March 2010 - Swinburne University of Technology

www.swinburne.edu.au
Issue 9 | March 2010
Bacteria
surface
surprise P3
Cultural pride’s
education
role P8
Vaccine hope
for childhood
virus P18
Knowledge
isbeing
Centre draws on Indigenous wisdom

www.swinburne.edu.au
ISSUE 9 | MARCH 2010
swinburne March 2010
Contents
Issue 9 | March 2010
Bacteria
surface
surprise P3
Cultural pride’s
education
role P8
Vaccine hope
for childhood
virus P18
08
14
Knowledge
being
IS
Centre draws on Indigenous wisdom
Swin_1003_p01.indd 1 26/02/10 3:48 PM
Upfront
2
social inclusion bridging the gap
Australia is home to the world’s oldest living culture. Our Indigenous
culture and history is one of our most precious cultural assets.
However, the Australian community’s knowledge of its Indigenous
background is scant; the depth of tradition and history unique to this
country, barely scratched. This wide gulf in awareness and understanding
is one of the reasons why most non-Indigenous Australians remain
unaware of the enormous challenges that so many Indigenous Australians
face on a daily basis.
The representations of Indigenous Australians in our mainstream media
continues to perpetuate the false perception that ‘real’ Indigenous culture
exists only in remote Australia. The reality is that everyone in this land is
standing on what was once Indigenous land. Indigenous Australian history
is all around us – not just in the Red Centre and Top End … the Kimberley,
Arnhem Land and Uluru. It is in our CBDs, along the corridors of urban sprawl,
and woven intrinsically through the mountains and coastlines that backdrop
our lives in our towns and cities.
For most Australians the ripple effects of the colonial era and ethos have
been left behind in history, but they have been felt every day for more
than 220 years by Indigenous Australians. An understanding of this and
how it still affects people’s lives is critical to bridging the cultural gap that
exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia.
Our increasingly multicultural society has placed even greater pressures
on the need to understand and alleviate the continuing effects of the
attitudes, beliefs and legalism entrenched by our colonial origins. Prime
Minister Rudd’s 2008 apology (on behalf of the Australian Government)
articulated how important this is.
Education, clearly, has a major role and responsibility. Swinburne is taking
important steps to bridge this gap in understanding. Through programs and
innovations at both higher education and TAFE level (some of which are
outlined in this issue), the university is proactively linking contemporary
Australia, education, Indigenous culture and community development.
Utilising Swinburne’s geographical location on traditional Wurundjeri
land and our cross-sector, multi-campus advantage, these programs
are reaching out to Indigenous communities and gradually to the wider
Australian community.
It is a new, creative approach that is broadening the delivery and lengthening
the reach of education. Critically, it is strengthening Indigenous education –
allowing ‘the bridge’ to be built from both sides of the cultural divide.
Andrew Peters
Wurundjeri / Yorta Yorta descendant,
Lecturer, Indigenous Studies and Tourism, Swinburne University of Technology
cover story
06 Centre to
tap knowledge
as a way of being
A new centre for Indigenous
knowledge and design
anthropology is set to shape
the way knowledge is shared
in Western universities
Features
Karin Derkley
03 ‘Clingy’ bacteria
surprise comes to
the surface
Diny slamet
04 video on the moment
our immune system
fails
Sometimes the human
immune system fails, betrayed
by its own defenders.
Scientists have found a
way to witness this ‘cellular
warfare’ to, hopefully, identify
what goes wrong
Graeme O’Neill
08 cultural pride
helps education
start making sense
A Swinburne TAFE program
run in partnership with
Victorian Aboriginal
organisations is creating some
stability for disadvantaged
Indigenous youths
karin derkley
10 colourful, creative
and fighting to stay
local
Indigenous community
television plays an important
role in remote communities,
but faces an uncertain future
with Australia’s imminent
conversion to digital television
Karin Derkley
12 the ultimate wave
By observing pulsars,
researchers hope to discover
space’s most elusive waves
and thus gain new insights
into the universe
julian cribb
14 An Australian tissue
engineer in paris
dr gio Braidotti
16 human antennae
tuned t0 the future
The future can both excite and
terrify. Helping people master
this forward journey is the role
of ‘strategic foresight’
dr gio Braidotti
18 Synthetic vaccine
hope in fight against
polio successor
Researchers are working on
synthetic vaccines, which
are potentially safer, cheaper
and more practical than
conventional biological vaccines
Julian cribb
20 Continuous system
check could release
data-processing
‘brake’
david adams
21 i phone, i shop …
nutrition at your
fingertips
tim treadgold
22 greyfields revisited
Australian cities’ ageing
residential tracts – ‘greyfields’
– offer environmental and
economic solutions to
Australia’s hunger for city
housing
Professor Peter Newton
•• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• ••
18
21
Published by Swinburne University of Technology
Editor: Dorothy Albrecht, Director, Marketing Services
Deputy editor: Julianne Camerotto, Communications Manager
(Research and Industry), Marketing Services,
Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne
The information in this publication was correct at the time of going to press, March 2010.
The views expressed by contributors in this publication are not necessarily those of
Swinburne University of Technology.
Written, edited, designed and produced on behalf of Swinburne University of
Technology by Coretext, www.coretext.com.au, +61 3 9670 1168
Swinburne University of Technology
John Street (PO Box 218), Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122, Australia
Enquiries: +61 3 9214 8000
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Email: magazine@swinburne.edu.au
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ISSN 1835-6516 (Print) ISSN 1835-6524 (Online)
Cover photo: Paul Jones

march 2010 swinburne
‘Clingy’ bacteria surprise
comes to the surface
story by Diny Slamet
Improving the success rate of artificial
implants. Reducing the risk of dangerous
Staphylococcus outbreaks in hospitals.
Dramatically reducing the amount of fuel
oil burned by the world’s merchant shipping
fleet. It is a disparate list, but nonetheless it
is the set of research goals that a Swinburne
University of Technology research team has
begun to pursue.
The issues all stem from bacterial activity,
in particular the way bacteria adhere to
surfaces by creating a ‘biofilm’ that protects
the bacteria from the usual sterilisation
treatments.
The Swinburne team, working with
specialists from Monash University,
combines the skills of scientists of
different specialisations – microbiology,
nanotechnology, engineering and industrial
sciences – to seek remedies that cannot be
achieved by one discipline alone.
The team is led by microbiologist
Professor Elena Ivanova and includes
surface chemist Professor Russell Crawford
– who is also Dean of Swinburne’s
Faculty of Life and Social Sciences – and
physical metallurgists Professor Yuri Estrin
and Dr Rimma Lapavok from Monash
University.
The problems caused by bacteria cost
industries such as healthcare, hospitality
and shipping billions of dollars each year.
The rewards to individuals and society for
solving the more intractable problems, such
as hospital-borne infections, are immense.
One of the most troublesome issues of
modern medicine is infection-related implant
failures. According to Professor Ivanova,
up to 67 per cent of implants are troubled
by bacterial problems. Despite thorough
sterilisation processes, this high percentage of
medical implants (commonly hips and knees)
fail because some types of bacteria attach to
the implant as a biofilm, from which they
cause further infection. The only solution is
to remove the infected implant and replace it.
The research team has already made great
strides by disproving a common hypothesis
that had previously led researchers down a
blind alley. While not a great deal is known
about the forces that attract bacteria to
solid surfaces, the common hypothesis was
that bacteria attach more easily to rougher
surfaces because the microscopic valleys on
that surface provide shelter from commonly
used disinfection processes. Some implant
manufacturers are even going down the road
of making their products ‘nano-smooth’ so
the bacteria cannot find protection from
sterilisation processes.
But the scientists have made a surprising
discovery. Working with nano-smooth
titanium and a range of microbiological
analysis techniques, the researchers have
found that rather than making it harder for
bacteria to adhere to, smooth surfaces seem
to be more attractive to some problematic
bacteria, with a higher degree of bacterial
colonisation on smooth surfaces than on
rough.
“The way bacteria attach to nanosmooth
surfaces is different to the way
they adhere to rough surfaces,” explains
Professor Crawford. “The bacteria adhere to
these surfaces by secreting an extracellular
polymeric substance (EPS), which is a
combination of sugars and proteins. This
is the first time it has been shown that the
EPS is produced in much greater quantities
when bacteria come into contact with nanosmooth
surfaces, causing a greater amount of
bacterial attachment.”
The research suggests that hospitals may
have to rethink their disinfection techniques
and that manufacturers may have to develop
new disinfectants.
“Many bacterial disinfectants used today
are based on positively charged (or cationic)
surfactants. These attach to the negatively
charged bacteria, causing their cell wall
to rupture and killing the bacteria. This
new research has highlighted the need for
disinfectant manufacturers to formulate new
products that attack both the EPS and the
bacterial cells, and not just the bacterial cells
alone,” Professor Crawford says.
Shipping is another industry where the
Swinburne research may contribute to a big
increase in efficiency. Scientists estimate that
a biofilm (or bacterial build-up) the thickness
of just a human hair on a ship’s hull can
add US$400 an hour to fuel costs because it
affects the ship’s drag, causing greater fuel
consumption.
Most of the techniques used to limit the
build-up of biofilm on ships’ hulls work for
Photo: iStockphoto / Malcolm Fife
Swinburne research will help to develop surface
coatings that reduce the ability of bacteria to
build a film on ships’ hulls. This could save
the global shipping industry millions of tonnes
of oil a year because the ships will be able to
move through the water more easily.
a limited time and have a severe ecological
downside, with toxic chemicals being used
in most marine paints.
The Swinburne research is adding to
the body of knowledge that will lead to the
development of surface coatings that can
reduce the ability of bacteria to build a film
on ships’ hulls. This could save the global
shipping industry millions of tonnes of oil a
year because the ships will be able to move
through the water more easily.
The work of the Swinburne scientists
is still at the early research stage. “We are
really looking at what causes biofilms to
form and how well they form on a range
of different surfaces. Once we publish
our results we hope they will be used
by companies to produce more effective
disinfection processes and surface coatings,”
Professor Crawford says. ••
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 275 788
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine
Key points
The way bacteria adhere
to surfaces – by creating a
‘biofilm’ that protects them
from the usual sterilisation
treatments – is being
investigated
The Swinburne research
team, working with
specialists from Monash
University, combines
skills in microbiology,
nanotechnology,
engineering and industrial
sciences
The work could improve
the success rate of artificial
implants, reduce the risk of
Staphylococcus outbreaks
in hospitals and reduce the
fuel consumption of ships
surface science
3

swinburne March 2010
Dr Sarah Russell, immunologist at Peter MacCallum
Cancer Centre and Swinburne University of
Technology, is working with physicists to develop
new imaging tools to study T-cells in vitro.
human health
4
The body is a microbiological battlefield on which our immune system fights to keep us well.
Sometimes it fails, betrayed by its own defenders. Scientists have now found a way to actually witness
this cellular warfare and hopefully identify what goes wrong By Graeme O’Neill
Photo: Paul Jones
As we live and breathe, millions of T-cells
that are part of the human body’s molecular
defence force patrol the blood and lymphatic
systems, seeking out and destroying cells
harbouring viruses and bacteria or mutant
cells that could turn cancerous.
T-cells are assassins and fortunately, in
the main, they are on our side. The trouble
is, these immune-system bodyguards can
also turn treacherous.
In some individuals they attack healthy
tissue, causing autoimmune disorders such
as rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes,
multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus
erythematosus.
To try to find out why, immunologist
Dr Sarah Russell, of Melbourne’s Peter
MacCallum Cancer Centre and Swinburne
University of Technology, has teamed up
with Professor Min Gu’s research group at
Swinburne’s Centre for Microphotonics to
develop new imaging tools to study T-cells in
vitro.
Dr Russell – the recent recipient of a
prestigious Australian Research Council Future
Fellowship – and Professor Gu are hoping this
close-up exploration of the T-cells’ structure,
as they develop their specialised forms and
functions, will provide clues to what goes
wrong and triggers an autoimmune disease.
Key points
In autoimmune diseases,
the ‘assassins’ of the
human immune system,
T-cells, for some reason
turn on and attack healthy
tissue
Using a video camera
linked to a microscope,
Swinburne’s Dr Sarah
Russell will be able to
observe the development of
T-cells at close range and
try to establish what goes
wrong
The research will also use
PALM (photo-activated
luminescence microscopy),
which allows observation
of individual cells and even
individual proteins
It is a complex and fascinating process at
the heart of human biology.
As part of the project, the researchers are
creating a biochip to study the development
and behaviour of T-cells, individually
corralled within microscopic ‘paddocks’
formed by a microgrid of silane polymer
‘fences’ deposited on silicon.
“The biochip will allow us to cage
single cells as we observe their individual
development, instead of trying to monitor
20-plus cells at a time,” Professor Gu says.
The window to this extraordinary
research is a video camera linked to a laser
confocal microscope. This will deliver highresolution,
dynamic images of the confined
cells responding to biochemical signals piped
into the ‘paddocks’ through a network of
microfluidic channels etched into the chip’s
surface.
Dr Russell says the apparatus will provide
the first real-time video images that monitor
T-cells over multiple generations, with
precursor cells moving, changing shape,
dividing and differentiating into mature
T-cells with specialised forms and functions.
“T-cells form from bone marrow stem
cells that migrate to the thymus, where they
undergo a complex process of differentiation
and selection,” she explains.
The thymus gland, high in the chest, is
‘T-cell university’, where cells progressively
differentiate into naïve, functionally specialised
T-cells (‘naïve’ because they have yet to be
activated by exposure to alien antigens).
As they ‘graduate’ they are ready to
be activated in the event of an external
or internal threat. Once activated, mature
T-cells undergo final transformation into:
effector T-cells – programmed to kill any
cells advertising their infected or precancerous
state by displaying unfamiliar,
‘non-self’ protein antigens on their
surface; or
memory T-cells, that can linger in the body
for decades, ready to reactivate and rapidly
repopulate the body with new effector
T-cells should they detect the familiar
antigenic signature of an old enemy.
Dr Russell and Professor Gu expect
the biochip will allow them to observe
and record the complex process of T-cell
development, maturation and activation
in vitro, and in unprecedented detail.
In addition to conventional laser confocal
microscopy, they will use a powerful new
technique called photo-activated luminescence
microscopy (PALM), capable of resolving
individual cells in nanoscale detail. PALM
can even track individual protein molecules.

March 2010 swinburne
It works by attaching DNA sequences
for luminescent protein ‘tags’ to genes for
native cellular proteins. These ‘tags’ cause
the hybrid proteins to glow green or cherry
red under laser light, allowing researchers to
observe their movement and interactions.
Dr Russell’s Swinburne research focuses
on a suite of polarity proteins that have been
conserved across the billion-year evolutionary
divide between simple nematode worms and
humans.
Polarity proteins play integral roles in
almost every aspect of a T-cell’s life cycle and
function and are a key focus of the research.
In three-dimensional space, polarity
proteins aggregate at one ‘end’ of the cell,
providing an internal reference point that
allows the cell to orient and link to its
neighbours to form the highly organised,
layered structures of bone, cartilage, soft
tissues and organs.
T-cells are motile and fluid in form and
investigations by Dr Russell and other
international investigators have shown that
the same suite of polarity proteins found in
static cells is involved in nearly every aspect
of T-cell development and function.
Dr Russell explains that polarity proteins
underpin T-cells’ ability to move, to
orientate towards biochemical cues in their
environment, to change form and function, to
recognise alien protein fragments (antigens)
presented to them by sentry cells, and to
undergo clonal expansion.
She says polarity proteins are believed
to form complexes that manipulate the
cytoskeleton, the internal network of
microtubules that stabilises and shapes the
cell, and allows it to move and make contact
with other immune-system cells.
From this, and as part of the probe into
why T-cells sometimes turn against us,
Dr Russell hopes to detail what happens
within a structure called the immune synapse,
which is involved in activating T-cells to
attack cells displaying unfamiliar antigens.
The immune synapse forms when a naïve
T-cell ‘docks’ with a specialised antigenpresenting
cell that is displaying an alien
antigen in a groove on its surface.
There is still much to be learnt about how
the cells signal each other and come together
to form the synapse, or how the antigen is
subsequently transferred to the T-cell for use
as a template to recognise and destroy infected
or mutant cells.
Dr Russell also wants to investigate
the role of polarity proteins in asymmetric
division, a process crucial to T-cell
development, maturation and activation.
In the face of threat, the immune system
must create a host of new T-cells – and it
creates these from non-specialised precursor
cells, without depleting its reserve of precursor
cells. Precursor cells are cells that are incapable
of self-renewal and instead differentiate into
one or two closely related final forms.
When precursor cells divide they can
either produce twin clones of the original cell
(symmetric division), or a non-identical pair
– a single daughter clone and a cell that has
taken the next step towards differentiating into
an activated T-cell (asymmetric division).
Dr Russell and Swinburne researchers are
developing automated systems to capture
and analyse the high-resolution images of
these processes. “We’ve come a long way in
developing the software, and in constructing
microgrids on the biochips,” Dr Russell says.
“But we still have a long way to go to
develop the microfluidic system to manipulate
the biochemical signals to the cells.
“We’ve already obtained some images
without manipulating the signalling
environment process. We’re pretty good
at imaging with standard fluorescence
microscopy, but we have to learn a whole
range of new skills to do PALM imaging.”
Dr Russell says much of the Swinburne
team’s work will depend on being able to
obtain images at the level of individual
protein molecules.
By studying T-cells undergoing normal
differentiation in vitro, Dr Russell says
they should be able to identify errors that
unbalance the process, potentially resulting
in lymphoma or leukaemia blood cancers.
“I suspect any defects in polarity and
asymmetric cell division will be apparent long
before any autoimmune problem,” she says.
“Our work is likely to make a difference
to understanding how polarisation develops,
and how it influences each step in T-cell
differentiation and activation.
“For example, when the immune system
has eliminated an infection, most of the
T-cells involved die off, leaving just a small
population of memory T-cells to keep watch
for any future infections by the same microbe.
“And we hope to define the key processes
that determine whether precursor cells will
differentiate into effector or memory T-cells.”
Dr Russell says that by providing
the first comprehensive picture of T-cell
development and maturation, the Swinburne
project should provide clues to the origins of
autoimmune disorders and help inform the
development of a new generation of vaccines
against infection and cancer. ••
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 275 788
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine
Fast facts
ILLustrations: Paul Dickenson
Swinburne signs environmental treaty
Swinburne University of Technology has signed the Talloires Declaration,
committing itself to raising awareness about the need to move towards
an environmentally sustainable future. Created at a conference in
Talloires, France, in 1990, the declaration aims to demonstrate educational
institutions’ roles as world leaders in developing, promoting and maintaining
global sustainability. Swinburne has pledged to engage in education,
research, policy and information exchange to promote an understanding of
sustainability among staff, students and the community.
Ground control to Melbourne
A newly installed control room at Swinburne will allow astronomers in
Melbourne to remotely control
one of the world’s largest optical
telescope – 9000 kilometres
away. The facility will see
astronomers controlling the
movements of the massive twin
Keck 10-metre Telescopes on the summit of
Hawaii’s dormant Mauna Kea volcano. This is
the farthest distance from which a telescope of
this class has been remotely controlled in real time.
Online portal helps children with autism
A series of free online computer games designed for children with autism
has been created by a group of Swinburne multimedia students, the National
eTherapy Centre and Melbourne-based Bulleen
Heights Autism School. WhizKid Games aims to
help autistic children develop independent living
skills, focusing on coping with change, recognising
emotions and non-verbal communication. It includes
16 therapeutic games about everyday activities. See
www.whizkidgames.com.
What’s so good about being a gran?
Researchers from Swinburne and the University of Melbourne are
still looking for women to tell their stories about their experiences as a
contemporary grandma. Professor Susan Moore and Professor Dorothy
Rosenthal plan to write a book and are interested in hearing from all
grandmothers who believe they have something to say about this interesting
and challenging life stage. To access the anonymous survey, visit
www.granresearch.com, or call 1300 275 788 to request a hard copy.
Attitudes to GM foods unchanged
Public attitudes to genetically modified (GM) foods are not changing,
according to findings by Swinburne’s National Science and Technology Monitor.
Most Australians are still uncomfortable with
GM foods, a constant attitude since 2003. A
thousand people were interviewed in
September 2008 and when asked
how comfortable they were with
GM plants for food, the average score
was 3.9 on a scale of 10, with 0 being
‘not at all comfortable’ and 10 being ‘very
comfortable’. The study found a lack of
trust in the institutions responsible for
commercialising new plant varieties.
5

swinburne March 2010
social inclusion
knowledge
as a way
of being
6
A new centre for Indigenous
knowledge and design
anthropology is set to shape the
way knowledge is shared
in Western universities
By Karin Derkley
How do you work with or for people unless
you understand how they see and experience
the world? How do you create products,
design systems and provide services unless
you have an insight into what is meaningful
or relevant?
For a designer, these are basic questions
if design and function are to meet. The
same questions are also fundamental when
reaching across cultures, particularly when
working with Indigenous communities.
For Dr Norman Sheehan, it makes sense
to bring the two aspirations together and
provide a way for Indigenous knowledge
– often more holistic than prescriptive – to
influence teaching in Western universities.
To this end, Dr Sheehan has been engaged
by Swinburne University of Technology’s
Faculty of Design to establish the Centre
for Indigenous Knowledge and Design
Dr Norman Sheehan

March 2010 swinburne
Key points
Wiradjuri man Dr Norman
Sheehan is to help set up
a new Centre for
Indigenous Knowledge
and Design Anthropology
The new centre aims to
introduce Indigenous
influences to the way
knowledge is taught
and regarded in
Western universities,
with an understanding
of Indigenous ways of
knowing and experiencing
the world
Indigenous knowledge
could be integral to the
design of products,
services and education
programs
For information on how
you can support social
inclusion initiatives at
,,
Indigenous
knowledge is
a discipline
that focuses
on knowledge
not just as an
accumulation
of facts, but
as a way of
understanding
and living in
the world,
informing
everything
we do.
Swinburne, see page 23
Photo: Paul Jones
Anthropology (CIKADA). He will be
assisted by Elizabeth ‘Dori’ Tunstall, who
has recently been appointed as Associate
Professor of Design Anthropology. Formerly
at Chicago’s University of Illinois – one
of the top US design schools – Associate
Professor Tunstall was one of the architects
of the new US National Design Policy.
Dr Sheehan says Swinburne’s decision
to establish the centre is an important step
towards rebalancing the way knowledge is
taught and regarded in Western universities.
“Too much emphasis has been placed on
acquiring and mining knowledge and not
enough on developing an understanding of
knowledge as a way of being, or existing.
What we are aiming to do with the centre is
to develop Indigenous knowledge as a basis
for educational programs for everybody.”
Professor Ken Friedman, Dean of the
Faculty of Design, says CIKADA aims to
offer new ways of thinking and working
to people interested in design. “In design
we are always looking at how we can use
different knowledge traditions to create
better products, processes and services. Our
aim is to use the laws of anthropology to
study how people perceive products and
services and how they will integrate them
into their lives.”
For Dr Sheehan, establishing the centre
represents the culmination of a long journey
from a childhood where he was all but cut
off from his Indigenous heritage. A Wiradjuri
man, born in Mudgee, New South Wales,
Dr Sheehan was brought up in a Catholic
boarding school. He says it was not until
he started teaching art within Aboriginal
communities that he became aware of the
depth of his Aboriginal heritage. “I was
teaching a couple of elders in the group, and
they ended up teaching me much more about
my culture than I could ever teach them.”
The knowledge imparted by those elders
has influenced Dr Sheehan’s work ever
since. In his postgraduate work at the Sydney
Art Institute, he produced sculptures that
represented Australian colonial history from
an Aboriginal point of view. He has taught in
Aboriginal communities in NSW, Queensland
and Tasmania; recently completed a
postdoctoral fellowship in psychiatry at
the University of Queensland’s School of
Medicine that addressed Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander social and emotional
wellbeing; and in 2009 he was the recipient
of the South-East Queensland National
Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance
Committee award for his teaching and
scholarship in the Indigenous community.
Over the years Dr Sheehan has been
drawing on his deepening understanding
of Indigenous culture to develop a body
of work around the growing discipline of
Indigenous knowledge. It is a discipline
that focuses on knowledge not just as an
accumulation of facts, but as a way of
understanding and living in the world,
informing everything we do. “For Indigenous
people this approach to knowledge is
fundamental to everyday life.”
Research and education in Indigenous
communities has often failed in the past
because it has sought to impose white
values on Aboriginal people rather than
empowering Aboriginal people to research
and educate themselves, he says.
“A lot of problems need healing, but only
Aboriginal knowledge can do this. You have
to reinforce a community from within with
programs that include that community’s
voice and values.”
Among the assignments in which
Dr Sheehan has employed that methodology
was an Australian Research Council-funded
project to develop a design-based visual
and oral research method for collecting and
making sense of data across different cultural
understandings. The program uses symbols
to track movement in a narrative, allowing
marginalised groups to create images to
represent their community’s journey towards
improved wellbeing.
“Knowing and tracking are fundamental
aspects of Indigenous knowledge,”
Dr Sheehan says. “If you can track narratives
you can develop deeper understandings of
the social forces that influence peoples’
lives.” The symbols work as a set of tools
that groups can use to build an instigation
model that helps them build their own
pathways to self-understanding and healing.
Dr Sheehan’s work has contributed to ways
of exploring issues at the heart of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander communities, says a
former colleague and Aboriginal community
leader Sam Watson, the deputy director of
Queensland Aboriginal Communities at the
University of Queensland.
“People like Norm are developing important
visionary concepts that are helping to provide
a pathway to work with Aboriginal people.
Swinburne has taken a huge step here because
this is groundbreaking work that will not only
deliver outcomes to the Indigenous community
but also create a broader awareness in the
national academic community.”
The CEO of the Link Up (Qld) Aboriginal
Corporation, Dr Melisah Feeney, says that
as a director of the organisation Dr Sheehan
has shown a passion for helping improve
the social and emotional wellbeing of
Indigenous people.
Dr Sheehan and Dr Feeney are
collaborating on an art initiative for
Indigenous people in Queensland to express
the healing power of ‘connectedness’.
“Norm is an inspiring role model for
Indigenous people. He has a deep insight and
uses creative approaches to helping people
learn about Indigenous ways of knowing and
helping them to experience what it feels like
to be excluded due to being in a minority,”
Dr Feeney says.
Professor Friedman says that he has long
been keen to bring Dr Sheehan to Swinburne’s
Faculty of Design. “I’ve been following
Norm’s work and his approach to learning
and design for a decade and I was keen to talk
to him when we started looking for exciting
scholars to attract to the university.”
Professor Friedman says that Dr Sheehan
will be a valuable addition to an exciting
new facility at the university. “The thing
about Norm is that not only does he come
with his considerable intellect and resources,
but he also has a passionate community
spirit. He is not just interested in having a
narrow focus on his own area but has the
generosity to work with and help other
scholars.” ••
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 275 788
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine
social inclusion
7

swinburne March 2010
social inclusion
8
Cultural pride helps education
start
making
sense
A Swinburne TAFE program run in partnership with Aboriginal organisations in Victoria is
helping to create some stability for disadvantaged Indigenous youths By Karin Derkley
By age 15 Joe* had been expelled from
two secondary schools for “inappropriate
behaviour”. As an Indigenous teenager, and
one with little family support, his life path
may well have become the well-trodden
one through the justice system and juvenile
detention.
Instead, Joe found his way into a
specialist Indigenous educational training
program for 15 to 24-year-olds – Mumgudhal
tyama-tiyt (which translates as
“message stick of knowledge”). The TAFE
program, hosted by Swinburne University of
Technology’s TAFE division in partnership
with the Victorian Aboriginal Community
Services Association Ltd (VACSAL) through
the Bert Williams Aboriginal Youth Services
(BWAYS) in Thornbury, has recently
been granted the Wurreker Award for
achievements in training for Koorie students.
Program convener and trainer Melinda
Eason says Joe was with the program for
six months in 2009 and is keen to finish
the program in 2010. Notably, he involved
himself enthusiastically with the program’s
practical approach to training and there was
no sign of his previous reputation for violent
and antisocial behaviour.
When the course trainers told his mother
how well Joe had been doing at the program,
she cried, Ms Eason says. “She’d never had
a teacher say anything good about her boy
before.”
Many of the young people who have
attended the Mumgu-dhal tyama-tiyt
program are the first generation in their
family to be educated beyond primary
school, says Anne Jenkins, a senior
Indigenous education officer at the Centre
for Engagement in Vocational Learning
(CEVL) at Swinburne. “In mainstream
schools the teachers are saying they’ve got
enough to deal with; they haven’t got the
time to deal with Aboriginal kids’ problems.
But they don’t understand that for a lot of
these kids they are the first in their family to
stay at school. It’s a big step.”
Parents of Indigenous children can at best
be ambivalent about the idea of education,
says Miranda Madgwick, an Indigenous
education officer with the program, who
also received a Wurreker Award in 2009
,,
Teachers don’t
have enough
time or expertise
to build the
rapport with
these kids that
would reveal
how much
the kids are
struggling.
Hence the very
high drop‐out
rate for
Indigenous kids
in mainstream
education.”
Melinda Eason
for Indigenous Teacher/Trainer of the Year.
“They often have an issue with authority
figures. They can’t understand why you’d
want an education – they see it as a white
man’s thing.”
This is compounded by the way
mainstream education alienates many young
Indigenous people, Ms Eason says. “And
teachers don’t have enough time or expertise
to build the rapport with these kids that would
reveal how much the kids are struggling.
Hence the very high drop-out rate for
Indigenous kids in mainstream education.”
Many who attended the course at BWAYS
had been completely sidelined by mainstream
schools – either having been expelled
or dropping out themselves. Some were
residents of BWAYS hostel after becoming
homeless or coming out from a spell in
juvenile detention. Many were dealing with
substance abuse in their families, others had
the responsibility of looking after younger
siblings. “These were very disadvantaged
kids,” Ms Eason says. “So just getting them
to class every day was a big achievement.”
It’s a task that was carried out by the staff at

March 2010 swinburne
illustration: Justin Garnsworthy
BWAYS, who picked up many of the young
people from their homes and also fed them
lunch.
The Mumgu-dhal tyama-tiyt program
offers Indigenous students training in
Certificates I, II and III, which equip
them with the basic skills needed to find
employment. But unlike regular secondary
schools and TAFEs it does this with as
much focus on Indigenous culture as on
literacy, numeracy and other employability
skills, Ms Eason says. “It’s about cultural
competencies and about seeing positive role
models within the Indigenous community
and about producing work that expresses
their identity.”
Part of the success of the course has
been its partnership with other Aboriginal
programs. These included ‘Koories in
the Kitchen’ – a program developed by
the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service,
which teaches nutrition and hospitality
skills and which culminated in the students
preparing lunch during the ‘raising of the
flag’ in NAIDOC week † – and MAYSAR
(Melbourne Aboriginal Youth Sport and
Recreation), which delivered a program
to teach the students about responsible
drinking, first aid and occupational
health and safety. The students were
also involved in a youth forum at the
Aboriginal Advancement League,
designed to hear the needs and
wants of Indigenous youth during
NAIDOC week. Other cultural
projects carried out as part of
the course helped the students
connect more closely to their
local Indigenous communities.
For many it was the first
time they had been able to learn
about their own culture in depth,
says Shane Charles, Indigenous
education support facilitator.
“It’s been found that a strong
grounding in their own culture
gives Indigenous kids the security
and self-esteem to move more
comfortably into the mainstream.
Conversely, Indigenous children who
do not have a connection with their
culture often show worse outcomes in the
mainstream,” he says.
Seventy-five per cent of students who
started the course completed it, a result that is
an achievement in itself, Ms Eason says. “Just
the fact that these kids attended long enough
to be able to graduate is a big deal, given their
other responsibilities and life situations.”
One graduate who has already gone on to
bigger and better things is Leigh Pridham.
He joined the program at age 19 after finding
himself “going downhill”. “I’d been pretty
unmotivated and I thought it might be a
good way of getting myself back on track
in a place where you feel comfortable with
people you know,” he says.
Leigh says he liked the way the program
got him out doing things in the community,
and working with other students to build
their cultural understanding and skills. “It got
my confidence back up – and got me back
into the habit of getting somewhere on time.”
The year paid off for Leigh. He was taken
on by Crown Entertainment Complex as
part of its hospitality training program and is
learning “everything to do with hospitality
… I’m really in my element now,” he says.
For others the achievements have been
more modest, but no less significant. For
Joe it’s simply the fact that he’s enthusiastic
about returning to education in 2010. For
another student who arrived at BWAYS at
the beginning of the year so traumatised he
could barely look anyone in the eye, it has
been a journey just to be able to communicate
with others. “His big achievement was to
escort elders to the stage during an Indigenous
Award to cross-culture
business program
Swinburne TAFE’s partnership with several
other organisations to develop Indigenous
business governance skills has been
recognised with a Business/Higher Education
Round Table (B-HERT) Award in the category
of Best Community Engagement.
The Indigenous Business Governance
Program – ‘Managing in Two Worlds’ – aims
to develop the skills of directors of Indigenous
corporations and senior staff working in the
Indigenous community sector to help the
organisations run effectively and with the
usual accountability processes.
The program acknowledges that directors
and managers of Indigenous corporations
need to be able to ‘work in two worlds’ – their
community’s culture as well as within Western
systems.
Swinburne University of Technology
partnered with several organisations to
deliver the program including the Office of
the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations,
the Department of Planning and Community
Development – Aboriginal Affairs Victoria,
Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Department
of the Premier and Cabinet, South Australia,
and Horizons Education and Development,
Queensland.
Through the partnership, more than 600
people from over 300 organisations across
most states and territories have taken part in
this training since late 2005. About one-third
have gone on to undertake accredited training
at Certificate IV or Diploma level.
Sharon Rice, Swinburne’s director of
learning in the School for Sustainable
Futures, says the program will play a key
role in building the capacity of Indigenous
organisations and, through that, facilitate
progress across a range of economic, social
and cultural programs and objectives.
B-HERT is a not-for-profit organisation
that was established in 1990 to strengthen
the relationship between business and higher
education. It is the only organisation with
members who are leaders in higher education,
business, industry bodies and research
institutions.
– Karin Derkley
organisation’s celebration evening at the end
of the year. There’s no way he would have
been able to do that the beginning of the
course,” Ms Eason says. ••
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 275 788
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine
Key points
In 2009, its first year, 75 per
cent of students completed
Swinburne TAFE’s specialist
Indigenous training program
Most were from highly
disadvantaged backgrounds
and many were the first
in their family to gain a
secondary education
Run in partnership with
the Victorian Aboriginal
Community Services
Association Ltd, through
the Bert Williams Aboriginal
Youth Services, the program
was granted the Wurreker
Award for achievements in
training for Koorie students.
Miranda Madgwick, an
Indigenous education
officer with the program,
also received a Wurreker
Award in 2009 for
Indigenous Teacher/Trainer
of the Year
For information on how you
can support social inclusion
initiatives at Swinburne, see
page 23
* Not his real name
† NAIDOC (the National Aboriginal
and Islander Day Observance
Committee) fosters the contributions
of Indigenous Australians in various
fields. Celebrations and activities
take place across the country during
NAIDOC week, the first full week
of July.
social inclusion
9

Indigenous TV:
swinburne March 2010
colourful, creative and
fighting to stay local
indigenous media
10
Indigenous community television has played an important cultural and educational role in remote communities,
but faces an uncertain future with Australia’s imminent conversion to digital television By Karin Derkley
Key points
Locally produced
Indigenous television has
flourished despite limited
resources
Remote Australia’s
conversion to digital
television in 2013 will
require 2.4-metre-wide
satellite dishes to be
installed on every house
Satellite delivery will
eliminate local program
distribution when analogue
television ends
illustration: Justin Garnsworthy
In 2009 at Pilbara
and Kimberley
Aboriginal Media
(PAKAM)
in Broome,
Swinburne
University of
Technology
researcher Dr Ellie
Rennie watched as
Indigenous media
worker Henry Augustine
loaded 67 videos on to a
hard drive and prepared to
drive by car 120 kilometres north
to the Aboriginal community of Beagle Bay.
The programs had been produced by the
organisation over the past seven or eight
years, and most were just a few minutes long
– sport programs, cooking and public health
programs, videos of hunting and ceremony,
music clips of local rock and reggae bands.
Mr Augustine was driving north at the
request of the Beagle Bay community. The
people there, like those in many other remote
Indigenous communities around Australia,
craved the chance to see these records of
their local everyday life, of ceremony and
of community education on their TV sets.
Mr Augustine’s job was to plug the hard
drive into a computer at the Beagle Bay
Remote Indigenous Broadcasting Station to
send the programs out on a local television
channel to the town’s 250 residents.
Making and watching local television
such as this has become an integral part
of community life in remote Aboriginal
communities, particularly in northern
Australia. But when the plug is pulled
in 2013 on analogue transmission, these
communities will lose control over their
local television stations.
For Dr Rennie, a research fellow at
Swinburne’s Institute for Social Research,
her work to explore the significance of local
media production for remote Indigenous
communities could see her documenting
the end of a unique media system that has
become the victim of new technology.
Aboriginal communities had been making
and distributing local videos since the 1980s,
starting with pirate (unlicensed) television
stations at Yuendumu and Ernabella, until
the Australian Government responded by
allocating community broadcasting licences.
The compact all-in-one radio and television
stations that followed were designed to allow
local control over the retransmission of
satellite content and to provide communities
with the means to produce and broadcast
local programs.
Today, larger media organisations –
remote Indigenous media organisations –
have taken responsibility for these smaller
stations, with eight large organisations and
150 smaller stations operating in remote
Australia.
As most communities did not have the
capacity or resources to run local television
stations on their own, these large media
organisations developed content-sharing
networks, such as the Indigenous Community
Television (ICTV) channel, which provided
a programming feed. Communities that still
wanted to screen local content could insert
programs into the schedule. In this way
Indigenous media was able to develop an
alternative model of media production and
distribution to mainstream broadcasting.
Dr Rennie says these programs have
played an important role in remote
communities. “Very often they are basic
records of daily life, but it is a daily life
that is completely different from the rest
of the country.” Some videos are intended
to maintain culture, she says. For instance,
a recent video of a ceremony told in three
different Aboriginal languages – Ngarti,
Kokotha, and Walmatjarri – was produced
partly as a resource for young people.
The act of video production in itself is
also helping to keep young people involved
in the maintenance of traditional life,
Dr Rennie says. However, the opportunity
for communities to make and watch these
programs has been placed under threat.
In 2007, at the Australian Government’s
direction, the ICTV service was replaced by
National Indigenous Television. It operates
via satellite, leaving remote communities
without a distribution platform. While a few
remote broadcast stations were inserting
some community programming locally, most
went without. However, there was some
good news, with ICTV’s return in November
2009, with help from the Western Australia
Government’s Westlink satellite channel,
made available on weekends.
The second setback is digital
broadcasting. Inserting local content over
either the older ICTV or its newer version
National Indigenous TV will not be possible
after 2013 when analogue television is
switched off.
In January 2010 the Australian
Government announced that only a portion
of transmitters in regional Australia will be
converted to digital, but that subsidies for
domestic satellite dishes will be available for
homes where there is no terrestrial service.

March 2010 swinburne
That means that the television transmitters
used by local, analogue, remote Indigenous
broadcasting stations will be made redundant
and television in many communities will be
delivered by satellite only.
Inserting community-made programs over
the top of analogue channels is relatively
straightforward, Dr Rennie says. “But it’s
impossible for a local community to take
control of a satellite signal being delivered
direct to people’s homes.” The eight remote
Indigenous media organisations now
operating are hoping that the government
will at least reinstate a full-time satellite
channel for the Indigenous Community TV
station, which would allow each region
to control a portion of the programming
schedule.
Installing dishes on the roof of each
of the homes in these communities, and
maintaining them over their lifespan,
will also be a massive task, with research
showing that all homes in the remote north
will each need a 2.4-metre dish on their roof
to receive digital television rather than the
90-centimetre dish needed for urban regions.
Although the National Broadband Network
will one day provide alternative means of
distribution, broadband speeds in remote
areas are likely to be far slower than in the
cities and even where broadband speeds
are adequate, subscription costs may be
prohibitive.
Linda Chellew, media manager of the
Indigenous Remote Communications
Association, says that Dr Rennie’s work
is playing an important role in examining
and describing the significance of
Indigenous television to remote Indigenous
communities. The association is the peak
body and resource agency for remote
Indigenous media organisations, representing
more than 150 remote and very remote
communities that broadcast television and
radio Australia-wide.
The much-vaunted National Indigenous
TV, while appreciated, has an urban focus
that has little relevance to people living in
remote areas, Ms Chellew says. “The life
and experiences of Indigenous people in
remote areas bears little connection to that of
people in urban areas.
“The government doesn’t seem to
understand the importance of these
communities being able to see programs and
receive information about services and issues
in their own language, presented by people
who are part of their own value system.
Hearing your own language on television
is essential to community wellbeing. These
remote peoples need programs that are
driven by their own community issues rather
The Swinburne project aims to:
examine the structure and role of remote
Indigenous media organisations and their
networks within communities;
reveal how community media organisations can
assist in promoting communications uptake
and use;
monitor developments at the national level;
examine tensions between low-cost community
content and (high-end) national media
industries and the role of both in innovation;
investigate the impact of local Indigenous
content;
develop research approaches to better
understand the place and use of communitybased
media within the broader mediascape; and
produce a book on the prospects for cultural
and technological innovation via the Indigenous
media sector.
than by national concerns.”
Another issue is the dire need for better
resources and funding for video production.
“The remote sector has always been treated
by government as an amateur and marginal
sector,” Dr Rennie says. “But the mediamakers
of remote Australia are doing
incredibly important work. There are women
and men who are dedicating their lives
to cultural maintenance and community
education, and they’re hamstrung by the
stereotype that they are just playing around.”
People like Mr Augustine are training
people in the skills to produce and transmit
content with meagre resources at their
disposal. The equipment essential for
transmitting programs is often housed in
hot and airless huts unsuitable for such
technology. Meanwhile there are thousands
of hours of video and film and thousands
of photographs deteriorating for lack of the
resources to properly catalogue and archive
them. “There is so much work that needs to
be done,” Ms Chellew says. “And so much
value that could be gained by training young
people in these important multimedia skills.”
For Dr Rennie, the bittersweet aspect
of her research at Swinburne is the fact
that she may be documenting the end of a
unique media system. “It is tragic that the
model of remote television that has evolved
since the mid-1980s – based on community
ownership, grassroots organisation and
regional collaboration – could soon be a
thing of the past.” ••
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 275 788
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine
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swinburne March 2010
astronomy
12
By observing pulsars, researchers hope to discover the most elusive waves in space and,
with that knowledge, gain new insights into the universe By Julian Cribb
Sarah Burke-Spolaor (left) and Lina Levin, PhD students at Swinburne’s Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing.
Swinburne astronomers are engaged in a
quest to discover the most elusive waves in
the universe – Einstein’s gravitational waves
– using the largest ‘instrument’ imaginable:
an array of burnt-out giant stars that are
spinning hundreds of times a second.
Predicted in Einstein’s theory of
relativity, gravitational waves are vast
echoes in space-time thought to be
generated by the most cataclysmic events
in the universe, such as the collision of two
giant galaxies and the massive black holes at
their hearts. Around the world a number of
very precise – and expensive – instruments
are being built in the hope of detecting and
studying these extremely rare events.
With CSIRO collaborators Dick
Manchester and George Hobbs, Swinburne
University of Technology’s Pulsar Group
is taking an original and rather less costly
approach: they plan to use the signals from a
range of fast-twirling pulsars, the ultra-dense
cores of collapsed giant stars.
The fastest pulsars produce a radio signal
of exceptional regularity, ‘ticking’ hundreds of
times a second with the precision of an atomic
clock. An extended distortion in the regularity
of their signal could indicate the passage of a
gravitational wave, or the aggregated signal of
many such waves. By observing 20 of these
millisecond pulsars over a wide span of sky,
the group hopes to pick up the gravitational
wave as it propagates across the universe like
a ripple on a pond.
To seek the elusive waves the Swinburne
team has designed and built some remarkable
infrastructure at the giant 64-metre Parkes
Radio Telescope to search for the most
rapidly spinning objects in the universe, the
so-called ‘millisecond pulsars’.
Consisting of customised circuit boards
designed in the US and programmed to the
team’s specifications, the giant telescope
digitises 20 billion samples per second.
These are pre-processed on a supercomputer
at the telescope before transmission on a
dedicated 1250-kilometre fibre link provided
by AARNET to Swinburne’s supercomputer.
Within minutes the data is being processed
on the university’s 12,000-gigaflop
supercomputer, while observers wait to

March 2010 swinburne
Photo: Paul Jones
scrutinise the results. The surveys, dubbed
the ‘High Time Resolution Universe Legacy
Surveys’, are part of an international
project between Swinburne, CSIRO and the
universities of Manchester and Cagliari.
Finding the elusive gravitational waves
is not simply an end in itself, says Professor
Matthew Bailes, director of Swinburne’s
Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing.
Unlike many other forms of observation,
such as optical light, radio and gamma rays,
it offers a new window through which to
observe the largest events in the universe
and so improve our understanding of how
galaxies and the cosmos itself evolve.
Swinburne students have been engaged in
pulsar surveys since 1998, compiling a mass
of data that is being reinvestigated using new
techniques. The current effort is much more
comprehensive than previous efforts due to
the telescope effectively wearing “a better set
of glasses”, Professor Bailes explains. During
the past year the team has added a further 21
pulsars to the world’s list of known objects
by sifting through 200,000 gigabytes of data,
and is revealing them as vastly more diverse
and curious objects than previously imagined.
Sarah Burke-Spolaor, who came to
Swinburne from the US for her PhD, is one
of the doctoral students engaged in the quest,
searching for elusive one-off radio flashes –
single pulses of radiation emitted by a new
class of pulsar called rotating radio transients
(RRATs). “Some pulsars are on all the time
and flash constantly, others turn on and off
for part of the time, while others flash at rare
and unpredictable intervals,” she explains.
“We don’t yet know why, but one theory is
that we are seeing parts of the ageing process
in neutron stars. Another view is that they
are being bombarded by the debris from
surrounding asteroid belts.”
The highlight for Ms Burke-Spolaor was
the discovery of an entirely new class of
star, PSR J0941-39. When first detected it
was thought to be a form of RRAT, but on
subsequent visits it was found to fluctuate
between its RRAT state and being a bright
pulsar switched on and emitting constantly
for about 90 per cent of the time, making it
the ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ of pulsars.
“When we are observing we may see
hundreds of pulses for many minutes, then
at other times just a few in the same period.”
The current thinking among the astronomers
is that it may be a neutron star having a
sort of ‘mid-life crisis’ as it progresses
from a high-energy youthful state to a more
sedentary, aged condition. “It’s very exciting.
It seems like almost every time we look we
find something new,” Ms Burke-Spolaor says.
Her Swinburne colleague, PhD student
Lina Levin, originally from Sweden, finds
exploring the cosmos at this scale equally aweinspiring,
especially when she was involved
in the discovery of the first-ever magnetar
found in the radio band – a neutron star with
a very strong magnetic field. First spotted by
University of Manchester PhD student Sam
Bates, the magnetar “boomed in” and was a
complete shock to the team who thought it
was so bright it might not be real. Ms Levin’s
follow-up observations showed that not only
was it a real pulsar, it was unique.
Of the 15 found so far by astronomers
worldwide, all were discovered via the
emission of x-rays or gamma rays – not
radio signals. Ms Levin’s magnetar emits a
radio pulse every 4.3 seconds and its signal
Key points
Using signals from a range
of fast-twirling pulsars,
astronomers are hoping to
discover the most elusive
waves in the universe –
Einstein’s gravitational
waves
With equipment that
includes customised circuit
boards, 20 billion samples a
second are digitised on the
giant telescope at Parkes
This information is
pre-processed on a
supercomputer before
being sent on a dedicated
1250-kilometre fibre link to
Swinburne’s supercomputer
Finding these elusive
waves offers a new window
through which to observe
the largest events in the
universe and improve our
understanding of how
galaxies evolve
strength varies widely, as does the shape
and number of components in its radio
beams. Finally, the rate of spin appears to be
slowing, indicating an enormous magnetic
field, the highest ever seen in a pulsar. It
appears to be undergoing a momentous
transformation. “We expect that eventually
it will disappear,” she says. Why the pulsar
has such a strong magnetic field is unknown.
However, it forms an important new link
between radio pulsars and the other types
of magnetar, suggesting some sort of
evolutionary pattern.
“It’s really weird – it changes so much,”
Ms Levin says. “It’s quite bright and regular
now, but when our collaborator Dr Marta
Burgay, of the Cagliari Observatory in Italy,
examined the historical data from the Parkes
Radio Telescope she found it was turning on
and off every few years.” Dr Simon Johnston’s
team at the Australia Telescope has mapped
the area in the vicinity of the magnetar and
found it is associated with a faint x-ray source,
which is probably the magnetar.
“Lina has also found four millisecond
pulsars that will be important in the search
for gravitational waves,” Professor Bailes
says. The plan is to pick out at least 20 of
the most reliable millisecond pulsars spread
across the southern sky and monitor their
signals in the hope of detecting the minute
fluctuations caused by interference from a
rare gravitational wave passing through.
With its CSIRO and California Institute
of Technology (Caltech) collaborators, the
team has been monitoring millisecond pulsars
for the past 16 years. The new millisecond
pulsars are among the most rapidly spinning
stars ever detected and sure to play a role in
gravitational wave detection as telescopes
such as the Square Kilometre Array come
online towards the end of this decade.
“We’re hoping to use them as a sort of
astronomical GPS system, to triangulate the
position of the source of the gravitational
wave, so we can see what caused it,”
Ms Burke-Spolaor says. “Because millisecond
pulsars are so reliable, if their signal arrives
a billionth of a second sooner or later than
expected, it could be due to the distortion in
space-time caused by a gravitational wave.”
Observing the same minute fluctuation
in the signals of several pulsars would help
characterise the source. If they can achieve
that, the collaboration will stand at the
threshold of a momentous new insight into
the universe we inhabit. ••
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 275 788
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine
astronomy
13

swinburne March 2010
medical devices
14
An Australian
tissue engineer in Paris
story by Dr Gio Braidotti
She had never before travelled outside
Australia, did not speak French and when it
came to the ‘desk’ aspects of her research
work, she preferred to work from home.
So it came as something of a surprise to
Melissa Sgarioto when she was nominated
by Swinburne University of Technology to
take up the daredevil challenge of being the
university’s first student to participate in the
Cotutelle Program – in which a student’s PhD
research is supervised jointly by academics
from an Australian and an overseas university,
typically in France. It leads to a jointlyawarded
PhD degree from the two institutions.
The program is active through the European
Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU),
a network of research universities focused
on collaboration in innovative teaching and
learning, enhancement of university–society
interaction and internationalisation of the
student and staff experience.
Ms Sgarioto’s Australian PhD supervisor,
Associate Professor John Patterson, who
is Academic Leader of the Biomedical
Group, says that Swinburne is the only
Australian university in the ECIU. And while
Ms Sgarioto may not have known it at the
time, she was perfectly suited to the task
of being Swinburne’s pioneering Cotutelle
ambassador via the ECIU.
In her case, that meant enrolling at both
Swinburne and the Université de Technologie
de Compiègne (UTC), about 40 minutes
north of Paris, where she spent the first year
of her PhD in 2007. Ultimately, she will
submit dissertations to both universities, may
participate in the grand old European tradition
of orally defending her thesis, and end up
with two certificates of completion for her
doctorate degree … in addition to a suitcase
full of French clothes and the ability to speak
both normal and ‘techno-geek’ French.
“I knew she would cope with France very
well,” Associate Professor Patterson says.
“She didn’t know it then, but a lot of students
– before they start their PhD – are intimidated
by it. But during the course of her Honours
work in tissue engineering, I realised she could
handle France without any problems at all.”
He describes Ms Sgarioto, a recipient
of a Swinburne postgraduate research
scholarship, as meticulous, responsible and
highly conscious of safety and accuracy …
qualities that are de rigueur in high-powered
French laboratories.
In addition, she tends to be easygoing
with a sunny disposition. The Cotutelle
experience is proving a remarkable journey
of discovery, both in the personal and
scientific sense.
“It was my first trip abroad and I was on
my own,” Ms Sgarioto says. “I tried not to
think about it before I left so that I had no
expectations. I didn’t speak French and when I
first got there I thought ‘what was I thinking?’
… But slowly I learnt the language. I got
comfortable. Now I consider France my second
home. It was such a wonderful experience.”
As to the research she is undertaking within
the Cotutelle Program, she is part of a massive
project. She is testing biodegradable polymers
invented in Australia by CSIRO Molecular
and Health Technologies and developed by
PolyNovo Biomaterials that could be used to
Key points
Photo: Paul Jones
Melissa Sgarioto (above)
is the first Swinburne
student to participate in the
Cotutelle Program, which
sees research undertaken
across two universities, one
typically in France
In her research she is
testing biodegradable
polymers, invented in
Australia, which could
be used to form the next
generation of stents used to
treat cardiovascular disease
The techniques she learnt
in France are helping
her to estimate how the
body could respond to the
synthetic material
form the next generation of stents used to treat
cardiovascular disease (CVD) arising from
blocked arteries (stenosis).
Since medical science vanquished many
infectious diseases in the early 1900s, CVD
has become the number-one killer in many
parts of the world. Global death rates peaked
at 56 per cent of deaths in 1968. Since
then, CVD mortality has steadily declined
and those who do die tend to be older. The
decline has persisted despite an increase in
obesity and diabetes.
Australia was the first country to see a
decline in CVD deaths, but figures released
by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in
2007 indicate that CVD is still responsible
for 34 per cent of all deaths, making it the
leading cause of death among Australians.
While scientists are not sure what
is driving reductions in CVD deaths,
improvements in medical care are considered
a contributing factor to lower fatality rates,
lengthened survival times and shorter
hospital stays. Stents are part of the package
of new treatment options.
Ms Sgarioto explains, however, that with
the original stent devices – wire mesh tubes
that were locked into place in the artery by
inflating a balloon catheter – the procedure
was not foolproof. Some 5 to 35 per cent of
patients experienced ‘restenosis’, where the
block reoccurs. That has stimulated a push in
medical-device research and development to
lower that rate.
Biodegradable stents are one option made
possible by the development of NovoSorb ,
a family of biodegradable polymers
developed by PolyNovo Biomaterials.
“What I am doing is using techniques I
learnt in France to estimate how the body is
likely to respond to the synthetic material,”
Ms Sgarioto says. “This involves degrading
the polymer for nine months and running
tests to assess whether the polymer and its
degradation products are toxic and whether it
elicits any immune response … basically I’m
looking at issues of biocompatibility.”
Ultimately the goal is to develop
biocompatible materials that retain their
mechanical strength for the time required
to remodel the vessel and can still keep the
artery open as the polymer degrades. “The
Cotutelle Program meant that I could acquire
expertise from the French division and
then create new channels for collaborating
on bigger projects such as PolyNovo’s
biodegradable polymer technology.” ••
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 275 788
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine

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swinburne March 2010
strategic foresight
The future can both excite and terrify as it draws
us forward, demanding we fill in its blank canvas
moment by moment. Helping people to master that
forward journey is the role of ‘strategic foresight’
By Dr Gio Braidotti
16
,,
The prime way
that foresight and
organisations
interact is
when students,
who are from
organisations,
come to the
course and then
take foresight
back to their
workplace. By
doing so the
student then
creates an
opening to use
foresight within
the organisation.”
Dr Peter Hayward
Photo: Paul Jones
That humans can look to the past for guidance
and learn by means of ‘hindsight’ is common
knowledge and practice. However, the idea that
the future too can guide, inform and awaken
can seem, at first, a fanciful proposition. Yet
that is what future studies tries to do … better
understand and use the human capacity for
‘foresight’. That the capacity exists is easily
demonstrated, says foresight practitioner and
educator Dr Peter Hayward.
Just compare how humans and dogs cross
a road, he says. Where the dog plunges
in preoccupied with whatever has its
attention in the present, humans can foresee
consequences and can devise a strategy to
realise a preferred future outcome. Should
that involve reaching the other side safely,
then humans ‘look right, look left’.
That simple ‘look right, look left’
protocol, Dr Hayward says, is probably
the simplest and most common ‘strategic
foresight process’ taught to humans. But
what he and his colleagues at Swinburne
University of Technology are endeavouring
to do in their classrooms is take engagement
with future outcomes to a higher level.
“The idea is to treat the future as an
open space, exploring possibilities and
responsibilities as a way to inform action
in the present,” Dr Hayward says. “We find
that can be a powerful approach, especially
if thinking and action are stagnating for an

March 2010 swinburne
individual or organisation. Once trained,
foresight practitioners can help solve
problems by facilitating the creation of new
perspectives, directions and strategies by
moving from the limited perspective of past
and present.”
Of course, if the future is treated as an
open space its landscape is not hills, trees
and rivers. Instead it is a space teeming with
cultural expectations, economic imperatives,
social structures, community bonds, personal
aspirations, technology and existential angst
… for it is also where death is situated.
Inevitably, foresight can provide points of
view that are provocative to business-as-usual
approaches to life.
Dr Hayward says that there are many
ambient structures, institutions and processes
that prompt people to simply accept one
way of looking at the world and its vision
of the future. This is how we often do
business, government, even marketing,
he says, although the point can extend to
spirituality, personal relationships, family
and community groups.
He acknowledges that people can be
extremely uncomfortable questioning life’s most
basic habits and assumptions. But there is also
a subset of people who become increasingly
aware that these structures make decisions on
their behalf and they start to question whether
they are being taken in the right direction.
“A point students often reiterate is that
they have been uncomfortable for a while
with the direction they have been taking but
they struggle to articulate the sense of unease
or to engage others in a conversation about
their concerns or distress,” Dr Hayward says.
“That is what our classrooms provide
– a safe place to engage with futures
inquiry, contact with other people who are
questioning directions, and an opportunity
to encounter and use foresight processes and
practices that can shift perspectives in ways
that make a difference.”
The Swinburne Foresight Masters neither
advocates for a particular future nor provides
its students with a standard set of answers.
“This is not a course that offers
disciplinary dogma,” Dr Hayward says. “It
provides guiding frameworks for how people
can ask quite profound questions about their
future. And I try to find out right from the
beginning whether our prospective students
are comfortable with that open-ended and
conversational approach, and with taking
views that are provocative to the status quo.”
Swinburne’s Masters of Management
(Strategic Foresight) is the only one of
its kind in Australia and its academics
network with the half dozen or so American
and European universities that also teach
strategic foresight. Swinburne has offered
postgraduate courses for several years,
usually to mid-career professionals, but
as of 2010 undergraduate units are also
being made available. In addition, staff and
students are active as foresight practitioners
within organisations such as the Smart
Services Cooperative Research Centre
(CRC), where they help scan, analyse and act
on emerging trends, needs and aspirations.
“The prime way that foresight and
organisations interact is when students,
who are from organisations, come to the
course and then take foresight back to their
workplace,” Dr Hayward says. “By doing
so the student then creates an opening to use
foresight within the organisation.”
The City of Boroondara is an example
where a staff member attended the course
on their own initiative but, as a result
of building up foresight capacity in the
workplace, the organisation now provides
annual scholarships to staff to take a Masters
of Strategic Foresight degree.
“If someone gets an early warning of a
particular future as it opens up, that person gets
the earliest opportunity to leverage and benefit
from those changes, which is why corporations
like Shell operate their own foresight units,” Dr
Hayward says. “There’s no doubt that successful
leaders are good at this – in fact, you don’t have
to go far into a foresight course before you start
bumping into issues of leadership.”
Ultimately, foresight is a “perspective of
leadership”, he says, with the quintessential
questions being where you want to take
yourself, family, community, organisation
or business. And you cannot answer the
destination question unless you have started
to ask questions about the future, he says.
“So it does culminate with people needing
to be clear about their motives for the future
Key points
Swinburne’s Masters of
Strategic Foresight is
unique in Australia and
offers training to foresight
practitioners
Strategic foresight uses
and develops techniques to
explore possible and likely
futures as a way to inform
action in the present
As of 2010, in addition
to the Masters course,
undergraduate units are
available
they want. And at that point, that means
dealing with moral issues, questions of
consequences and responsibility.”
Foresight practitioners especially need to
be clear about their motives and distinguish
between the future they want and the future
they are prepared to assist someone else create.
“Eventually future studies is also a moral
discussion,” Dr Hayward says. “In the
classroom, we don’t start there but that is
often where we end up if people are serious
about being foresight practitioners.” ••
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 275 788
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine
Through the looking glass
In the classroom we teach by running futures inquiry processes that our
graduates will eventually use in their organisations, but with theory and
conversation thrown in. What we don’t do is tell the student what to think
about the future.
We start by using knowledge about the way the world ‘out there’
operates. That means discussing things that are external to us, such as
technology, climate change, population growth, or whatever students are
passionate about. So we start with an inquiry that is about scanning the
future and the ability to anticipate ‘weak’ or emerging signals of change.
This is what 50 per cent of futures work involves and for some people that
is all they want. These foresight tools can be put to use in many contexts,
including corporate, governmental, educational and community domains.
At a certain point the conversation starts to move to interior spaces –
to why people believe certain things and view the world in certain ways.
Then we introduce the idea that the future involves not just technical
knowledge but subjective issues of identity, needs, morality, and hopes.
We can then probe the cultural frames that bind societies together – the
shared worldviews and interior beliefs. This is important because there are
some problems – especially community-based problems – that cannot be
resolved in the present until the community can visualise and agree to the
future that is being created once the problem is solved in a particular way.
So there are exterior and interior frameworks and we want people to
integrate all those domains – the interior of the individual, knowledge of the
way the world operates, a good knowledge of the cultural frames that the
world sits on, and an understanding of how you change yourself and the world.
Ultimately, we want people to be aware of their own personal motivation
in seeking out this knowledge. So the final set of challenges involves moral
preferences and in some courses we teach moral philosophy. Not to indoctrinate
a particular view, but to give students the ability to see how different moral
positions influence what the future can become.
– Peter Hayward
strategic foresight
17

swinburne March 2010
health
18
Dr Lara Grollo
Synthetic vaccine hope
Photo: Paul Jones
in fight against polio successor
Research is stepping up into the development of synthetic vaccines, which are potentially safer,
cheaper and more practical than conventional biological vaccines By Julian Cribb
Worldwide, an insidious virus is on the
march, causing paralysis and death in very
young children. It hasn’t yet created banner
headlines, but for medical researchers such a
disturbing combination of symptoms has not
been seen since the great polio epidemics of
the early 20th century.
The virus is called EV71 and in most
cases only causes a mild infection, known as
‘hand, foot and mouth disease’, which causes
fever, blisters and rashes. But unpredictably
and mysteriously some outbreaks turn
lethal: the virus invades the person’s central
nervous system, causing paralysis in babies
and meningitis in children aged between two
and four years.
Western Australia experienced an acute
outbreak of EV71 in 1999, which led to 14
cases of meningitis and eight of paralysis.
More recently epidemics have occurred
in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea and
Taiwan, while almost half a million cases
were reported in China over a four-month
period in 2009. Outbreaks are seasonal,
usually occurring in summer and autumn,
and may claim the lives of 10 to 15 per cent
of infants infected.

March 2010 swinburne
Key points
In most cases EV71 causes
a mild infection, known
as hand, foot and mouth
disease, which causes
fever, blisters and rashes
Some outbreaks turn lethal,
with the virus invading the
central nervous system,
causing paralysis in babies
and meningitis in children
aged 2 to 4 years
Swinburne is working to
,,
develop a safe vaccine and
antiviral treatment
Normal vaccines
made from an
attenuated, or
killed, virus are
effective – but
they have
drawbacks. For
this reason we
are taking the
approach of
trying to develop
a synthetic
peptide vaccine.”
Dr Lara Grollo
The virus is now in the sights of
Swinburne University of Technology’s
Dr Lara Grollo and her team, which is
working to develop a safe vaccine and
antiviral treatment. If successful, it will end
the crippling, unpredictable run of EV71 and
make it as much a part of history as its close
relative, poliovirus.
“At present there is no effective antiviral
therapy or vaccine available for EV71 in
the world. Washing hands and using clean
water remain our best defence against it,”
Dr Grollo says. “It’s been around a long
time, and we are probably seeing more of it
now because the western world has largely
eradicated polio.”
Like polio, EV71 normally lives in the
gut and is spread through poor hygiene.
Inexplicably, some outbreaks develop the
capacity to invade the central nervous system
and cause brain fever and paralysis. This
is what makes the development of a safe
vaccine so important.
“Normal vaccines made from an
attenuated, or killed, virus are effective – but
they have drawbacks. For this reason we are
taking the approach of trying to develop a
synthetic peptide vaccine.
“These are easy to purify, cheap to
produce in large quantities and you don’t
have to keep them in a fridge, which is a big
advantage in the developing world or remote
areas. Importantly, too, there is no risk the
vaccine constituents can revert to diseasecausing
organisms.”
Using sophisticated computer modelling,
the team is carefully searching the proteins
that make up the coat of the virus for small
molecular sequences known as peptides,
which could prime the immune system of
vaccine recipients or be used as an antiviral
drug to block the virus’s ability to infect.
This in itself is a sizeable challenge,
because EV71 has many strains. Whatever
the team comes up with has to be effective in
protecting people against all of them.
The idea is for fragments of viral material
to be copied synthetically. Ideally, these
copies will still be enough to prime the
body’s white blood cells, generating an
immune response every time the immunised
person encounters the virus.
“Conveniently, all strains have the same
number and type of proteins in their coats
but the sequences of the proteins have minor
differences. We are looking for tiny parts of
those proteins which are conserved across
all the different strains of the virus, and are
capable of triggering an immune response,”
Dr Grollo explains.
Her team’s search for a global vaccine
against EV71 is showing promise. Several
peptides have been identified that appear
able to halt a viral infection in the laboratory.
The next step is to extend the research to
live trials in mice. “The in vitro work tells
us we can obtain an immune response and
create antibodies to the virus. To establish
how protective it will be, we need to go to
the next stages of testing it in animals and,
eventually, in human clinical trials.”
While other groups around the world
are searching for a vaccine against EV71,
Dr Grollo’s Swinburne team is the only group
using an approach to exploit the cutting-edge
technology of synthetic peptides. So far,
she explains, no synthetic peptide vaccines
against viral diseases have yet been licensed
for use in humans, but there are several in
phase II and III human trials.
“The beauty of this approach is that,
because you are only using chemical copies
of small fragments of the virus’s coat
proteins, it is much less likely to provoke a
negative response in the recipient. It is also
cheap and easy to manufacture, and remains
much more stable than a normal vaccine
– you can even store it in powdered form
and dissolve it in liquid when you want to
administer it.”
Synthetic peptide vaccines may also do
away with another unpleasant aspect of
vaccination – needles – and rather be inhaled
through the nose in a fine spray.
Dr Grollo’s team’s careful investigation
of the proteins of the virus’s coat also
opens up the possibility of developing
new ways to actually attack EV71 – by
developing drugs that will specifically target
and bind to sites in both virus and patient
where the virus ‘docks’ and so prevent
infection. If successful, this would provide
medical workers with a second weapon for
controlling outbreaks by directly treating
infected patients.
Like polio, EV71 is a horrifying virus
that every year kills or paralyses thousands
of babies and young children worldwide.
But Dr Grollo is convinced that, like polio,
it can be beaten – and that among her most
promising peptides she will find the tools to
end the scourge. ••
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 275 788
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine
health
19
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swinburne March 2010
Continuous system check could
release data-processing ‘brake’
story by David Adams
information technology
20
In the information age data is like the
air we breathe. It is consumed in volumes
almost too expansive to measure, placing
enormous pressure on countless IT systems
that have to collect, analyse and process
data against immovable deadlines, be they
global financial markets or accurate weather
forecasts for the nightly news.
The surge in data processing has been
paralleled by the development of computerdriven
workflow management systems,
but until now such systems have mostly
monitored and reported. Timeframes have
had to accommodate pre-deadline corrections.
This need for error fixing comes at the cost
of data-processing time and is a brake on
data-processing efficiency during a period
when the world’s thirst for instant, useable
information is growing by the minute.
Professor Yun Yang, of Swinburne
University of Technology’s Centre for
Complex Software Systems and Services,
has set out to rectify the deficiency. He is
developing software that can keep a check
on the accuracy of data processing as it is
happening, rather than performing timeconsuming
verification checks afterwards on
an entire workflow.
The work is being done with Dr Jinjun
Chen and other researchers at the centre in
a project partly funded by the Australian
Research Council.
Their solution, known as SwinDeW-V,
allows for ‘checkpoints’ to be identified at
locations in the workflow where problems
have occurred previously, minimising or
eliminating the need to run checks across an
entire system.
“We’ve tried to identify where the
problems are as early as possible but not
waste time checking everywhere because
every check you do involves consuming
extra resources,” Professor Yang explains.
The solution has been tested successfully
in a simulated environment and there are
numerous applications for such technology
in business and commerce, where the volume
of transactions needing to be processed
accurately presents a constant challenge.
There are also applications in science
where computation-intensive tasks must be
completed within a specific timeframe, as
well as services such as climate and weather
Key points
The need for error-fixing
time costs data-processing
time, reducing efficiency
Swinburne has developed
software that can check the
accuracy of data processing
as it is happening,
eliminating the need for
time-consuming verification
checks afterwards
The solution has numerous
,,
applications in business,
commerce and science
We’ve tried to
identify where
the problems
are as early
as possible
but not waste
time checking
everywhere
because every
check you
do involves
consuming extra
resources.”
Professor
Yun Yang
forecasting that on the surface may appear
routine but are built on vast, constantly
changing data feeds.
Professor Yang says the use of a workflow
management system such as the Swinburne
development could enable meteorologists
to make more use of the available highpowered
climate modelling systems within
the required timeframes.
“My understanding is that even with the
computer power they have nowadays, it’s
probably stretching them to the limit to use
the most accurate models for daily, or even
weekly, forecasts,” he says.
“I know there are much more complicated
models which they simply can’t use. They
have to exercise caution to guarantee a result
within a particular timeframe. But with
our monitoring system, they can use more
complicated models and where there is a
problem they can recruit more resources to
fix it at an early stage – not afterwards in a
verification check. It means we can stretch
the limits of data processing and use further.”
Use of such a software monitoring system
illustration: Justin Garnsworthy
may also lessen the amount of computing
processing power that is required to remain in
reserve in case of a problem in the workflow,
a factor that could lower IT costs.
The Swinburne research team has already
formed links with several organisations
within private industry, including a company
producing insurance-related software.
The team is also planning to work
alongside scientists at Swinburne who have to
deal with vast amounts of astrophysics data.
Dr Chen, who has been researching
the new workflow management software
systems at Swinburne, says the new software
systems being investigated by the Swinburne
team should have a broad application. “In the
real world, most processes are constrained
by time,” he says. “So in principle, the
system can be applied to many, many
processes.” ••
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 275 788
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine

March 2010 swinburne
i phone, I shop …
nutrition at your fingertips
story by Tim Treadgold
Not many Vegemite lovers realise that their
daily dose of “concentrated yeast extract” also
gives them a dash of caramel colouring (150d)
and sulfur dioxide preservative (220). Sandy
Abram knows and soon subscribers to her latest
business venture will have that information
at their fingertips, even while shopping.
‘Our Food’ is the next step along a career
path that has taken the Swinburne University
of Technology MBA graduate from hospital
wards, to computer technology, into a
business designed to help people eat healthier
food and live better lives.
If that sounds a little circuitous then
consider the unique combination of skills
that Sandy has acquired along the way.
She is a former nurse, turned information
technology professional, turned healthy food
‘preacher’, who is now armed with business
skills and entrepreneurial drive.
“Our Food will be all about offering
people the tools to help them make better
food choices,” she says. “It’s not just about
selecting organic or fair-trade food, it’s
about enabling people to decide at the point
of purchase whether a particular product is
good for them or their child.”
Our Food, scheduled to launch in April,
integrates food information with modern
mobile communications, especially the
power and versatility of ‘smart’ telephones
such as Apple’s iPhone.
A practical example of Our Food at
work could be a parent concerned about the
ingredients or additives and artificial colours
found in a product about to be selected off a
supermarket shelf. A few taps on an iPhone
and the information is found immediately. In
the future, scanning a barcode will also be
able to produce this information. The same
result could be achieved with a conventional
mobile phone by keying in data such as a
food colouring number and sending that to
an Our Food free-call number.
“We’re putting information in the hands
of people when they need it,” Sandy says.
Helping people is something that comes
naturally to Sandy, who started her working
life as a registered nurse at Royal Melbourne
Hospital. After five years she needed a
change though by starting part-time IT
studies she probably did not plan such an
adventurous move into business.
Sandy Abram: offering
people the tools to make
better food choices is the
next step for this Swinburne
alumni in a career that has
ranged from nursing to IT.
Key points
Swinburne MBA graduate
Sandy Abram is launching
her latest business venture
‘Our Food’ integrates food
information with modern
mobile communications and
is designed to help people
eat healthier foods and live
better lives
At Swinburne, Sandy
combined practical
knowledge with academic
rigour
That was in the mid-1990s and the
first wave of the internet revolution was
spreading across the world. Sandy’s IT
studies landed her a job as executive
assistant to the Asia–Pacific director of US
software company Macromedia, and then up
to Asia–Pacific marketing manager.
A taste for business and a desire to learn
more led Sandy to Swinburne University of
Technology and her MBA studies, where
she integrated practical knowledge with
academic rigour.
“Swinburne exposed me to the whole
range of professional skills needed to run my
own business,” she says. “I learned how to
develop a business plan, formalise strategy
and gain a better understanding of issues
such as customer relationships.
“As well as the books, I learned a lot
from my peers in the MBA course. When
you’re working in small groups you are
exposed to people from a range of different
industries, learning from them as well as the
academic staff.”
It was with this background of caring
(nurse), IT (Adobe) and MBA (Swinburne),
that Sandy moved deeper into the business
world as a marketing consultant and then
as co-founder of an organic, fair trade and
sustainable food importing business called
First Ray (www.firstray.com.au).
Products, including tea, sustainably
caught tinned fish, curry pastes and sauces,
imported by First Ray can be found in highprofile
retailers such as David Jones or in
Oxfam shops, and even the lounges of the
Photo: Paul Jones
airline Virgin Blue.
The next step is Our Food. This is where
Sandy is combining her practical knowledge
of why eating well helps prevent lifestyle
diseases such as diabetes and high blood
pressure with her IT and business skills.
“Rather than focusing on a product or solely
on the organic industry, it’s about combining
technology with food choice,” she says.
To Sandy it is about giving people access
to the best information possible at the point
of decision making or POST (point of
shopping trolley). By doing so she hopes to
help people choose a product that does not
contain chemicals or additives that might
negatively affect their health.
“It is about linking the technology
experience I had with Adobe/Macromedia
and healthy living. Better-educated people
eat better, with a positive ripple effect from
farmers right through to consumers.”
Sandy acknowledges that what she is
trying to achieve with Our Food is stretching
boundaries in terms of integrating personal
communications technology and food.
“I probably am ahead of the curve, but
there is often an advantage in being an early
adapter and marketer of a new technology
… and while it might sound corny, I really
am passionate about helping people make
conscious, informed lifestyle choices.” ••
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 275 788
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine
alumnialumni profile
21

swinburne March 2010
Opinion PieCE
22
,,
Greyfields are
the ageing,
occupied
residential tracts
of suburbs that
are physically,
technologically
and
environmentally
obsolescent
… typically
found in a 5 to
25-kilometre
radius of the
centre of each
capital city.”
Professor Peter
Newton
Greyfields revisited
Australian cities’ ageing residential tracts – or ‘greyfields’ – offer environmental and economic solutions
to Australia’s hunger for city housing By Professor Peter Newton*
Photo: Paul Jones
In the next 40 years, Melbourne’s
population is forecast to approach seven
million residents – a growth fuelled by
historically high national targets for
population (35 million) and immigration.
This acceleration in growth is already
exerting pressure on Australia’s major capital
cities and their housing markets. Metropolitan
planning strategies for Sydney, Melbourne and
Brisbane – designed to achieve more compact
urban development – require that more than
half of future new housing be constructed
in established, middle-ring suburbs and the
remainder in the traditional outer ‘greenfields’.
This strategy was to be coupled with other
sustainable city objectives related to reducing
resource use (energy and water consumption,
public transport, medium-density housing
and so on) and greenhouse gas emissions.
To date, these plans are failing to deliver the
desired outcomes.
The failure is largely due to an inability
on the part of government, the development
industry and local communities to tackle
a ‘wicked’ challenge: creating a workable
and replicable model for more intensive
regeneration of Australia’s ‘greyfield’ suburbs.
For me, greyfields is a term for describing
the ageing, occupied residential tracts of
suburbs that are physically, technologically
and environmentally obsolescent and which
represent economically outdated, failing or
undercapitalised real estate assets.
They are typically found in a 5 to
25-kilometre radius of the centre of each
capital city and are service, transport,
amenity and employment-rich in comparison
to the outer suburbs and urban fringe.
Fragmented, piecemeal, residential
redevelopment characteristic of the infill
occurring in our greyfields – that is, where
one residential property is demolished and

March 2010 swinburne
up to four townhouses appear in its place –
is necessary but not sufficient to meet the
demands for additional housing.
The pace and scale of redevelopment
around activity centres and on major arterials
is also lagging. Thomas Friedman of the New
York Times has reported that the co-founder
of Intel likes to say that “companies come
to strategic inflection points, when the
fundamentals of business change and they
either make the hard decision to invest and
take a more promising trajectory, or do
nothing and wither”.
The same is true for cities. By neglecting
the regeneration of greyfields, governments
are consigning our big cities to less
sustainable, liveable and competitive futures.
During 2010 I will lead a research
project with Monash University’s Professor
Shane Murray and RMIT’s Professor Ron
Wakefield, funded by the Australian Housing
and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), to
articulate a new model for greyfield precinct
residential redevelopment – akin to those
which successfully operate in the greenfields
and brownfields of our cities.
Among the key questions to be explored
are:
Why aren’t we building more mediumdensity
housing in the middle suburbs?
And the related question, what can be
done about it?
Where are the most prospective greyfield
precincts located? What are the necessary
market and community dynamics for
precinct redevelopment?
What range of visions and models for
precinct regeneration can be articulated
for different places? How can low-rise,
high-density be introduced to increase
housing yield together with a mix of
dwelling types, styles and costs? How can
the precinct achieve carbon neutrality;
demonstrate application of water-sensitive
urban design with integrated urban water
systems; minimise waste generation and
automate waste disposal; and present more
walkable neighbourhoods?
How can low-rise, high-density be
delivered more cost-effectively than
at present? What design, construction,
manufacturing and labour force
innovations can be brought to bear at a
greyfield precinct scale?
What new institutional and governance
arrangements need to be established?
Articulating a new development model for
greyfields’ residential precinct regeneration
is central to the AHURI project. It also
aligns well with the national objectives
emerging from within the Major Cities
Unit of the Department of Infrastructure,
Transport, Regional Development and Local
Government, and also city redevelopment
objectives, such as the Committee for
Melbourne’s Transforming Melbourne
Program.
The benefits would be considerable:
substantial infrastructure cost savings
compared with greenfield-fringe
development; more environmentally
sustainable and resilient communities;
more affordable housing; enabling the large
cohort of ageing baby boomers to downsize
to a nearby precinct redevelopment with
spare cash; and the basis for a new type of
property development industry involving
government and community partnerships.
Instead of perpetuating the outward
growth of Australia’s big cities – the easy but
unsustainable path for urban development –
our more challenging strategy is to redirect
population and property investment inwards
to the greyfields as a catalyst for their
regeneration, and that of the big cities. ••
* Professor Peter Newton is a researcher in
sustainable built environments at Swinburne
University of Technology’s Institute for
Social Research. He leads an ARC Discovery
project on the determinants of urban
consumption, and has just completed a study
on carbon-neutral housing (hybrid building).
His most recent books are Transitions:
Pathways Towards More Sustainable
Urban Development in Australia (Springer
2008) and Technology, Design and Process
Innovation in the Built Environment (Taylor
& Francis 2009).
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 275 788
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine
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EDUCATION
& RESEARCH
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fields of research putting Swinburne,
and Australia, on the map.
But many of our breakthroughs and
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Giving to Swinburne will further the
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And since Swinburne is firmly
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OUR
fOR 2009.
Industry experts and students around the world agree
– Swinburne is a world-class learning institution.
2009 was a great year for Swinburne. Our recent performance in two of the world’s most recognised
university rating indexes placed us in the elite category for higher learning and research in the world.
The Good Universities Guide awarded us top honours in Melbourne for Teaching Quality and
Graduate Satisfaction, four years straight.
And setting the benchmark for Australian businesses and training providers, Swinburne TAFE
was named ‘Large Training Provider of the Year’ at the Australian Training Awards.
What does all this mean for Swinburne students? It means a greater quality of teaching, a more
experiential learning environment, excellent opportunities to participate in world-class research
and better professional outcomes for our graduates.
Watch this space in 2010.
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