NSW AIP Women in Physics Lectures

Women in Physics Lectures in 2011

The Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) is excited to announce that the 2011 Women in Physics (WIP) Lecturer is Dr Tamara Davis from the University of Queensland.

Dr. Tamara Davis, not only an astrophysicist, highly acclaimed presenter and publisher, Dr. Davis is also a super sportsperson, having competed at a National level in six sports, also involving herself with the surf lifesaving movement.  The Women in Physics talk is aimed at high school students from years 8 and beyond and the interested public.

The universe is an amazing place, and our modern telescopes are giving us an unprecedented view.  We can now see the universe as it was only 100,000 years after the big bang, before galaxies even existed.  We have found hundreds of planets orbiting other stars and are trying to detect their atmospheres to see if there are hints of life.  We regularly detect supernovae (exploding stars) that went off billions of years before the earth even formed.  And we've discovered some kind of "dark energy" that is making the expansion of the universe speed up (and one day might teach us how to harness anti-gravity to make hover-boards). 

Tamara will talk about these and other things she researches in her life as an astrophysicist.

More about Dr Tamara Davis, Astrophysicist, University of Queensland

Dr Davis specialises in interpreting astrophysical observations in terms of their implications for fundamental physics.  She performed cosmological analyses for two of the most prominent international supernova surveys in the last five years, ESSENCE and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Supernova Search, and has now returned to Australia to work with the WiggleZ dark energy survey, making the largest ever 3D map of the distribution of galaxies in the universe.  The aim of all these surveys is to understand our fundamental laws of nature, and she uses the data to test new theories of gravity and quantum physics.

She has over 30 publications, including two Nature papers, five papers with over 100 citations, another that was selected amongst Nature 's monthly research highlights, and has also spent time helping design a space telescope for NASA.  Her achievements were recognised by the Astronomical Society of Australia, which awarded her the Louise Webster Prize for early-career research (2009). In the same year she also received the L'Oréal Women in Science Fellowship, given to only three researchers across all areas of science in Australia.  This year she starts a new future fellowship at University of Queensland. 

Tamara enjoys making science accessible to the public and regularly gives popular talks.  She's appeared several times on ABC radio, twice on Catalyst, and written two feature articles for Scientific American . 

To top it off, Tamara has competed at a state or National level in six sports, and is a qualified ski instructor, gymnastics coach, and surf life saver.  These days Ultimate frisbee is her sport of choice and she's just returned from the World Beach Championships in Italy, where she represented Australia for the third time.

The NSW Branch of the AIP will again be holding a number of exciting WIP lectures in Sydney and Wollongong at venues including schools, Sydney Observatory and The Science Centre.

•  Friday 9th September

- St Mary's Star of the Sea – Wollongong (9 am)
- Wollongong Science Centre (7.30 pm start).

•  Monday 12 September

- Mary MacKillop College at Waverley (3.45 pm).

•  Tuesday 13 September

- Pymble Ladies College (3.30 pm)
- Sydney Observatory (6.30 pm start followed by Observatory tour)

For further information contact, Dr Graeme Melville.