Displaying items by tag: Endeavour

Our time on King George Island is coming to an end and we are wrapping up some experiments that were focusing on salt, temperature, light and water stresses.

On the evening of Saturday 16^th January many prominent international scientists (including Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry and in Physics), academics, business professionals and Chilean politicians visited Base Escudero and the laboratories. This diverse group was invited to meet in Santiago, Chile for the Congreso del Futuro to talk about climate change and the challenges facing humanity today.

Sundays are days off for the chefs here at Base Escudero and so research teams can use this opportunity to show off their culinary skills. Our group stepped up to the challenge last week and cooked a delicious lunch for 30 hungry workers and scientists.

I am lucky to participate in another research trip to King George Island (KGI), West Antarctica organised by the Instituto Antartico Chileno. Last year Sharon, Andrew and I were part of a group of scientists from a diverse range of countries lead by Angélica Casanova-Katny. This time around I am accompanying Gustavo, Tavo and Marisol from USACH as part of my Endeavour program.

Dr Mel has been in Antarctica for over a week now and we are hoping there will be updates and exciting news but unfortunately the internet is slow (probably doesn't like the cold) and so she is sending messages via whats app.  Luckily there is mobile phone coverage on King George Island!  Looks like Tavo is on the phone in the lab here.

I might be a little late to blog about this but it has been a busy last few weeks. The Facultad de Quimica y Biologia at USACH had a successful end to 2015 and put on a lunch with finger-food, including mini empanadas (empanaditas). I attended the New Year’s fireworks at Los Dominicos, Santiago with my host supervisor’s family. We dressed up in silly hats and of course glow sticks, drank champagne and exploded the largest hand held party poppers I’ve seen. Both were fun events to cap off a great year for research and achievements.

Last week Melinda got the Examination reports for her PhD. With a lot of quick action on the part of the Graduate School, Mel was able to respond to the comments in record time. On Thursday she was able to submit her corrected thesis and that meant that on Friday she officially received notification that she has met all the requirements for her PhD and she will be able to graduate at the next ceremony  in April. So a big congratulations to Dr Melinda Waterman on this achievement and also a big thank you to everyone in Graduate School at UOW for making it happen so fast.  The reason there was a rush is that Mel had to be awarded her PhD in order to start her Endeavour Fellowship in Santiago, Chile.