Improving mental health support for young people who’ve suffered bereavement is the focus for Griffith University Masters of Suicidology graduate Karl Andriessen.
Named this week, as the winner of the Health Group Outstanding International Alumni Award, Mr Andriessen, a graduate of Griffith’s Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention (AISRAP), said he is ‘delighted’ with the recognition of his 30 year career in suicide prevention.
His current research with UNSW School of Psychiatry has revealed that when adolescents aged 12-18 experience the death of someone close to them, there can often be greater feelings of anger and injustice when compared to the same experience in an adult.
“We have found that young people in this age group have significantly different needs to an older population,” says Mr Andriessen. “They may often feel that it is very unjust that someone close to them has died and really struggle with these feelings.
“They may also be
Category: Griffith University Feed
‘Obama’s Superman’ to headline 2017 Integrity 20
Truth, disorder and optimism is the theme for this year’s annual Integrity 20 forum which begins on Wednesday 18th October.
Bringing together some of the most courageous and proactive thinkers, the forum will articulate and communicate ideas exploring societies’ ongoing crises in a time of unparalleled global transformation.
Griffith University’s fourth annual Integrity 20 is highlighted by a lecture to be delivered by former Ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich whom former Prime Minister Paul Keating famously remarked was the ‘best US Ambassador ever sent to Australia.’
Previously serving as Special Counsel to President Obama in the White House, the 24th Ambassador to Australia (2009-2013) had also earned the moniker of ‘Obama’s Superman’ for his outstanding civil service over many years.
Mr Bleich’s lecture is titled ‘Fame, brand, spin and debt – Facing up to the slow violence of moral neglect’ and will be delivered in the Queensland Conservatorium on the night of 18th October as Integrity
Griffith expert warns of more flooding if ecosystems aren’t remedied
A leading Australian rivers expert warns flooding will continue to impact our rivers and coastal waterways because our catchments are no longer resilient to extreme weather events.
As parts of South-East Queensland experience flooding after a heavy rainfall band crossed the coast, rivers and water catchments are being pushed to the brink.
Professor Stuart Bunn of Griffith University’s Australian Rivers Institute said many of our river systems are vulnerable to these all too frequent extreme weather events.
“More water ends up in our river networks quicker due to a number of reasons but chief among them is the loss of our natural vegetation cover and modifications to stream channels.
“Every time it rains water gets concentrated into the channel network and with the unstable channels, river banks are easily eroded and we end up with problems including damage to infrastructure, and loss of valuable farm soil.”
Professor Bunn said we are also paying the price
Griffith expert joins Transparency International board
A Griffith University expert has been elected to the board of directors of Transparency International (TI), the peak global organisation working against corruption.
Professor A J Brown, from the Centre for Governance and Public Policy, was elected for 3 years at the TI Annual Members’ Meeting, held in Berlin, Germany on Sunday October 15.
The vote was taken by representatives of the global anti-corruption movement from 91 countries, with another 22 countries in attendance, along with other individual members, supporters and staff from TI throughout the world.
“It is an honour to be entrusted with this unique opportunity to help oversight and target the efforts of the world’s most important accountability organisation, as well as assist in its own governance and organisational development,” Professor Brown said.
Professor Brown has been a board member of Transparency International Australia since 2010, and involved in world-leading research in partnership with TI for over 15 years including on
AEL awards recognise remarkable alumni
Award-winning artist Gordon Hookey has been recognised as the 2017 Arts, Education and Law Alumnus of the Year.
Born in Cloncurry and a descendent of the Waanyi people, Gordon is one of the leading Australian artists of his generation and is known for politically charged work that explores the intersections between Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures.
An acclaimed painter and sculptor, Gordon has exhibited extensively both internationally and throughout Australia.
Since graduating from a Master of Visual Arts at the Queensland College of Art in 2012, his works have been acquired for public and private collections around the world, including the National Gallery of Australia, Queensland’s Gallery of Modern Art and the Osaka Museum of Ethnology in Japan.
Gordon has used his work to address a variety of historical and contemporary political issues, from the injustices suffered by Indigenous Australians, to Australia’s intervention in the Middle East and immigration.
Gordon continues to exhibit his work on the international art
New rankings show Griffith on the up
Griffith University continues to be recognised following this week’s announcement of the annual 2017 NTU Rankings.
Griffith has climbed 16 places in this year’s rankings released by the National Taiwan University.
The NTU Rankings, which is also known as the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities, evaluates academic performance by universities in scientific research.
It considers six fields including clinical medicine, engineering, natural sciences, social sciences, life sciences and agriculture.
This ranking of top 500 universities has been announced each year since 2007.
Institute for Glycomics’ fight flu through pioneering collaboration with Fraunhofer
Griffith University is taking on the deadly flu virus wiping people out this season through an innovative partnership with German research institutes.
Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine (ITEM) have teamed up with the Hannover Medical School (MHH) and Griffith’s Institute for Glycomics on the Gold Coast for the
project called ‘iCAIR – Fraunhofer International Consortium for Anti-Infective Research’ to develop new anti-infective drugs.
This project will discover new treatments that combat respiratory viruses including influenza virus and respiratory infection-causing bacteria and fungi.
Professor Reimund Neugebauer, president of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, said antibiotics were becoming less effective against multi-resistant bacteria.
“Because bacteria keep developing new resistance to antibiotics there is a desperate need for new medications,” he said.
“We urgently need to develop new drugs and find new ways to transfer them from research into clinical trials, and that is why Fraunhofer will be redoubling its efforts in this area.”
Professor Armin Braun, division
Broadway star mentors musical theatre students
Musical theatre students from the Queensland Conservatorium are being mentored by Broadway royalty this week.
Award-winning singer Liz Callaway is conducting a series of intensive workshops and masterclasses with final year students before she takes to the stage in Brisbane for the first time.
The students will deliver a special performance of cabaret and musical theatre at QPAC tomorrow night, and final year musical theatre student Shubshri Kandiah has been selected to perform a duet with Liz at her show the following evening.
Shubshri, 22, said the experience had been “a dream come true”.
“I am blown away that I get the chance to sing with one of my idols,” she said.
“I grew up listening to her recordings of Cats and Miss Saigon, and I’ve always loved her voice.
“I was standing at the piano with her today and I had to hold back tears!”
Fellow musical theatre student Maddison McDonald said the week of workshops
Engaging with online networks leads to higher grades
New research at Griffith has revealed a direct correlation between student activities on enterprise social networks (ESN) and their academic grades.
The study examined the habits of online postgraduate students and how they engaged with Microsoft’s Yammer network to share ideas and collaborate with other students and academic staff.
The online opportunity to ask the right question at the right time also emerged as a significant benefit for students.
Professor Nick Barter, Academic Director of Griffith Online, looked at SWOOP Analytics data focusing on three Yammer groups and the activities of 222 students at Griffith University.
Each individual was attributed with one of five online personas as a result of their engagement activities.
“Preliminary results showed a clear correlation between SWOOP persona and academic performance,” Professor Barter said. “On average, the highest performing students were engagers, the most desirable of the five personas.”
SWOOP is designed to analyse and report on all relationships that are formed
History in the making
Queensland College of Art lecturer Dr Julie Fragar made history this week with the unveiling of her official portrait of Queensland’s first female premier, Hon Anna Bligh AC.
The stunning oil portrait is the first painting of a female premier to hang in Queensland’s Parliament House.
Dr Fragar said she was “honoured” to be chosen to capture Ms Bligh for posterity.
“I believe Anna asked QAGOMA Director Chris Saines to draw up a shortlist of female, Queensland-based artists,” she said.
“She was familiar with my work from an exhibition at GOMA, and I think we share a similar aesthetic.
“The fact that she specifically wanted to work with a young, local female artist is really inspiring.”
Dr Fragar worked with Queensland College of Art photography graduate Louis Lim on a series of photographs of Ms Bligh which were used to create the stunning oil painting.
“It was a really long process – I can’t imagine anyone, let