| User advisory committee |
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The User Advisory Committee (UAC) is an independent group that provides advice to the Australian Synchrotron Director on issues from a user perspective. The role of the UAC is to:
The UAC has seven elected members, along with the seven Program Advisory Committee Chairs. The members cover a broad national and regional spread together with diverse discipline mix related to the major branches of synchrotron science, and will represent the interests of the wide synchrotron user community in Australia. The committee was announced at the Australian Synchrotron Users Meeting in December 2008. You can contact your UAC representative by following any of the email links provided below. As of mid-August 2011, we are in the process of providing email links for all UAC members. Click here to read a summary of the May 2010 UAC meeting chaired by Matthew Wilce.
UAC MEMBER PROFILES
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Dr Richard Garrett (acting Chair)ANSTO Biographical information and photo to be provided. |
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Associate Professor Matthew WilceMonash University After completing a BSc (Hons) at James Cook University in Marine Biology/Chemistry, Matthew worked at the Australian Institute of Marine Science then moved to Melbourne to take up a PhD with Professor Milton Hearn in Bioseparation. His career in structural biology started when he took up a postdoctoral position with Professor Michael Parker at St. Vincent's Institute of Medical Research studying glutathione S-transferases' enzymes that are involved in cellular detoxification. Matthew then investigated a number of metalloenzymes working under the direction of Professor Mitchell Guss and the late Professor Hans Freeman at University of Sydney. In 1998 he moved to the University of Western Australia to take up a position in the Crystallography Centre and the Department of Pharmacology to start the first Structural Biology group in Western Australia. When plans for a new Synchrotron were announced, Matthew was keen to be geographically close to this resource and in 2005 he had moved to Monash University to join the team of Structural Biologist groups and further his work. Associate Professor Matthew CJ Wilce |
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Dr Stephen BestMelbourne University For the last 10 years Stephen Best has been a member of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne with primary research interests centered on the structural and (bio)catalytic properties of the transition metals. His synchrotron-based work has centered on the development of approaches that permit the characterisation of reactive electrogenerated compounds by spectroscopic and computational methods. In addition to the X-ray spectroscopy beamline, his work also has involved structural characterisation of crystalline materials (using PX1) and the analysis of pigments from paint fragments (IR microscope). Stephen is also chair of the X-ray absorption spectroscopy PAC. |
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Professor Charlie BondUniversity of Western Australia Following an honours degree in chemistry with industrial experience and a PhD in protein crystallography at the University of Manchester, UK, Charlie undertook postdoctoral work studying the structures of medically-relevant enzymes at the University of Sydney (with Prof Mitchell Guss and Prof Hans Freeman) and the University of Dundee, UK (with Prof Bill Hunter). A BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship, and affiliation with the Scottish Structural Proteomics Facility at Dundee allowed Charlie to develop an independent research program studying nucleic acid binding protein complexes, and it is this work he brought to UWA in 2006 to take up a position as Professorial Fellow in Structural Biology in the School of Biomedical, Biomolecular and Chemical Sciences. Charlie has used numerous crystallography beamlines at SRS Daresbury, Photon Factory, ESRF, APS, and now makes frequent use of remote data collection at the Australian Synchrotron. |
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Dr James DownesMacquarie University James Downes is a senior lecturer in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Macquarie University. His research involves the thin-film growth of novel semiconductor materials and the study of their electronic structure using synchrotron-based techniques. |
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Dr Sarah HarmerUniversity of South Australia Biographical information and photo to be provided. |
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Dr Bridget InghamIndustrial Reseach Ltd Bridget Ingham has been involved in conducting synchrotron experiments at several different facilities since 2005 (including APS, AS, NSLS, SPring-8, and SSRL). During 2006-7 she was based at SSRL as a post-doctoral fellow. She is now a research scientist at Industrial Research Limited specialising in synchrotron techniques, including XRD, SAXS, and XAS. Since 2007 she has also been the Technical Director for the New Zealand Synchrotron Support Programme. |
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Dr Kevin JackUniversity of Queensland After completing a BSc (Hons) in chemistry at Canterbury University, NZ, Kevin obtained his PhD in polymer chemistry at the University of Queensland. He then took up postdoctoral positions at Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada followed by Bristol University, UK, where he became increasingly involved in the applications of x-ray and neutron scattering methods and NMR in soft condensed matter (colloids, polymers and composites). After working as a research scientist at the Bristol Colloid Centre, he returned to UQ where he is currently a Research Fellow and manager of the x-ray analysis facility at the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis. His broad research interests are in the understanding of structure-property-performance relationships in a range of materials; i.e. the use of molecular level findings and understanding to direct the development of better performing materials, devices or chemical processes. The SAXS/WAXS, SXR and PDF beamlines at the Australian Synchrotron have all been valuable techniques in this understanding. |
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Professor Richard HaverkampMassey University Biographical information and photo to be provided.
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Dr Peter KappenLa Trobe University Peter is working as researcher and Synchrotron User Community Developer and Liaison at La Trobe University. He completed his PhD in 2002 at the synchrotron HASYLAB in Hamburg, Germany (multi-element fluorescence detectors, XAFS, catalysis research). He then continued as a beamline scientist at one of the facility's XAFS beamlines (2002/03). A Post-doctoral Fellowship Award brought Peter to the Department of Physics at La Trobe University (2003) where he has since worked in various roles involving synchrotron users from research and industry. Peter has conducted beamtimes at the Australian Synchrotron and at light sources in Switzerland (SLS), Taiwan (NSRRC), Japan (Photon Factory), and Germany (HASYLAB, ANKA, BESSY). For his projects, he has extensively used XAFS and micro-XRF, as well as XRD, PEEM, and XPS. |
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Dr Deborah LauCSIRO Biographical information and photo to be provided. |
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Dr Enzo LombiUniversity of South Australia Enzo Lombi is Associate Professor at the University of South Australia and is Leader of the Prevention Technology Program of the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Research and Remediation of the Environment. He received a PhD in agricultural chemistry from the Catholic University of Piacenza, Italy. Enzo held positions at the University of Agricultural Science in Vienna, at Rothamsted Research (UK), at CSIRO Land and Water in Adelaide and at the University of Copenhagen. His major research focus is on the biogeochemistry of trace elements with a special interest on synchrotron-based techniques for the investigation of biological and soil processes. Enzo has used various beamlines at the AS, Photon Factory, APS, ESRF and MaxLab mainly dealing with XANES/EXAFS, microspectroscopy and tomography. |
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Dr Siegbert SchmidUniversity of Sydney Biographical information and photo to be provided. |
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Dr Andrew StevensonCSIRO Biographical information and photo to be provided. |
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Emeritus Professor Bill van BronswijkCurtin University Bill van Bronswijk completed his PhD in inorganic chemistry at the University of Adelaide in 1966. In 1967 he took up a postdoctoral position with the late Professor Sir Ronald Nyholm and Professor Robin Clark at University College London, UK. His work there was in the emerging field of nuclear quadrupole resonance spectroscopy, wide line nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy and the then new field of laser Raman spectroscopy. He returned to Australia in 1970 to take up a lectureship at Curtin University (then the Western Australian Institute of Technology). Bill retired in 2008 and since then has held the position of emeritus professor. |
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