David Coall
Research Fellow, University of Western Australia
BPsych 1994; BSc (Hons) 1999; PhD 2005

My interest in research began with my Honours year where I applied evolutionary theory to understanding the factors that influence a woman's reproductive development and timing. An Australian Postgraduate Award gave me the opportunity to extend this research during my PhD and examine factors throughout a woman’s life that influence the birth weight and placental weight of her children.

Chancellor Michael Chaney, Vice-Chancellor Robson and Professor Marshall also met up with more than 100 Alumni and friends who turned out on a wintry October evening to attend the UWA Alumni London Reception.

The exhibition hall at Australia House provided a stunning venue, and it seems to be a favourite with Australians living in London.

Also present were the Dean of the Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences Professor George Stewart; the Director of Development Campbell Thomson; and the Chair of the UWA Friends in the UK Group, David MacKinlay.

“I was particularly delighted to see so many of our younger alumni in attendance. Their enthusiasm about being associated with UWA is very positive and encouraging,” Professor Robson said.

In August, more than 160 UWA Alumni attended cocktail functions in Singapore (at the Singapore Cricket Club) and Kuala Lumpur (the Malaysian Petroleum Club).

The School of Biomedical, Biomolecular and Chemical Sciences celebrated several milestones involving its four teaching disciplines last October. The celebrations included the 95th anniversary of the establishment of Chemistry, and the 50th anniversaries of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Physiology. These four disciplines merged in 2002 to form the current School which commenced operations in 2003.

In every one of Freddie Timms’s hundreds of paintings, the 62-year-old Kununurra artist recreates the beloved country which he rode thorough as a young stockman. Swirls of colour – some produced from ochres from the land itself – represent the hills, black soil and hot springs he remembers from his days as a 14-year-old, being taught to ride on Mabel Downs Station by one of the elders of his Gidja language group.

A team of UWA astrophysicists has captured one hour of valuable video footage of the aftermath of a massive gamma ray explosion 11 billion years ago – just a few billion years after the Big Bang.

The ancient light was detected for the first time on Earth by a one-metre robotic telescope installed just last year at the Gingin gravitational wave observatory, 70 km north of Perth.

The Zadko Telescope near Gingin was the first to observe light from an 11-billion-year-old gamma ray explosion. The UWA researchers’ announcement coincides with the International Year of Astronomy in 2009 and marks the discovery of one of the most distant explosions observed from Australia.

The bizarre controversy over the existence of a dwarf ape-like creature dubbed the ‘hobbit’ of Flores has drawn attention to the very real tragedy of iodine deficiency which still affects millions of people.

The controversy surrounding the discovery of the fossilised remains on a remote Indonesian island in 2004 has led to one of the most heated anthropological debates in recent history.

Scientists at UWA were invited to join their colleagues at one of China’s most prestigious universities, the University of Science and Technology of China in a joint symposium to celebrate USTC’s 50th anniversary.

USTC is located in the city of Hefei in Anhui Province and attracts the top science students from all over China.

The symposium was organised by the College of Life Sciences with the theme of ‘Frontiers in the Life Sciences’.

A group of Year 11 students from Raffles Junior College in Singapore got a good taste of WA – and UWA – during their short-term study program in November-December last year.

The visit was also successful in broadening the horizons of the 38 students to the possibility of studying science or technology at UWA.