PROGRAM

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Congress Program Overview

Plenary Speakers

Participating Societies

Underwriting Support

Catering During the Congress

Congress Program Overview

The main Congress program will commence with the Welcome Reception from 17:00 - 19:00 on Sunday, 3 December 2006 at Brisbane Congress and Exhibition Centre.

Monday, 4 December 2006 sees the official opening of the Congress and the start of plenary and concurrent sessions. These sessions continue through to Friday, 8 December.

There will be nine plenary talks which will present outstanding international and national Physicists, including 2005 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics Professor John Hall.

The remainder of the oral presentations throughout the Congress will consist of up to six parallel sessions, each representing a particular discipline group. In these sessions, keynote speakers will present for 40 minutes including questions, coupled with contributed presenters. Three dedicated poster sessions will give delegates the opportunity of discussing upcoming research work with the relevant poster authors.

The Congress dinner will be held on Wednesday, 6 December.

On Thursday, 7 December, Professor Eric Mazur will present a public lecture on Stopping Time.

TOPIC AREAS
Please be aware that the topic area abbreviations will be used throughout the Program timetable.

The following topic areas will be covered in the Congress Program:

Acoustics and Music (AAS)

Astronomy (ASA)

Atomic and Molecular Physics and Quantum Chemistry (AMPQC)

Biophysics and Medical Physics (BMP)

Complex Systems, Computational and Mathematical Physics (CSCMP)

Condensed Matter and Materials and Surface Physics (CMMSP)

Education (PEG)

Environmental Physics (EP)

GeoPhysics (GP)

History of Physics (HOP)

Meteorology and Climate Change and Oceanography (AMOS)

Nuclear and Particle Physics (NUPP)

Optics, Photonics, Laser Physics (AOS)

Plasma Physics (PP)

Relatively and Gravitation (ASGRG)

Renewable Energy (RE)

Solar-Terrestrial and Space Physics (STSP)

Synchrotron Science (ASRP)

Women in Physics (WIP)

Plenary Speakers

The Organising Committee is delighted the following distinguished plenary speakers have accepted invitations to speak at the Congress:

Professor Sandra Chapman
Professor of Astrophysics and Director of the Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, University of Warwick, United Kingdom

Professor Athene Donald
Professor of Experimental Physics, Cavendish Laboratory, Physics Department in the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Professor John Hall
Co-Winner 2005 Nobel Prize for Physics

Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith
Director of UKAEA Fusion Program and the Joint European Torus (JET), Culham Science Centre, England

Dr Eric Mazur
(2001 NSF Director's Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award), Professor of Physics, Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
Topic - Confessions Of A Converted Lecturer

Professor David Southwood
Director of Science European Space Agency, United Kingdom

Professor Catherine Stampfl
Federation Fellow, School of Physics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Professor Michael Wiescher
(2003 Hans Bethe Prize), Director of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, USA
Freimann Professor, Nuclear Physics,
Topic - Exotic Nuclei and Nuclear Astrophysics in Explosive Stellar Environments

Professor Joe Wolfe
(2004 International Medal of the French Acoustical Society), Professor of Physics, School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Professor Anton Zeilinger
(2000 Senior Humboldt Fellow Prize) Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Vienna, Austria

Professor Sandra. C. Chapman

Head of the Space and Astrophysics Group, University of Warwick, United Kingdom

Sandra Chapman's research centers on non-linear processes in solar system, astrophysical and laboratory plasmas. She is currently Professor of Astrophysics and Director of the Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics at the University of Warwick, UK.

She read Physics on an Exhibition Scholarship to Imperial College, London. Her PhD (also at Imperial College, 1985) was concerned with chaotic charged particles in the earth's magnetosphere. Her early work was recognized with the COSPAR Zeldovich Medal and the European Geophysical Society Young Scientists' Medal. As well as being responsible for a number of PPARC, EPSRC and European Union funded research programmes she has held several personal research fellowships including from the PPARC, the Royal Society and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, The Nuffield Foundation, The Radcliffe Foundation Harvard, and NESTA and was recently visiting Professor at the Universities of Uppsala and Kyoto. She has published over 140 papers, about 90 of which are in the refereed literature, and a textbook on Electrodynamics.

Professor Athene Donald

Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Professor Athene Donald is Professor of Experimental Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory, which is the Physics Department in the University of Cambridge, UK. Her research is concerned with soft matter physics, including both synthetic systems and (increasingly) those of biological origin. Thus recent work has explored how polymer physics can be used to understand features of protein aggregation The over-arching theme of her research is elucidating structure-function relationships, with particular emphasis on approaches involving different kinds of microscopy, as well as scattering experiments. Most recently her group has been actively involved in developing environmental scanning electron microscopy for the study of insulating and hydrated samples, including those of biological origin.

Athene Donald studied for both her first and second degrees in physics at the University of Cambridge, before spending 4 years as a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University, in the Materials Science Department. It was while she was there that she made the switch from traditional condensed matter (in the form of a study of grain boundaries in metals) to polymers. Upon returning to the UK in 1981, she spent 2 years in the University of Cambridge's Materials Science Department, before moving back to the Cavendish Laboratory as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. She became a University lecturer in 1985, a Reader in 1995 and a Professor in 1998 (the first woman to be promoted to professor in the Physical Sciences in the University of Cambridge). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999 and, as well as currently serving on their Council, in 2006 she will be delivering the Bakerian Lecture, their premier lecture in the physical sciences, on 'The mesoscopic world - from plastic bags to brain disease - structural similarities in physics.'

She has served on many committees within the UK and wider community, including those associated with both the physical sciences and biological sciences research councils of the UK. Within her own department, where she is currently Deputy Head, she has championed the cause of soft matter and currently teaches a new 3^rd year course to undergraduates on Soft Matter and Biophysics. She has been awarded prizes by various bodies including the Mott Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics (2005) and the Rosenhain Medal of the Institute of Materials (1995).

Professor John Hall

John Lewis Hall was born in Denver, Colorado in 1934. He earned the Ph. D. degree in physics from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1961, and was one of the founding Fellows of the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (now known simply as JILA). He has been responsible for a number of major innovations and developments in laser frequency stabilization, high resolution and ultrasensitive laser spectrosocopy, laser cooling, quantum optics and high-precision measurements using laser technology. His laboratories have been the training grounds for a number of outstanding young researchers over the years. He has authored more than 230 articles in refereed journals and holds 10 U. S. patents. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Senior Fellow Emeritus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the American Physical Society. He has been recognized by a number of awards from NIST, the Department of Commerce and the Office of Personnel Management. Peer-generated recognition has come from the Optical Society (including the Ives, Townes and Born Awards ) and the American Physical Society (the Schawlow and Davisson-Germer Awards). In 2004, he received the IEEE Rabi Award and became a member of the French Legion d'Honneur. In 2005, he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with theoretician Roy Glauber, and with T. W. Hansch "for contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique."

Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith

Director of UKAEA fusion program and the Joint European Torus (JET)

Chris Llewellyn Smith is Director of UKAEA Culham Division, which is responsible for the UK's thermonuclear fusion programme, and for operation of the Joint European Torus (JET) on behalf of Euratom. His role is to lead the UK's contribution to the development of fusion, as a viable environmentally benign source of energy, on the "fast-track" advocated by the British government. Since April 2004 he has been Chairman of the Consultative Committee for Euratom on Fusion (CCE-FU). He has previously served as Provost and President of University College London (1999 - 2002), Director General of CERN (1994 - 1998), and Chairman of Oxford Physics (1987 - 1992).

Chris Llewellyn Smith is a theoretical physicist and has worked on a wide range of topics related to particle physics experiments. He has also published, and spoken widely, on science policy, international scientific collaboration, and issues related to energy.

He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1984, and his scientific contributions and leadership have been recognised by awards and honours in seven countries on three continents, including a knighthood in 2001 for "services to particle physics". He has served on numerous national and international advisory bodies, including ACOST (the UK Prime Minister's Advisory Committee on Science and Technology).

After completing a DPhil in theoretical physics in Oxford in 1967, he worked briefly in the Lebedev Institute in Moscow, and then at CERN and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, before returning to Oxford in 1974. As the first Chairman of Oxford Physics (1987 - 92) he led the merger of five separate Departments to create one the UK's top-rated Physics Departments.

In 1994, he returned to CERN to serve as Director General for five years. During his mandate, CERN's flagship project (LEP) was successfully upgraded and a new project, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), was approved and construction started. When it comes into operation in 2007, the LHC will be the world's premier instrument for exploring the deep structure of matter. Scientists from over 30 non-Member States have joined scientists from CERN's Member States in designing and constructing LHC experiments. During the period 1995-97, Professor Llewellyn Smith led negotiations that resulted in Canada, India, Israel, Japan, Russia and the USA agreeing to contribute to the construction of the new collider itself, as well as the experiments, making the LHC the first large global scientific construction project.

Chris Llewellyn Smith moved to UCL (University College London) in January 1999, and was President and Provost of UCL from April 1999 to September 2002, when he resigned in order to focus on other interests. UCL is consistently ranked as one of the UK's leading multi-faculty universities. He further strengthened its national and international standing as a powerhouse in both teaching and research, oversaw successful bids for major funds to upgrade the infrastructure, and during the 2002 Comprehensive Spending Review, played a significant role in putting the case that has led to improved funding for the UK's research-led universities.

http://www.fusion.org.uk/cls/

Professor David Southwood

Director of Science European Space Agency, United Kingdom

Professor Southwood has been Director of Science at the European Space Agency since May 1, 2001. His present responsibilities encompass the planning, development and implementation of all ESA's space mission in astronomy, solar and planetary science and fundamental physics in space.

From 1997 to 2000, he was head of Earth Observation strategy at the European Space Agency where he introduced a new programme in Earth science, "The Living Planet". After his going back to academia in April 2000, his return to ESA to lead the space science programme was announced in late 2000.

David Southwood is a space physicist who has spent the bulk of his career at the Blackett Laboratory, the Physics Department of Imperial College London. He has worked on many space missions over the past thirty-five years, often with European, American, Japanese and Russian collaborators. His most recent instrument responsibility was the magnetometer on the NASA Cassini Saturn Orbiter, which passed Jupiter and reached Saturn in 2004.

A native of Devon, his undergraduate study was at Queen Mary College London. He went to Imperial as a PhD student in 1966. After postdoctoral work in the USA, he returned to the Imperial College faculty in 1971 eventually becoming head of the Blackett Laboratory from 1994-1997. He has long had a visiting position at the University of California Los Angeles, most recently having been a Regents' Professor (2000).

In addition to serving on many senior British science advisory committees, David Southwood has been chairman of many space science committees in Europe and at ESA, including the Science Programme Committee (SPC) and the Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC). Thus his influence on the European space programme much predates his present appointment.

He has published more than 200 publications and scientific articles, largely in solar terrestrial and planetary physics. He has spoken widely not only on doing science in space but also on science policy issues.

Dr Eric Mazur

Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA

Awards and Honours
NSF Director's Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award, 2001
CSSP Award for excellence in educational research, 1999
First prize, American Institute of Physics Computers in Physics contest, 1991

Service
Editorial Board - Journal of Science Education and Technology, 2000-present
Advisory Committee - National Science Foundation, EHR Directorate, 1998-present
Organizing Committee -Summer school on Laser Spectroscopy, Erice, 1995-present
American Institute of Physics - Physics Programs Policy Committee, 1995-1998

An internationally recognized scientist and researcher, he leads a vigorous research program in optical physics and supervises one of the largest research groups in the Physics Department at Harvard University.

Dr Mazur has made important contributions to spectroscopy, light scattering, and studies of electronic and structural events in solids that occur on the femtosecond time scale.

In addition to his work in optical physics, Dr Mazur is interested in education, science policy, outreach, and the public perception of science. He believes that better science education for all -- not just science majors -- is vital for continued scientific progress. To this end, Dr Mazur devotes part of his research group's effort to education research and finding verifiable ways to improve science education. In 1990 he began developing Peer Instruction a method for teaching large lecture classes interactively. Dr Mazur's teaching method has developed a large following, both nationally and internationally, and has been adopted across many science disciplines.

Dr Mazur has served on numerous committees and councils, including advisory and visiting committees for the National Science Foundation, has chaired and organized national and international scientific conferences, and presented for the Presidential Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. He serves as consultant to industry in the electronics and telecommunications industry.

http://mazur-www.harvard.edu/emdetails.php

Professor Michael Wiescher

Friemann Professor, Nuclear Physics, University of Notre Dame

The central research interest of Prof. Wiescher's group is the study of nuclear reactions important to the understanding of energy production and the origin of the elements in stars and in explosive stellar environments. Currently, the group's research focuses on understanding nucleosynthesis in explosive hydrogen and helium burning processes that occur in novae, supernovae and accreting neutron stars. In addition, his group studies nucleosynthesis in the late stages of stellar development, in particular in AGB stars. The group investigates nuclear reactions experimentally and implements the results in large scale network calculations to simulate stellar burning conditions.

The experiments for the study of proton and alpha capture reactions are predominantly done at the FN-Pelletron-Tandem accelerator and the KN/JN Van de Graff accelerators at Notre Dame. To study nuclear reactions far off stability, Prof. Wiescher's group concentrates significant experimental efforts on the use of the coupled cyclotron at Michigan State University as well as the ATLAS LINAC accelerator at Argonne National Laboratory. The group is also intensively involved in experiments with radioactive beams at TRIUMF/Vancouver (Canada ) and at Louvain-la-Neuve ( Belgium ). The measurements of neutron induced reactions are based at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe ( Germany ) and have been expanded to the n-ToF neutron spallation source at CERN ( Switzerland ).

Prof. Wiescher is the Director for the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA). JINA is funded as a NSF Physics Frontier Center between the University of Notre Dame, Michigan State University , the University of Chicago , and Argonne National Laboratory to address critical questions about the origin of heavy elements in nature or nuclear processes on compact stellar objects.

Topic - Exotic Nuclei and Nuclear Astrophysics in Explosive Stellar Environments
Winner of the 2003 Hans Bethe prize
Director of JINA (Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics)

http://www.physics.nd.edu/Faculty/wiescher.html

Professor Joe Wolfe

School of Physics, UNSW

Our group studies the acoustics of musical instruments and of the vocal tract, and the production and analysis of sound by physiological, mechanical and electronic systems. We have collaborative research projects with the leading manufacturer of cochlear implants (on the coding of music), and with local instrument makers. John Smith and I have developed a technique for rapid, precise measurement of acoustic impedance spectra and transfer functions. We use this technique to study musical instruments and the human vocal tract.

Important examples of cellular thermodynamics occur in cryobiology. Many living tissues are damaged by freezing and in most cases tissue damage can be traced to damage of cell membranes. We study the thermal physics of these processes at scales from the ultrastructural to the environmental.

Recently in Nature (2005) 436: 39 (with A. Tarnapolsky (UNSW), N. Fletcher, et al.):
"The vocal tract and the sound of a didgeridoo"; In Acoustics Australia (2005) (with R. Inta & J. Smith, UNSW):
"Measurement of the Effect on Violins of Ageing and Playing".

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/STAFF/ACADEMIC/wolfe.html

Professor Anton Zeilinger

Anton Zeilinger's work on the foundations of quantum physics has led both to concepts for a novel quantum information technology and to a new understanding of fundamental issues in the interpretation of quantum mechanics. His group's achievements include quantum teleportation, entangled-state quantum cryptography, the first experimental realization of a one-way quantum computer and the world record for the largest molecules for which quantum interference has been shown. Among his distinctions are the German Order Pour le Mérite, the King Faisal International Prize in Science, the Sartorius Prize by the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen and honorary doctorates of the Humboldt University Berlin and Gdansk University in Poland. He is a member of the Austrian, the Berlin-Brandenburg and the Slovak Academies of Science and of the German Leopoldina. Zeilinger is currently Professor at the Physics Department of Vienna University and at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Participating Societies

The Congress appreciates the participation support of the following physics based societies:

Australian Institute of Physics (AIP)
* Atomic and Molecular Physics and Quantum Chemistry Group (AMPQC)
* Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering Nuclear & Particle Physics Group (AINSE - NUPP)
* Physics Education Group (PEG)
* Solar-Terrestrial and Space Physics (STSP)
* Women in Physics Group (WIP)

Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA)

Australasian Society for General Relativity and Gravitation (ASGRG)

Australian Acoustical Society (AAS)

Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE)

Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS)

Australian Optical Society (AOS)

Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists (ASEG)

Australian Synchrotron Research Program (ASRP)

Condensed Matter and Materials "Wagga" Meeting (CMM)

Specialist Group on Solid Earth Geophysics, Geological Society of Australia (GSA)

Vacuum Society of Australia (VSA)

Underwriting Support

The Congress Organisers thank the following organisations for their underwriting support:

Australian Institute of Physics

Australian Optical Society

Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists

Catering During the Congress

The Congress registration fees include all morning and afternoon teas but do not include lunch. The Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre is located within the South Bank precinct - the premier leisure, education and cultural precinct incorporating a wide variety of restaurants in a spectacular location.

To view details of South Bank's many delightful restaurants, visit http://www.south-bank.net.au

Morning and afternoon teas will be held within the exhibition area of the Congress.