Associate Professor Jamie Quinton presented a highly entertaining, engaging and informative session about the nature of science and how research involves scientists working in an interdisciplinary fashion.

  

Jamie Quinton is an Associate Professor of Nanotechnology, Physics and Chemical Physics

and he showed how there was an interesting and intimate relationship between solar cells and

sea grass restoration that is happening off the coast from Christies Beach.

He began by explaining the science behind surface modification and how being an atom on any surface would be like trying to cross South Road....blind folded!  

He described how scientists take ideas and work on them from a multitude of angles and consequently find that there can be lots of applications. 

Jamie and Kristin

Professor Karen Reynolds presented a highly engaging and  informative session on Machines that go PING on May 2nd.

Karen Reynolds is Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Flinders University. 
She explained that biomedical engineering was a unique mix of engineering, medicine and science, and that it is arguably the fastest growing branch of engineering. Biomedical engineers develop new devices, algorithms, and technologies that improve medical practice and health care delivery. Some notable examples include the heart pacemaker, the artificial hip, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Karen’s main areas of research are in Medical Instrumentation, Simulation for Medical Training, and Imaging and Modelling in Biomechanics.

Karen was named as "Australian Professional Engineer of the Year " at the 2010 Australian Engineering Excellence Awards and was recently elected  a 2011 Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE)

On 7 March Professor Martin Westwell presented a thought provoking talk: Forget the answers, it is all about the questions 

He talked about how live in times of constant change and because of this we need 'skillable people' who can quickly adapt to change. 
Education used to be about building up our knowledge and then putting this knowledge to use. We used to be question rich and answer poor. Now we live in a world where the answers are readily at our finger tips, but what we lack are are the in-depth and investigative type questions. The types of questions we ask is more important than ever.
Other interesting topics covered were creativity, personalized learning and what this really means, as well as how to effectively use technology in education. 

Martin taking the teachers through a test which investigated their emotions and memory 

Martin's brain and some of his 'thoughts'!