National Tour Guests
An important part of of National Science Week is our National Tour. Through events in every state and territory, our Tour guests share amazing adventures, fascinating stories and intriguing experiments. This year, there will be four scientists on the National Tour:
Professor Michael Cowley
Professor Michael Cowley is an internationally recognised physiologist leading the way in unravelling some of Australia’s greatest medical challenges.
As Director of the Monash Obesity and Diabetes Institute since 2008, Professor Cowley is working on the next generation of drugs targeting obesity, diabetes and metabolic disorders.
Professor Cowley has over 15 years experience in research and pharmaceutical drug development. As founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Orexigen Therapeutics, he raised US$255 million to fund a drug development program.
Previous positions held by Professor Cowley include Core Director, and Associate Scientist at Oregon Health & Sciences University. He also is the inventor of intellectual property that led to the foundation of Thiakis Inc, and validated the obesity drug target Serotonin 2C receptor, now under development by Arena Pharmaceuticals and others.
Professor Cowley has published more than 60 papers and is the inventor of 89 patents related to obesity, diabetes and the role of the CNS in metabolic disorders. In 2009, Professor Michael Cowley was awarded the prestigious Science Minister’s Prize for Life Scientist of the Year at the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science and the Pfizer Australia Senior Research Fellowship. He was also the recipient of a Victorian Endowment for Science, Knowledge, and Innovation (VESKI) Fellowship in 2008.
Dr Catrin Goebel
With the London Olympics Games looming next year, Doctor Catrin Goebel is gearing up for busy times in 2012.
As manager of the only World Anti-Doping Agency accredited laboratory in Australia, Dr Goebel faces the continuing challenge to respond to the rapidly changing anti-doping field, in a quest to keep elite sporting competition clean.
A chemist by trade, Dr Goebel began her training in the lead up to the Sydney Olympic and Paralympic Games, where she acted as a night shift team leader for the anabolic steroid screening and confirmation procedures for both A and B sample extraction, analysis and result reporting.
However, her passion in the fight against the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport was truly sparked when she joined the sports drugs testing laboratory at Australia’s National Measurement Institute, in the lead up to the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.
Life as manager of the Australian Sports Drug Testing Laboratory means an enormous amount of work ensuring the fundamental right to participate in doping-free sport for every athlete is upheld. This challenge is met by an extensive research program at the National Measurement Institute to support current tests and develop new testing techniques.
The next challenge on the home ground for the laboratory will be providing testing for the Rugby World Cup which is being held in New Zealand from the beginning of September. Catrin and several members of her team will then be joining the London anti-doping laboratory for the London Olympic Games.
Dr David Hanson and Hanson Robotics
It is with regret that we announce that David Hanson will not be touring Australia as part of National Science Week due to personal health issues. David is deeply sorry that he cannot be with us to celebrate Science Week. He and his team were looking forward to being in Australia and David apologises to those that were to be at events over the next week. He hopes to come to Australia and tour in the future. Please feel free to call Margot at shac Communications, the National Tour Manager on 07 5532 0157 if you have any questions.
David Hanson merges robotics and art to design life-like, social robots that can mimic human expression and emotion.
As founder and CEO of Hanson Robotics, David develops extremely life-like robots with social cognition. By combining expressive robotic faces with walking robot bodies, research in cognitive A.I., sculpture, and bio-inspired material science, he strives to integrate these disparate technologies to create robots as socially adept as any human being.
The bold, life-like appearance of life in Hanson robots springs from the synthesis of biology, neurally-inspired cognitive systems, machine perception, artistry of interactive character design, animation, and sculpture, and the expressive quality of Hanson’s patented Frubber™, a spongy, structured elastic polymer that expertly mimics the movement of real human musculature and skin. These groundbreaking technologies allow Hanson Robotics to understand and model the human being, providing their robots with the appearance of life whilst enabling them to think, feel, perceive people, understand speech and hold natural conversations.
David will also be joined on tour by Richard Margolin, Amanda Hanson and a robotic friend.
Dr Fiona Wood
Groundbreaking plastic surgeon Doctor Fiona Wood hardly needs introducing.
Named Australian of the Year in 2005, Dr Wood is well-known for her pioneering work treating burns victims. She is Head of the Royal Perth Hospital’s Burns Unit and Director of the Western Australian Burns Service. She is also a Clinical Professor with the School of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Western Australia, and Chair of the McComb Research Foundation.
Dr Wood has gained international acclaim for her patented invention of spray on skin cells for burns victims, a development that has dramatically changed the way burns are managed.
In October 2002, Dr Wood was propelled into the media spotlight when survivors from the Bali bombings arrived at Royal Perth Hospital. She led a courageous team in the fight to save 28 patients suffering from between 2 and 92 percent body burns, infections and delayed shock. Dr Wood’s exceptional leadership and surgical skills during this incident brought world-wide praise and recognition to the Royal Perth Hospital Burns Unit and highlighted the groundbreaking research into burns treatment taking place in Western Australia.