Today

University of Newcastle announces Michael Dowzer became acting university secretary yesterday. He replaces deputy chancellor Dianne Allen who was previously acting in place of David Cantrick-Brooks, who is in dispute with management and on leave.

Ronika Power wins the 2019 Crawford Medal from the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Associate Professor Power is a bioarchaeologist at Macquarie U.

Matt Salier joins RMIT Activator,  the university’s “home of entrepreneurship.” He moves from Flinders U’s New Ventures Institute.

This week

Melanie Bagg is incoming CEO of the National Youth Science Forum. She moves next month from the Australian Academy of Science where she is comms director. Dr Bagg is replaced at AAS by Paul Richards, who steps up from digital strategist there.

At the University of Melbourne,  Deborah Cheetham is awarded the Sir Bernard Heinz award for her contribution to music.  Ms Cheetham is an opera singer and a composer, she is a Yorta Yorta woman.

Former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill joins the University of South Australia as an industry professor to teach its MBA. So does Christopher Pyne who will teach in the same programme,  perhaps including inelasticity of demand for citrus products (at 1.05)

The Australian Market and Social Research Organisation has established an inquiry into opinion poll performance in the federal election. There is an advisory board, including Ian McAllister (ANU) and a panel which will do the inquiring, Murray Goot (Macquarie U) Jill Sheppard (ANU), Patrick Sturgiss (London School of Economics) are members. There are also members from the US, where they know a bit about polls getting it wrong, including Patrick Moynihan, from the utterly admirable Pew Research Centre.

Sabina Shugg is appointed director of Curtin U’s WA School of Mines. Ms Shugg moves from director of the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Mining Innovation Hub. She takes over following a review of the school and the university retaining mining education expert David Brereton, (ex Uni Queensland) to develop a new curriculum, (CMM April 18).

UNSW dean of built environment Helen Lochead receives the presidential medal from the American Institute of Architects. Professor Lochead is the new national president of the Australian Institute of Architects.

Jennifer Stow (Uni Queensland) is elected associate member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation. Associate membership is the category for researchers ex-Europe. UQ says she is the seventh Australia to ever join.

Former South Australia Chief Scientist Leanna Reed joins the board of Uni Seed. Dr Reed is chair and CEO of the Cooperative Research Centre for Cell Therapy Manufacturing.  Uni Seed is a JV of the universities of Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland, plus UNSW and CSIRO.

Jacqui True (Monash U) receives the Feminist Theory & Gender Studies section of the International Studies Association’s 2020 eminent scholar award.

Peter Harrison (Uni Queensland) is elected a member of the International Academy of the History of Science. Professor Harrison is director of the university’s Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities.

The Independent Higher Education Association of Australia has new board leaders and members, (it’s the lobby formally known as the Council of Private Higher Education). Alan Finch (Bond U) is the new chair. Gabriela Rodriguez, (Academies Australasia Group) is deputy. Jo Anthonysz, (Navitas) James Adonopolous (Kaplan Business School) also join the board.

Uni Queensland’s Institute for Social Science Research reports two new professorial hires; Lisa McDaid joins from social and public health science at the University of Glasgow and Rhema Vaithianathan, who works on big data and machine learning “for social good,” moves from Auckland University of Technology.

Sarah Maddison (Uni Melbourne) reports she is becoming deputy dean of its arts faculty.

Bob Carr has a three-year appointment at UTS as a professor of industry, “focusing on business and climate change.” The former NSW premier and Australian foreign minister was previously director of the university’s Australia-China Relations Institute.

The American Society of Criminology awards its Jerry Lee lifetime achievement award in experimental criminology to Uni Queensland’s Lorraine Mazerolle.