Fulbright scholars to extend US research ties

Four University of Melbourne graduates have received Fulbright scholarships to advance their fields in Australia and globally.

The recipients are playwright Lachlan Philpott, river system manager Tony McLeod, nuclear physicist Mark Boland and biomedical engineer Dean Freestone.

Founded in 1946 by US Senator J William Fulbright, the Program promotes research collaboration and cultural exchange to foster understanding between the United States and other nations.

University of Melbourne Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Engagement) Sue Elliott says the scholarships highlight the University of Melbourne’s world-class research and global focus.

“It’s particularly pleasing to see Melbourne graduates awarded scholarships from a diverse range of disciplines, from physics and engineering to playwriting,” she says.

Growing understanding through theatre

Lachlan Philpott is the first Australian to receive the Fulbright Professional Playwriting Scholarship. Since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1999 he has had 10 plays published and over 50 productions performed in Australia, the UK, Ireland and Spain. 

Many of Mr Philpott’s plays relate the stories of real-life outsiders: women working as prostitutes for truck drivers in western Sydney, and people who claim to have been abducted by aliens.

He will write and produce a new play with staff and students at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, with the aim of increasing understanding between different cultures.

He says that theatre is one of the few remaining places where people gather to experience the same event in real time.

“There’s nothing quite the same as experiencing an actor in the flesh and blood,” he says.

“That sort of magic and surprise are at the heart of all the experiences that we’re trying to create, no matter what area of the arts we’re working in.”

The Fulbright Program is intended to ensure that experience and collaboration benefits both countries. Mr Philpott says this is particularly important in the performing arts. 

“If we’re sending artists overseas we need to ensure they’re coming back and sharing what they’re learning with other artists so it becomes part of a wider cultural understanding.”

Continuing a history of river management exchange

Meanwhile, graduate Tony McLeod – a General Manager at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority in Canberra – received the Fulbright Senior Scholarship. He will compare the water management challenges of the Colorado and Murray Darling river basins at the Getches–Wilkinson Centre for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Dr McLeod’s work in the Colorado Basin will continue a long history of exchange between experts in these river systems, which began with the second Australian prime minister Alfred Deakin’s visit to Colorado in 1885 as a member of the Victorian government.

“That exchange was fundamental in the water management arrangements in place in Australia to this day,” Dr McLeod says. “There have been exchanges going on for 130 years, but also shared future challenges.”

Dr McLeod says the exchange will not only give Australian authorities access to fresh approaches, but also promote further collaboration.

“There’s also an opportunity for some of the ideas we’ve tried in Australia over the past 15 to 20 years to be shared, so I see it as a two-way exchange and one that will hopefully benefit both countries.”

Watching more closely than ever before

Nuclear physicist Mark Boland received the Fulbright Professional Scholarship in Nuclear Science and Technology.

Dr Boland is the Principal Accelerator Physicist at the Australian Synchrotron particle accelerator laboratory and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne, where he co-supervises students in the Experimental Particle Physics Group. 

He will study at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University in California, with the aim of extending the ability of the Australian Synchrotron to measure processes at the level of picoseconds – one trillionth of a second. 

“To be able to look on the smallest timescale that we can at the Synchrotron will open up new areas of science and new knowledge of science in areas like chemical reactions, where we will be able to observe reactions as they happen,” Dr Boland says.

This will allow Australian scientists to examine chemical reactions with a new level of detail and help improve miniaturisation of computers.

“To better understand and improve the mechanisms used in computer processes for example, you need to be able to look at time- scales in a dynamic way, rather than just a before-and-after snapshot of what has happened.”

Stopping epileptic seizures

Dean Freestone is Victoria’s Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar. He will develop a framework for creating subject-specific models of epileptic patients’ brains at Columbia University’s Department of Statistics in New York.

Such models would allow researchers to predict how an individual’s brain will react to electrical stimulation, which could be used to develop medical devices to stop epileptic seizures in some sufferers.

“We have known for quite some time now that you can use electrical stimulation to stop seizures in certain cases,” Dr Freestone says.

“It’s kind of like a defibrillator for the brain.”

Because of the varied behaviour of each case of epilepsy, Dr Freestone says mathematical models – and any solutions that arise from them – must be tailored to the individual subject.

“The mathematical model becomes a sort of schematic for the brain. When we have that information, we can design an electrical stimulation strategy, which allows you to predict what’s going to happen when you apply an external signal, and with that information, you can actually work out ways to optimally control it for an individual.”

Dr Freestone says he hopes he will return to the Department of Medicine at St Vincent’s Hospital with knowledge that he could apply to improve the medical implants capable of stopping seizures currently being trailed in Melbourne.

www.unimelb.edu.au/research