Zoom audience
FLEET’s annual workshop is our big opportunity each year to gather together and share research outcomes and progress. FLEET2021 was a ‘hybrid’ affair – with talks and poster online and catch-ups in person, where possible – and was a welcome opportunity to celebrate survival of an difficult year, motivate each other with short research updates and highlights, and catch up face-to-face with colleagues we hadn’t seen in a while.
To minimize zoom fatigue, talks were kept to just three very short summaries of research themes, with all the fabulous research detail being carried in 79 poster presentations. See program.
Catch up: Presentation videos and slides are accessible in the Presentations folder on the FLEET intranet.
The new online meeting platform MeetAnyway allowed ‘live’ presentation of posters, and while we missed the energy of pizzas, posters and families of our in-person workshops, this was an acceptable covid-safe substitute.
Teams pitted their wits against online escape room exercises
Comms Chair David Cortie organised three concurrent escape room exercises, coordinated via zoom, which pitted members’ wits against puzzles to steal money from a bank (including some comments about alternative funding streams).
Thanks to eased restrictions, we held two ‘in person’ social events at bowls clubs in Melbourne and Sydney, taking advantage of the nice weather to socialise more-safely outdoors. As is traditional at FLEET events, families were warmly invited…
“Including partners and children always gives FLEET events a more welcoming feeling,” says UNSW’s Cecilia Bloise. “From my perspective, It is always a safe and respectful space to bring them along, and personally I think this is because the guiding principles trickle down from management to everyone else around the centre.”
Next year’s Centre workshop will be held in-person at the Innovation Campus, University of Wollongong July 4 to July 8.
FLEET2021 stats: 136 attendees, over three days, with five theme updates, 79 posters and 21 awards:
Winners of awards included:
Diversity Initiative Award for being a voice for diversity and inclusion Peggy Schoenherr- Future Leader Award for establishing an ECR/Student working group Abigail Goff and Vivasha Govinden
- Career-Crossfit Award Semonti Bhattacharyya, Abhay Gupta
- Science Impact Award for the team attracting most media mentions Elena Ostrovskaya, Matthias Wurdack
- Reaching Out Award for the AI contributing the most outreach hours David Cortie
- The Dr Karl Award for excellence in outreach Phat Nguyen, Mitko Oldfield, Haydn Adlong and Ben Lowe
- Future Highly-cited Researchers
- Most number of papers published in 2021 – Matthias Wurdack (student) and Mohannad Mayyas (postdoc)
- 1st author published in 1st year of PhD Maedehsadat Mousavi
- 1st author published in 1st year of MSc Haydn Adlong
- Best Poster awards
- By an ECR Eliezer Estrecho
- By a student Vivasha Govinden
- People’s choice Pankaj Sharma, Mitchell Conway, Matthew Gebert
Some images from in-person catch-ups in Melbourne and Sydney follow.
Cards with colleagues and family, Clovelly Bowling & Recreation Club, Sydney
Bowls in the sun at Clovelly Bowling & Recreation Club, Sydney
End-of-year event Clayton Bowls Club, Melbourne
End-of-year event Clayton Bowls Club, Melbourne