Hunter Valley, NSW July 14-17, 1999

This was the inaugural student conference held by the Physical Chemistry Division.  The conference was run in an inverted format to that normally experienced: students gave the talks, postdocs chaired the sessions and academics presented the posters!

The conference was a tremendous success, and we've decided to do it all again next year.

A special thanks must go to Scott Kable (Sydney Uni) and Angela Milce (Maquarie Uni) for putting in all the hard work and getting the conference off the ground.

During the conference, both postgraduate and Honours students presented lectures on their current research activities.  The standard of the presentations was universally excellent, with one sage p-chem professor, Alan Knight (Griffith Uni), commenting that the standard of p-chem student research in Australia today continues to rival that of the best in the world!  We look forward to hearing more about student research next year.

Some really tough decisions had to be made, and the academics present at the meeting awarded special prizes for the best student presentations.

The best Honours student seminar was deemed to be presented by Joseph Guss (Sydney Uni).  The photo below shows Joseph receiving his award from Prof. Brian Orr (Macquarie Uni).  We are especially grateful for the support of Lastek Pty. Ltd. for their generous support of this award.

Two postgraduate students were deemed to have presented outstanding seminars at the meeting, Allan Lim (Deakin Uni) and Wendy Holstein (Adelaide Uni).  In the photo below Prof. Alan Knight (Griffith Uni) is presenting Alan and Wendy with their awards.  We are especially grateful for the support of Coherent Scientific Pty. Ltd. for their generous support of this award.

The students themselves got into the act of presenting awards, and decided that Prof. Brian Orr (Macquarie Uni) gave the best poster presentation.  Below Terry Francome (Queensland Uni) is presenting Brian with his award.  The accompanying photo shows part of the reason why the students were so impressed with Brian's presentation.  Notice the torch in Brian's hand as he prattles on about the intricacies of the high resolution spectroscopy of something-or-other.

In the photo below all of the proud award winners are gathered with the conference organisers for a happy snap. L-R: Standing; Angela Milce, Joe Guss, Allan Lim, Wendy Holstein, Alan Knight: Front; Scott Kable, Brian Orr.

We've included some more photos from the conference for your viewing pleasure.

Here's Mick Collins (ANU) presenting Angela with a small token of our thanks for putting the gig together.

Meredith Jordan (Sydney Uni) had a crowd around her poster.  Could it perhaps have anything to do with the basket of free lollies she had to bribe folks with?

We even had a conference banquet.  Here's a happy snap from one of the tables on the night.  Drinks at the banquet were sponsored by Continuum Inc., support that we are extremely grateful for.

Of course, it simply is not possible to visit the Hunter Valley and not visit the wineries.  Below we see a shady bunch of characters leaving one of the vintner's cellars with plenty of product in hand.  Indeed, a small indication of how much money the conference pumped into the Hunter Valley economy can been seen by the boot full of wine the aforementioned characters managed to abscond with.

There must be something funny in the water in Queensland!  This student from the Knight Group (we'll keep him un-named to protect any future legitimate reputation he may try to develop for himself) has delusions of superhuman strength.  Or perhaps, he'd sampled too much of the Hunter Valley nectar!

Finally, in the following series of photos we gain yet another glimpse into the way that Scott Kable manages to talk his way into anything he wants.

1.  Scott visits a winery and chats with the winemaker.

2.  Scott sweet talks the winemaker into a happy snap with his family.

3.  Scott ends up getting a personalised tour of the winemaker's chemistry lab!

Thanks,

Mark Buntine, on behalf of
The Physical Chemistry Division Committee