Raising the profile of women’s participation in sport across all sectors of society will be the focus of a symposium at Griffith University’s Gold Coast campus tomorrow (November 28).
Hosted by the Centre for Social and Cultural Research and the Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management, speakers include leading sports academics and industry professionals.
Griffith University Research Fellow Dr Adele Pavlidis, who is researching women and contact sport, said while women’s participation at elite and recreational levels was being acknowledged as valuable, there was still a long way to go.
Dr Adele Pavlidis.
“Barriers include equal pay and access to competition and training facilities as well as equal media coverage,’’ she said.
“We need to work across silos and work together so we can increase women’s participation in all sports traditionally dominated by males.”
She said women’s contact sports such as AFL competition, rugby sevens and rugby league were now commanding serious media and audience
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Boosting medical research via Griffith biobanking
Translational medical research has been given a major boost with the introduction of a new biobanking resource at Griffith University’s Gold Coast campus.
The Gold Coast Biobank is a purpose-designed biostorage facility bridging the gap in translational clinical research. A first for the Southern Hemisphere, GCBiobank recently installed an automated biostorage, the Arktic, capable of catering for a library of up to 100,000 specimens in a compact package, along with OpenSpecimen, a biostorage management system.
“With this new state-of-the-art technology, we now have the resources to improve the management of our existing samples and the capacity to take on new projects,” says Professor Nigel McMillan from Griffith’s Menzies Health Institute Queensland (MHIQ) and who will speak at the Gold Coast Health Research Week Conference (28-30 November).
“MHIQ is committed to translating innovative health research into better outcomes and so now we are able to offer research collaboration for academics and clinicians whose work
Winners announced for 2017 Griffith Business School Research Excellence Awards
The Griffith Business School has recognised five outstanding researchers as the winners of this year’s Pro Vice Chancellor’s Research Excellence Awards.
From the Griffith Asia Institute, Associate Professor Robin Roberts has been named as 2017’s most remarkable Individual Early Career Researcher for her work in the University’s Agribusiness stream, with recent ARC Discovery grant recipient Dr Lee Morgenbesser earning a high commendation in the category.
Associate Professor Roberts said she appreciates the award and recognition that comes with it, which adds to an existing research portfolio that currently spans eight different grants worth more than $2.5 million.
Among those pursuits are a four-pronged Mango Agribusiness R&D Program (which includes research into quality, information, biosecurity, and markets and trade) as well as a Vietnam mango study, Indonesia strawberry R&D project and a passionfruit R&D project.
The Department of Employment Relations and Human Resources‘ Dr Rebecca Loudoun (pictured right) earned the Individual Mid-Career Researcher award in light of her extensive contributions
Griffith and Deakin universities showcase importance of research in solving problems of the world
Griffith University has teamed up with Deakin University to develop ‘Why Research Matters’, a two-week online course which is now available for enrolment on the global social learning platform, FutureLearn.
The research methods needed when undertaking a PhD and carrying out research will be demonstrated during the free course which starts on December 4. Learners can complete it at their own pace.
The course has been designed by Professor Nick Barter (left), Academic Director, Griffith Online, and Associate Professor Christopher Stevenson, Deakin University.
“Research has the power to transform lives and make the world a better place in which to live,” Professor Barter said. “It is central to the changes that are happening around us day after day, year on year. Our world evolves because of research.”
The free online course will explore the influence and impact of research on government policy, improvements in healthcare and quality control in the manufacturing industry.
World-class partnership
Mark Lester,
‘A new solutions culture’ the focus for Startup Catalyst student
First year Gold Coast IT student, Dylan Birot has become the third member of the Studio 39 group to complete the Startup Catalyst program in California in November.
Startup Catalyst aims to change Australia’s digital enterprise culture by exposing as many people as possible to the new digital companies changing our business and technology world from Silicon Valley.
The continual success of Griffith students in the Startup Catalyst program is building the University’s capacity for a student entrepreneurial culture that compliments the university’s teaching and learning resources.
Fresh from visiting major companies in Silicon Valley including Google, Facebook, Atlassian, Dropbox, Twitter and many others, Dylan hit home on the run, determined to change his own approach to business.
“It’ll sound strange, but it’s almost like I’ve taken on this more VC (venture capitalist) like perspective towards startups now. I’m a lot more critical about ideas and value propositions,” he said.
“I don’t want be another
Griffith and Gold Coast Health sign MoU to increase clinical trial capacity
Investigating a treatment for Ross River virus infection is just one of the clinical research trials underway at Griffith University’s Clinical Trials Unit designed to improve patient care and health outcomes on the Gold Coast.
It’s an arrangement made possible by the newly signed Memorandum of Understanding between Griffith and Gold Coast Health.
The trial – being run for Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals – is one of several commercially sponsored trials being undertaken at Griffith’s Clinical Trials Unit. The trial is hoping to show that the tested intervention may be useful in providing relief from the often excruciating joint pain associated with Ross River virus infection, which has impacted an average of 220 Gold Coasters each year over the past five years.
Gold Coast Health rheumatologist, Associate Professor Jenni Ng is the principal investigator for the trial.
“It’s a great thing for the Gold Coast community to have access to clinical trials that might improve their
Griffith research to help cut road toll
While Australia’s road toll has reduced considerably in a generation, Griffith University’s Dr Lyndel Bates will spend the next few years helping to bring the numbers down even lower.
In 2011, Australian drivers aged 17-25 comprised 13 per cent of the population yet this demographic accounted for 22 per cent of all the national road fatalities.
Dr Bates, from the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, is a recipient of the Australian Research Council’s latest award funding outcomes and receives $365 996 for her project “The road to compliance: Integrating three theories.”
“It sounds technical but it really is all about reducing young driver fatalities and injuries by developing a new, integrated theory of policing combining several key elements, some tried and true and some fresh approaches.”
Dr Bates said her research will be framed around the elements of deterrence, procedural justice and third-party policing approaches and will shy away from traditional policing models
What a pearl! New oyster to save the industry
A new Griffith University scientist has revealed plans to potentially save the struggling Queensland oyster industry.
With the pressure of supplying sustainable food to a growing population, Dr Carmel McDougall of Griffith’s Australian Rivers Institute has plans to revolutionise aquaculture by developing a new species of edible oyster.
Dr McDougall has a history of working with oysters and, more specifically, with pearl development. Now she has set her sights on feeding the masses by developing a disease-resistant species known as the Blacklip Oyster.
This species can be used to replace the Sydney Rock Oyster which is extremely susceptible to QX disease, making it difficult to farm.
The Blacklip Oyster has a much faster growth rate than the Sydney Rock Oyster which helps farmers to distribute their product more quickly.
Being a tropical species it will also open up Queensland’s northern coastlines to the potential of oyster farming.
Oyster aquaculture in Queensland has been in a downward
Biological threats to be detected by Griffith
Griffith University researchers have developed a system that can quickly detect airborne biological threats.
Professor Igor Agranovski, of the School of Engineering, has developed a system that collects aerosolised micro-organisms and finds the threats, such as fungi spores, viruses and bacteria. Such a system could be crucial to soldiers in the field or post-event investigations.
The researchers won contracts with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) through the Defence Innovation Fund to complete the prototyping of the system. It follows on from Professor Jin Song Dong’s contract in June to develop autonomous underwater vehicles.
Aerosolisation is when a physical substance is converted into particles small and light enough to be suspended and transmitted in the air. That could be through a spray, like and aerosol nebuliser, or through a natural process, like a sneeze or cough.
“I started my research in the area of bioaerosols in the year of 2000 in collaboration with colleagues from the
Turtle barnacle researcher tracking them down
The key to protecting critically endangered turtles could lie in their barnacles.
While some people think barnacles growing on turtles is bad for them, Griffith University researcher Ryan Pearson said they could actually help protect the turtles, and shift conservation to where it’s needed most.
“The International Union for Conservation of Nature has recently added sea turtle sub-populations to their Red List assessments, allowing us to look into the level of effort versus conservation need in each sub-population for the first time.” he said.
In a new paper published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, the Australian Rivers Institute member has shown that conservation focused studies of isotopes – chemical signals which can identify what an animal has fed on or where it is living – in sea turtles have almost all been done in the lowest priority places around the world. That is, the sub-populations that are not considered threatened.
“This means