasution for his thesis Trusted transaction secure network: agent-based distributed security control system for traffic on the internet, which aims to contribute to more secure internet transactions.
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Dr George Athanasopoulos from the Faculty of Business and Economics received a Mollie Holman medal for his thesis on Vector Autoregressive Moving Average Models. |
Faculty of Law
Diana Bowman for her thesis A small matter of regulation: the emerging issue of nanotechnology, which aims to determine regulatory models for nanotechnology.
Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
Dr Michelle Halls for her thesis Characterisation of the signalling pathways of the relaxin family peptide receptors, RXFP1 and RXFP2, which examines how the hormone relaxin communicates with cells in the body to change their activity.
Faculty of Pharmacy
Lauren Boak for her thesis Towards reducing resistance and haematological toxicity of linezolid.
Faculty of Science
Dr John Daniels for his thesis Diffraction studies of ferroelectric materials during the application of electric fields, which involves the use of a novel stroboscopic neutron diffraction technique in order to gain time-resolved diffraction data from samples during the application of electric fields.
The Vice-Chancellor's commendation for doctoral thesis excellence awards were presented to:
Faculty of Business and Economics
Andrzej Ceglowski -- An investigation of emergency department overcrowding using data mining and simulation: a patient treatment type perspective.
Faculty of Information Technology
DrJoanne Evans -- Building capacities for sustainable recordkeeping metadata interoperability.
Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
Cathryn Hogarth -- Regulated importin expression throughout spermatogenesis.
Faculty of Science
Simon Campbell -- Structural and nucleosynthetic evolution of metal-poor and metal-free low and intermediate mass stars.
The Vice-Chancellor's commendation for masters thesis excellence were presented to:
Faculty of Art & Design
Alison Alder -- Out there and outback; narratives of place post Drysdale and Nolan.
Faculty of Arts
Anthony Everingham -- Form and Function in Legal Adjudication: Legal 'Meaning', Hermeneutics and Systems Theory.
Faculty of Education
Marc Mullins -- Re-telling the Snowy River: Exploring connections between river guides, the experience of place, and outdoor education.
Faculty of Engineering
Ou Liang -- Multipoint Relay and Connected Dominating Set Based Broadcast Algorithms for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks.
Further information on the nomination process for next year's awards contact Arun Kumar at the Monash Research Graduate School on +613 9905 2070 or email arun.kumar@adm.monash.edu.au.
2 July 2008
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Professor Ng believes his index gives a true measure of a nation's success. |
Monash University economist Professor Yew-Kwang Ng has devised a thought-provoking method of measuring a country's ability to achieve success in an environmentally-friendly way.
Professor Ng's Environmentally Responsible Happy Nation Index (ERHNI) is calculated as the happiness of a nation's average resident, minus the number of years of unhappiness the nation inflicts on the global community as measured by its per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Professor Ng said ERHNI was a true measure of a nation's success because achieving happiness was most people's ultimate aim and global warming was one of the biggest universal threats to well-being.
"If the principle of a good ERHNI rating was accepted, the policies of governments around the world would focus on improving lives without excessively harming the environment," Professor Ng said.
Under ERHNI, Professor Ng used accepted economic indicators for estimating happiness -- health, safety, education, purchasing power, life expectancy data and information from happiness surveys -- to calculate that the average Australian enjoys the equivalent of 18.4 years of "perfect happiness" during their life.
Per capita CO2 emissions were used to estimate the average Australian inflicted costs equivalent to 9.5 years of unhappiness on the global community.
This gave Australia an ERHNI rating of 8.9 years, ranking it 43 in the world and equal-sixth with Singapore in the Asia-Pacific region. Australia was ranked behind New Zealand (14.3), Malaysia (14.2), Indonesia (10), Philippines (9.3) and Mongolia (9.2).
Many of the highest rankings under ERNHI are found in Western Europe, where countries have happy residents and low per capita CO2 emission.
Switzerland rates as the best (22.8), followed by Denmark (19.3). In North America, Canada (11.3) ranks higher than the US (8.1) because although the countries have similar happiness levels, the US's per capita CO2 emissions are much higher.
Professor Ng said that by striving for a high ERHNI rating a nation would not only make its own people happy, it would increase the ability of other countries to achieve sustainable happiness.
Professor Ng said ERHNI could be refined to include a more comprehensive environmental measure of unhappiness.
"I hope with further improvements, ERHNI will lead to some re-orientation of both the market and national governments towards something more fundamentally valuable and less damaging to our life support system," he said.
2 July 2008
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Leisa McGuinness received the highest achieving graduating student and highest achieving overall undergraduate student awards. |
A Monash Information Technology faculty manager has been rewarded for her efforts to combine work and study, taking out two awards at a recent Faculty of Business and Economics awards night.
Leisa McGuinness, the school manager for the Clayton School of Information Technology and a recent Bachelor of Business/Commerce graduate, received the highest achieving graduating student and highest achieving overall undergraduate student awards at this year's Department of Management's annual awards night.
Ms McGuiness completed her double degree in 2007, juggling part-time study and full-time employment.
Ms McGuiness said she was proud to receive the award and cited support from home, organisational and time management skills, as keys to completing her degrees.
"It was extremely challenging but Monash has fabulous provisions in place to support professional development," Ms McGuiness said.
A total of 36 prizes and awards were presented to management students who excelled in their studies at the annual awards night, held at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne earlier this month.
Other multiple winners include:
Stephanie Vickers who won the highest achieving overall Masters prize and the prize for the highest achieving student in the Master of Management. Stephanie is a partner in the Encore Group, an international consulting firm that specialises in financial services.
Zubin Nawaz shared the prize for the highest achieving student in the Master of Human Resource Management and was also the highest achieving student in the category managing work/family life. Zubin is a financial accountant with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) in Geneva.
Recently appointed head of the Department of Management Professor Ian McLoughin congratulated all the award recipients.
"Leisa has set a wonderful example to other Monash staff who wish to combine work and study, and show us that it is possible to achieve beyond your expectations."
For more information visit the Department of Management's website.
For more information about combining work and study at Monash visit the staff study support program website.
2 July 2008
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Scientists unearth 'the world's oldest mother' -- a 375 million year old placoderm fish with embryo and umbilical cord attached. The fossil is the oldest example of vertebrate pregancy ever discovered. |
Scientists have made one of palaeontology's biggest breakthroughs, the discovery of the fossilised remains of the world's oldest mother.
Measuring around 25cm in length, the mother is an extinct placoderm fish, the dominant group of vertebrates throughout the Middle Palaeozoic Era (420 to 350 million years ago). The placoderms, often referred to as "the dinosaurs of the seas", were the rulers of the world's lakes and seas for almost 70 million years.
Monash and Australian scientists found the fossil -- named Materpiscis attenboroughi after the famed naturalist Sir David Attenborough -- in the Gogo area of north-west Western Australia.
Honorary Research Associate of the Monash School of Geosciences Dr John Long said the discovery was the first time that a fossil embryo had been found with an umbilical cord and the oldest known example of any creature giving birth to live young .
"The existence of the embryo and umbilical cord within the specimen provides scientists with the first ever example of internal fertilisation, confirming that some placoderms had remarkably advanced reproductive biology," Dr Long said.
"This discovery changes our understanding of the evolution of vertebrates."
Chair in Palaeontology and Founding Director of the Monash Science Centre Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich said the announcement was exciting.
"It also points to the high quality of preservation typical of the Gogo locale, one of a few world class palaeontological sites in Australia. It highlights the determined and long term effort put into preparing and studying this material organized by Dr John Long and his students," Professor Rich said.
The fossil find was made on an Australian Research Council funded expedition by Dr Long, Dr Kate Trinajstic of the University of Western Australia, and Dr Gavin Young and Dr Tim Senden from The Australian National University.
To find out more about Palaeontological research at Monash, visit the School of Geosciences website.
2 July 2008
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Alex Phelan and Steven Myers are heading to Sydney this Sunday to participate in the five-day Brightest Young Minds Summit. |
Two Monash University students have been selected to attend the prestigious 2008 Australia's Brightest Young Minds Summit, which will be held in Sydney from 6 to 10 July.
Alexandra Phelan and Steven Myers underwent a rigorous selection process that assessed their leadership experience, community achievement, communication skills and innovative thinking.
The Australia's Brightest Young Minds Summit will give 100 participants the opportunity to collaborate with Australia's leading advocates and companies on the development of new social initiatives, which they will ultimately launch and run themselves.
The summit will enable Ms Phelan and Mr Myers to put the skills learnt throughout their studies, as well as community involvement and experience as student advocates, into action.
Ms Phelan has completed a Diploma of Languages (Mandarin Chinese) and is studying a Bachelor of Biomedical Science/Bachelor of Laws double-degree.
"This opportunity will have the impact of inspiring and effecting change," Ms Phelan said. "It will provide me with the ability to develop, create and sustain an outcome or vision relating to women's rights to health and education."
Mr Myers will complete a Master of Business (Commercialising Science and Technology) at the end of the year, and has previously studied a Bachelor of Biomedical Science and Bachelor of Physiotherapy.
Mr Myers has always been passionate about social justice and has been involved with national Indigenous and rural health groups.
"I'm really looking forward to mixing my passions of equitable health access and social justice with business in a manner that is supportive, responsible and innovative," Mr Myers said.
For more information about the summit visit the Brightest Young Minds website.
2 July 2008
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Jacqueline Patterson, Matthew Bourke, Samuel Hales, David Bowly and Sheree Avard are enjoying their experience at Monash's Malaysian campus. |
Six students from the Clayton and Caulfield campuses are enjoying the experience of studying at the Sunway, Malaysia, campus as part of the Monash Intercampus Exchange Program.
The program provides the opportunity for Monash University students to spend one or two semesters in Malaysia, Australia or South Africa.
The students, Samuel Hales, Jacqueline Patterson, Matthew Bourke, David Bowly, Trent David and Sheree Avard are completing first semester studies in business, engineering, arts and science in Malaysia and will return to Australia this month.
All except Matthew and Sheree are visiting Malaysia for the first time.
The group agreed the experience of living and studying in another country was fantastic.
"It's great being able to learn about and experience another culture first-hand," Samuel said.
Apart from traveling around Kuala Lumpur, the students have visited the resorts of Langkawi and Pangkor Island during their stay. They are also looking forward to visiting other countries in the region including Singapore and Thailand.
Students going on intercampus exchange will normally be paid $A3500 towards their expenses for one semester and $A4000 for two.
For more information about the Monash Intercampus Exchange Program visit the Study Abroad Program website.
2 July 2008
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One of Trevor Wilson's biggest accomplishments during his time at Monash was the installation of the Louis Matheson Pipe Organ in the Robert Blackwood Hall. |
The year was 1969, the month July, and it was the week millions of people crowded around their TVs to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. It was also the week Trevor Wilson started his Monash career.
While Armstrong was describing his moon walk as, "One small step for man - one giant leap for mankind", Trevor was taking his first tentative steps around the Clayton campus.
Thirty-nine years later he has retired from Monash as the manager of electrical services with a swag of happy memories and a long list of achievements.
One of Trevor's biggest accomplishments was the installation of the giant Louis Matheson Pipe Organ in the Robert Blackwood Concert Hall at the Clayton campus.
Writing for the 50th anniversary website Trevor said: "Jurgan Ahrend (the German builder of the organ) was so impressed that we had chosen to wire the organ in a fire-rated, copper-sheathed cable, that he invited me to go back with him to Germany and work with him. I was flattered but declined the invitation."
The organ's motor is stored in a cupboard over the steps which lead to the basement of the Robert Blackwood Concert Hall -- a difficult area to access.
"When I asked Jurgan how we were expected to service and maintain the motor in such a location, he replied: "Why do you need to service the motor? It is a German motor! "The same motor is still running and running well," Mr Wilson said.
Trevor finished at Monash last week and plans to travel, spend more time on the golf course and take cookery classes.
"I leave with very fond memories of many colleagues and look forward to retirement while I still have plenty of energy," Mr Wilson said.
2 July 2008
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The latest work of art is welcomed to Caulfield campus by Associate Department of Theory of Art and Design Professor Robert Nelson, Director of Caulfield and Clayton campuses Professor Rob Willis and artist and Honorary Research Fellow Sherrie Knipe. |
The Caulfield campus is home to another work of art -- this time a wall sculpture created by Honorary Research Fellow Sherrie Knipe.
The unveilling of the aluminium sculpture, In Sink, located on Level 2 of Building B, was welcomed by more than 100 staff and students.
Course Coordinator and Senior Lecturer in Sculpture Dr Dan Wollmering said the work embraced a common object -- the humble sink.
"But the simple drain has been transformed into a massive stretched and distorted floating object referencing Pop Art and Surrealism drain," Mr Wollmering said.
"Sherrie adds a contemporary twist, installing them in a fabricated false wall. This allows the three works to form part of the built environment, questioning our understanding of object, site and function."
Mr Wollmering said Ms Knipe was a real asset to the studio.
"Her advice, sculpture experiences and applied work and research habits all contribute to a bustling creative environment," Mr Wollmering said.
Ms Knipe is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Fine Arts' sculpture studio.
2 July 2008
As we enter the budget setting process this year, we are faced once again with the dilemma of trying to deliver education at world's best standard and internationally first rate research in the face of funding for Commonwealth-supported undergraduate places and funding for research projects from ARC and NHMRC which fail to meet the real costs of these activities.
This problem has progressively worsened over the last dozen years with an absurdly inadequate formula for indexing the Commonwealth Grants Scheme which has delivered approximately two per cent per year increase when real costs have been rising by four to five per cent over the same time. By contrast, the secondary schools allocation has been fully-indexed and we now have the paradoxical situation where the Commonwealth allocates more funds each year to private schools than it does to its public universities for education.
The extent of the problem we face in this country was reinforced to me when I spoke at the National University and Design Forum. The speaker immediately preceding me was from the University of Pennsylvania. She stated that the student number at her university was 20,000, the recurrent budget $4b and the endowment $6.6b. In other words each year they have three times as much money as we have to educate one third the number of students and an endowment 25 times ours. Even so, their endowment is modest when compared with Harvard's $36b.
I mention this not in the sense that we should despair, but rather to emphasise that like other Australian universities we have to be both very smart and very efficient to be able to compete internationally. Monash has performed superbly in these respects but each year the dual constraints of decreased public funding for education and a highly regulated environment with respect to the fees we can charge undergraduate domestic students make the problem more difficult.
In this context, it is essential that the Bradley Review of Higher Education and the Cutler Review of Innovation convince the Government that our universities must receive more funding if they are to continue to be internationally competitive. This is necessary not merely because of our international standing and reputation but because the future of our economy depends on an adequate supply of well-educated and innovative new graduates and on research to allow our industries to compete on innovation and quality rather than forlornly trying to compete on price. We must also have quality universities to do the research necessary for environmental sustainability. This of course relates to water, clean energy and agricultural sustainability where technological and economic solutions are urgently needed.
At the very least, an outcome of the Bradley Review has to be either markedly elevated public funding of Commonwealth supported places or else deregulation of the fees charged to undergraduate domestic students. More radical solutions such as portable learning scholarships for students in a deregulated environment make a lot of sense from the point of view of flexibility of choice for students and breaking down boundaries between the VET/TAFE sector and universities so they should also be considered.
The Cutler Review must lead to full-funding of research. At present, for every dollar of research funding received from ARC and NHMRC the University has to subsidise around 40c as the infrastructure funds attracted by the grants have not kept up with the increase in the research funding. Quite simply, it costs forty per cent more to do the research than the funding granted.
Of course, more profound outcomes from the Cutler Review might also be hoped for, such as major funding to encourage research clusters incorporating universities, CSIRO and industry – there is no more exciting such cluster than that around the Monash Clayton campus.
Another element contributing to the eddies and currents of the debates around the reviews is the concept of "Compacts". They have been a feature of the Labor Party platform since the Macklin white paper of 2006. Nobody is sure what they will encompass and how they will be administered. They are intended to cover areas such as community and industry engagement, regional development and special initiatives for disadvantaged groups and to encourage diverse missions for different universities.
The sector in general and Monash University have high hopes that the real value to the Australian community of our universities might be recognised following the handing down of the reports of the two reviews. It is essential that this leads to significantly more funding or a more deregulated environment. Anything less will be to the real detriment of the future of our country.
Meanwhile, we face a very difficult budget setting process for 2009.
2 July 2008
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Name: Johan Smith
Org. Unit: Monash South Africa
Title: Sports Officer
Department:Student Development
How long have you been with Monash University?
Four years.
Prior to working at Monash, where were you located and what was your role?
I was teaching physical education, Northern Sotho (South African dialect) and maths. Before that I was the headmaster at a private primary school in Johannesburg.
What challenges are ahead in your current role?
To expand Monash South Africa's sports program and facilities and create a vibrant, young sports community on campus through integration and diversity.
What is it about your job that holds your interest or is particularly satisfying?
I love sport. I love interacting with young people and love expanding and building new structures within the organisation.
What is your favourite destination and why?
The Namibian Desert -- it's the quietest place on earth.
What is the best piece of advice you have received?
Keep your head down!
What is something about yourself that most of your colleagues wouldn't know?
I have coached three sport codes at provincial (state) level -- rugby, cricket and swimming.
Archive of 60 seconds with...2 July 2008
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| Caulfield campus. |
The Caulfield and Peninsula campuses have come of age.
Eighteen years ago, on 1 July 1990, Monash University merged with Chisholm Institute of Technology to create two new campuses.
The Caulfield campus site has undergone enormous change since its beginnings as the Caulfield Technical School in 1922 when it offered courses such as carpentry to local residents. The campus is now Monash's second largest with more than 13,500 students, and includes the main offices of the Faculties of Business and Economics, Art and Design, and Information Technology.
The Peninsula campus, located in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, was originally home to Frankston Teachers' College. Today, the Peninsula campus has more than 3300 students and with the recent opening of Eastlink road network is now closer for students and staff living in Melbourne's eastern suburbs.
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| Peninsula campus. |