President’s note
We were absolutely thrilled to reach our 1000th member this month. This is a huge milestone for WOMEESA and a reflection of the hard work the committee has put in over the last five years to develop and grow our organisation. In particular, 2022 has been a big year with many new initiatives and ideas taking flight and we are delighted to see that this has led to an increase in our member numbers. The AGM earlier this month gave us time to reflect on our achievements and think about how we can continue to grow in 2023. Early next year we’ll be looking for feedback from you, our members, about what you would like from WOMEESA next year. But for now, it is time we all have a well-earned rest. To that end, this month I am doing a special holiday edition of the WOMEESA newsletter and letting you know about some great ways you can relax and recharge over the summer break. I hope you enjoy this final newsletter for 2022 and we’ll see you again in February 2023.
Melanie Finch
WOMEESA President
WOMEESA news
New WOMEESA committee elected for 2023
At the AGM held earlier this month we elected a new committee for 2023. Most committee members elected to re-nominate for another term so they could keep working on the fabulous initiatives they began in 2022. We also welcomed a new committee member, Associate Professor Jillian Gabo-Ratio from the University of the Philippines who will be taking on SE Asia engagement. Lorna Strachan and Rachelle Kernen were thanked at the AGM for their work in the committee in 2022, as they step off the committee for the year.
Womeesa at GSNZ
Jess Hillman organised a fantastic event at the GSNZ conference this week. Dr Deb Dutta from Massey University presented the results of her study into Women in STEM in NZ. The event was well attended and there were some great discussions about the challenges that women face, and how we define experts and expertise in science.
New Superstars of STEM cohort
We were delighted to see the new Superstars of STEM cohort announced by Science and Technology Australia earlier this month. The new group features seven WOMEESA members, three of whom have been WOMEESA committee members. Huge congratulations to the 2023-2025 cohort, we can’t wait to see what you do next! To check out all the Superstars you can see their bios at this link.
Local meet ups
Canberra WOMEESA members gathered for their local catchup recently at the National Museum of Australia, overlooking Lake Burley Griffin.
WOMEESA organises bi-monthly local meetups in our major centres, which are a great opportunity to meet other members in your local area and to build a stronger community. It is time for the last local meetup of the year! Come and join us in Melbourne and Perth to celebrate all our achievements during this last year
Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Wednesday 14th December at 6:30 pm at Future Future (191 Swan St, Richmond VIC 3121) | Register here!
Perth, WA, Australia: Friday 16th December at 4:30 pm at South Perth Foreshore, near the food trucks. Look for the WOMEESA sign, no registration required
Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists awards
Nominations are now open for the ASEG (Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists) Honours and Awards to be presented at the Australian Exploration Geoscience Conference in March 2023. WOMEESA has a number of members who would be eligible for a range of Award categories. Please consider nominating yourself or someone else, and let us know if you need support in developing your nomination, or gathering letters of support (womeesa.network@gmail.com) #NominateHer
WOMEESA AESC session
Abstract submission is now open for the Australian Earth Science Conference, to be held in Perth in 2023. WOMEESA is convening a session on Diversity and inclusion in geoscience. Geoscience is one of the least diverse STEM disciplines, which leads to reduced innovation and a failure to attract the best people to our discipline. This session will explore the various factors contributing to this lack of diversity and the changes that can be implemented to make geoscience more inclusive. Contributions are invited from from both within and outside geoscience, on research about groups that identify as minority genders (women and non-binary), LGBTIQ+, people with disability, neurodiverse, indigenous, and minority races in Australian geoscience. Abstract submission is open until March 2023, and you can register at this link.
WOMEESAs Holiday Recommendations
For a bit of a light-hearted end to the year, here are some (mostly) Earth and Environmental Science themed recommendations for fun things to read, do or see over the summer break.
Holiday reading
The UNSW Press Bragg Prize for Science Writing is an annual prize for the best non-fiction science writing written for a general audience. This year’s winner was Lauren Fuge who won for her essay ‘Time travel and tipping points’ which was published in Cosmos Magazine. Her fabulous essay is about Earth’s geologic history, evolution, climate and changes we are experiencing in the current geologic period. You can read it at this link. This essay and all the best short form science writing published in the last year were pulled together into the 2022 Best Australian Science Writing anthology, which is available at all good bookshops now.
If you’re looking for a longer read we can recommend Fire and Ice: the volcanoes of the solar system by Natalie Starkey. Dr Natalie Starkey is a UK geologist, cosmochemist and scicomm superstar. Her new book is about volcanoes of the solar system, but the processes talked about go much further than that. The book describes volcanic processes close to home and compares them with the weird things that happens to volcanoes on other planets and moons, where the surface pressure is different and the magma is not rock-based(!). This is a brilliant read for geologists and the general public alike.
This year we also read Joëlle Gergis’ new book, Humanities Moment: A climate scientist’s case for hope. Joëlle puts forward the science that went into the latest IPCC report but also puts a personal perspective on what its like being at the frontlines of the fight against inaction. Her book is ultimately a positive story about how the solutions for climate change already exist, all that is now needed is public will for change.
This year there was also a fabulous new book out from Marcia Bjornerud called Geopedia: A Brief Compendium of Geologic Curiosities, which is a compendium of weird and wonderful geological words accompanied by beautiful illustrations. This will be a surefire hit for any rock or word lover. If you are yet to read Marcia’s previous book, Timefulness, I cannot recommend it more highly. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is my #1 geology book for a general audience of all time (Trilobite! comes in a close second).
The First Knowledges series of books was released this year including Astronomy: Sky Country by Karlie Noon and Krystal De Napoli and Plants: Past, present and future by Zena Cumpston, Michael-Shawn Fletcher and Lesley Head.
And just released in the last couple of weeks in Australia was Fen, Bog and Swamp by Annie Proulx, which is about wetlands through history and across the world.
Holiday Viewing
The award winning films from the Earth Futures Festival are available for viewing for a limited time on the EFF website. We highly recommend ROLA (STONE) by Marissa Betts from the University of New England which won the Geoscience Professionals Award. We also loved the Bearded Lady Project, which won the Women in Geoscience Award and the Human connection award. All the films in the Women in Geoscience category were absolutely excellent and worth watching.
Now is also the perfect time to catch up on any WOMEESA seminars you missed through the year. They are all available here on our website or here on our YouTube channel. Most seminars are a mix of the career journey of the speaker combined with some of their research. All are absolutely fascinating and compelling.
There are a few fabulous documentaries available on ABCiview at the moment. We loved Home: The Story of Earth which starred several WOMEESA members talking about their science for a general audience. This is must watch television! We also checked out Carbon: The unauthorised biography which also features WOMEESA members and is narrated by Sarah Snook (she plays the role of Carbon (yes, the narration is a little odd at times, but the show is otherwise completely awesome)). Finally, we can recommend Southern Oceans Live, co-hosted by Ann Jones who is as brilliant and engaging as ever in this journey into Australia’s Southern Ocean.
Holiday activities
As always, the museums in several capital cities have special exhibitions over the school holidays. The Melbourne Museum has an exhibition of pink diamonds, a tri first people’s exhibition on the theme of water, and a cool interactive projection soundscape thing called Tyama. I also heard that there are two new baby elephants at the Melbourne Zoo.
The South Australian Museum has an exhibition on the six mass extinctions that have occurred through geological time and an exhibition on First Nation languages spoken in South Australia.
In Perth the WA Museum is screening the Antarctica Experience which is a virtual reality movie about a day in the life of Australian Antarctic scientists as they research Antarctica. They also have the Boola Bardip Aboriginal Tour, which is about the history of First Nations people in WA.
At the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery they are exhibiting the work of 20 Tasmanian Aboriginal Artists in taypani milaythina-tu: Return to Country. While you’re there checking that out you could also take a look at their permanent exhibition on Tassie’s geological history. And of course there is MonaFoma in February.
In Brisbane there is an interactive space experience called Neighbourhood Earth which sounds pretty cool. I also came across this list of six places near Brisbane to camp near the sea, which is immediately going into the bookmarks for next time I’m in Brisbane on holidays.
In Darwin there is an exhibition called Tiny Territory that celebrates invertebrates.
In Auckland there is an exhibition of the artwork of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at the Auckland Art Gallery and I also noticed this delightful stocking stuffer in the gift shop for the volcanologist in your life.
The Canterbury Museum in Christchurch is about to undergo a huge redevelopment and will be closing for a while, but they’re going out with a bang - starting Jan 28 they’re having local artists come in and create a huge artwork within the empty gallery in an Urban Art Takeover. It sounds pretty awesome, check out the info here.