Successful Symposium on Enhancing Technologies

Congratulations to Professor Dali Kaafar (pictured) from the School of Computing and the Macquarie University Cyber Security Hub for hosting this year’s annual Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS). The event brings together privacy experts from around the world to discuss recent advances and new perspectives on research in privacy technologies. PETS addresses the design and realisation of privacy services for the Internet and other digital systems and communication networks. Over 270 experts attended the conference, both in-person and online, with feedback across the board hailing the event a tremendous success.

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Macquarie University part of an $22.8 million initiative

The $22.8 million Australia France Network of Doctoral Excellence (AUFRANDE) will involve 37 universities across France and Australia. Macquarie University is one of five participating Australian Universities led by RMIT. Other Australian partners include UNSW, University of Tasmania and University of Sydney. The five-year project will employ 64 early career doctoral researchers, with a focus on generating industry-relevant research. Six of the doctoral researchers will undertake a Cotutelle at Macquarie with a French partner university.

Distinguished Professor Jon Lawrence, Professor Alex Fuerbach, Dr Joanne Dawson and colleagues from the Faculty of Science and Engineering are involved in the initiative.

The areas in which the Cotutelle PhD projects will be conducted include:

• nonlinear laser dynamics, semiconductor lasers, laser-material interactions
• ultrafast lasers, nonlinear optics, mid-infrared photonics
• interstellar medium, radio astronomy, Galactic astronomy
• astronomical instrumentation, adaptive optics, astrophotonics

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  Grant awarded to fight scam calls

 Professor Dali Kaafar, Professor Shlomo Berkovsky, Dr Ian Wood, Assoc Professor Mark Dras and Professor Niloufer Selvadurai have been awarded a National Intelligence and Security Discovery Research Grant worth $592,796 over three years for their project ‘Fighting Global Phone Scams with Conversational AI’. The project aims to re-direct scam phone calls through to AI bots to invalidate the scam business model. Read more about their research into scam calls on The Lighthouse.

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Alzheimer therapy receives funding

A joint Macquarie University and Woolcock Institute respiratory science research team led by Professor Daniela Traini and Dr Hui Xin Ong has been awarded a $200,000 grant to develop an aerosol nanogel to deliver future RNA therapies for Alzheimer’s disease direct to the brain via the nose. The NSW Health mRNA Leaders Grant will fund a four-year PhD program in collaboration with Australian medtech company Tetherix.

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 Education award for Macquarie Law School Professor

 Professor Niloufer Selvadurai from the Macquarie Law School is the 2022 recipient of the Australian Legal Education Award for Excellence in Graduate Research Supervision. This award, together with an Honorarium from the Council of Australian Law Deans, was presented at the Australasian Law Academics Association (ALAA) conference dinner on 8 July 2022.

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Prestigious ASM Frank Fenner Award for Molecular Biologist

Congratulations to Dr Amy Cain from the School of Natural Sciences for being awarded this year’s prestigious Australian Society of Microbiology’s Frank Fenner Award. The honour celebrates distinguished contributions in any area of Australian research in microbiology by scientists in a formative stage of their career.

Dr Cain received the award for her contributions to the development of new genomics techniques that can be used to probe the function of bacterial genes, and for her continued work developing new antibiotics and understanding antibiotic resistance in hospital pathogens.

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Research grant awarded to team at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation

A team led by Dr Mitchell Sarkies and Andrew Hirschhorn from the Australian Institute of Health Innovation have received an HCF Foundation Translational Research Grant $267,534 for a project on the implementation of evidence- and consensus-based perioperative care pathways to reduce unwarranted clinical variation. Unwarranted clinical variation is defined as differences in healthcare that are not about patient preferences or needs, and can result in compromised care, inefficiency and contribute to health inequality. As part of the study, perioperative pathways based on the best clinical evidence will be developed for four types of surgical patients and implemented at Macquarie University Hospital.