To mark National Reconciliation Week Griffith University Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff and students have come together to participate in two Walk and Talk events this week.
Hosted by the GUMURRII Student Support Unit, the annual walks at the Gold Coast campus (May 29) and from Mt Gravatt to Nathan campus (May 31), were created in the spirit of reconciliation. Record numbers of students and staff are participating this year.
“This is the eighth year the University has held the Walk and Talk and the aim is to encourage the entire University community to think about ways we can foster better cross-cultural understanding and respect,” said Deputy Vice Chancellor (Engagement) Professor Martin Betts.
Students and staff took the scenic route from Mt Gravatt to Nathan campus.
“The University has committed to clear targets to improve the participation and retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and to increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres
Category: Griffith University Feed
Partnership brings new research node to Griffith
Griffith University has become a collaborating partner with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics (CNBP), which will host a CNBP research node at the Institute for Glycomics at the Gold Coast campus.
As a research node and collaborating partner of the CNBP, Griffith joins the University of Adelaide, Macquarie University and RMIT University as a core member of the Centre of Excellence.
The Griffith-based CNBP research node, headed-up by Associate Professor Daniel Kolarich from the Institute for Glycomics, will add to CNBP’s research capability in the development of next-generation light-based tools that can sense and image at a cellular and molecular level.
“Our team has specialised glycan knowledge and expertise that will aid the Centre in its objectives of improving understanding and knowledge of cell-communication and the nanoscale molecular interactions in the living body,” Associate Professor Kolarich said.
“Glycans (sugar chains attached to proteins and lipids on the cell surface) are intricately
Griffith study finds stress can be contagious
The old adage of not bringing your work troubles home with you has even more significance according to a new study by a leading Griffith researcher.
Professor of Organisational Psychology at Griffith University Professor Paula Brough has found workplace stress was being transferred from one partner to another at home, with around half of the participants reporting it had significantly impacted their relationship.
“Our research found transferred stress is very real and does occur and affects couples with our without children” Professor Brough said.
Psychologists call the phenomenon ‘stress contagion’.
16 couples, who all had full-time careers, were involved in the study which has been published in the Australian Journal of Psychology.
The outcome was part of a larger study which looked at how employees managed stress levels with the aim of tackling workplace bullying.
“That can be in the work environment, from your boss to you or vice versa, if you have a difficult co-worker then
Griffith selected for defence project research
Griffith University is among a select of group universities chosen to conduct joint research with US universities on priority defence projects.
Griffith, along with University of NSW, Sydney University and the University of Technology Sydney, were announced by the Minister for Defence Industry, Christopher Pyne as the four Australian universities to help conduct the research, which will come under the auspices of the US Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI).
“This success is testament to the strength of quantum research at Griffith, and in our collaborating institutions” said Professor Howard Wiseman, who is the Director of Griffith’s Centre for Quantum Dynamics and one of the chief investigators in the project.
The MURI project, titled “quantum control based on real-time environment analysis by spectator qubits”, is led in Australia by Griffith Research Fellow Dr Gerardo Paz Silva.
Dr Gerardo Paz Silva
“The research is an exciting multidisciplinary project that will be executed
Further work required to reduce alcohol-related drowning
An urgent need for high quality research aimed at reducing alcohol-related drowning is the call, following a new Griffith University systematic literature review.
The call comes from Dr Kyra Hamilton from Griffith’s Menzies Health Institute Queensland, who says that despite continued safety campaigns to alleviate this global public health issue, the statistics still remain high.
Through a research collaboration between Griffith University and Royal Life Saving Society – Australia, 73 studies were looked at as part of the paper “Alcohol use, aquatic injury, and unintentional drowning: A systematic literature review” published in Drug and Alcohol Review – 57 on prevalence and/or risk factors, 14 on understanding alcohol use, and two on prevention strategies.
On average, 49 per cent and 35 per cent of fatal and non-fatal drownings, respectively, involved alcohol, with large variations among studies observed.
“Globally, prevalence rates for alcohol involvement in fatal and non-fatal drowning varied greatly,” says Dr Hamilton.
The role of
New hope for drug resistant cancers as Griffith drug goes on trial in Czech Republic
Patients with drug resistant forms of breast cancer and some forms of pancreatic cancer may have new hope, thanks to a new drug first developed at Griffith and now being trialled in the Czech Republic.
Clinical trials of the experimental drug MitoTam are beginning imminently in the Czech Republic with funding from a local venture capital firm Smart Brain.
Professor Jiri Neuzil from Griffith’s School of Medical Science is leading the clinical trials involving patients with the triple negative tumours which are known to be very hard to treat.
The drug has been modified from the commonly used breast cancer drug Tamoxifen to target the mitochondria of a patient’s cancer cells to make a more efficient compound that is able to kill resistant cancer cells.
Tamoxifen is ineffective in treating triple negative tumours or tumours with a high level of HER2, a protein found on the surface of cancer cells.
Could revolutionise treatment
“MitoTam could revolutionise
Griffith criminologist appointed to Stockholm Prize Jury
Professor Susanne Karstedt from the Griffith Criminology Institute has been appointed as a new member of the jury of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology. The jury is the international body that selects and appoints prize recipients.
“It is a great honour for me to be elected to the Jury of the Stockholm Prize of Criminology. I am proud to join the jury representing Australia and Griffith University,” Professor Karstedt said.
The prize is awarded for outstanding achievements in criminological research or for the application of research results by practitioners for the reduction of crime and the advancement of human rights.
Professor Karstedt’s research has a strong focus on cross-national and cross-cultural comparisons of both crime and justice, where she explores democracy and its values and institutions in relation to violence, corruption, state crime and prison conditions. Other research interests include atrocity crimes and transitional justice, and she is widely known for work on
Isolated community could hold key to cleaner, more reliable power
A pilot solar project in a small Aboriginal community in far north Queensland could hold the key to cleaner and more reliable power supply for isolated Indigenous communities throughout Australia and the Pacific.
The township of Lockhart River on Cape York Peninsula is nestled in bushland, 800 kilometres north of Cairns, surrounded by pristine beaches and rainforest.
It’s idyllic, but incredibly remote. So much so it’s not even on the national power grid.
So Lockhart River relies on expensive and dirty diesel fuel to keep the lights on, and power the town’s businesses and homes.
But it’s hoped a solar trial instigated by Griffith University Professor of Economics Paul Simshauser could change that.
“We ended up installing about 200kW of rooftop solar around various rooftops,” he said.
“It’s a community project so all of the households benefit from it.
“I’m not completely sure but I wouldn’t mind betting this is one of the highest levels of solar
Master’s opens door to teaching career
It was while completing his honours in psychology at a Gold Coast school that Phillip Pearce first realised teaching would become his raison d’etre.
“I always had a passion for child developmental psychology, discovered I loved being in a school environment and so enrolled in the Master of Primary Teaching at Griffith,’’ he said.
“My study has given me the perfect balance of theory underpinned with practical knowledge.
“The lecturers come from the classroom so they are all super experienced. We can be discussing various pedagogical theories and they are able to relate it back to real life.
“It’s made me more confident in my pracs and I know teaching is the right career for me.”
Phillip, who works part-time at a Gold Coast school, said the flexibility of the Master’s program enabled him and other students to work while studying.
“I can structure my timetable around work. It’s intense, but manageable.”
An advocate for Positive Education,
Greece facing refugee crisis
Jovana Mastilovic
Lesvos (Greece) July 2017
More than one million people, mostly originating from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan arrived in Europe in 2015 to seek asylum. The majority of these people crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece with over half a million people arriving on the Greek island, Lesvos. In response, the European Commission published an European Agenda on Migration, which enforced ‘hotspot’ facilities at the external borders of the EU; there are five in Greece—on the islands of Chios, Kos, Leros, Lesvos and Samos, and four in Italy in Lampedusa, Pozzallo, Taranto and Trapani. These centers are reserved spaces where the initial reception, identification and registration of all asylum seekers now arriving to Europe occur.
In July 2017, I visited the Moria Identification and Reception Center on Lesvos, which is the largest ‘hotspot’ facility on Lesvos, where according to the Head of the Regional Asylum Office, approximately 3000 of the