Issue: August 2004
People
Politics, computers and biochemistry
Four new professors appointed
La Trobe University has appointed four new professors. They are Dr Marilyn Anderson and Dr Leann Tilley, who have been appointed as Professors of Biochemistry; Dr Judith Brett, Professor of Politics; and Dr Ian Robinson, Professor of Computer Science and Computer Engineering.
Professor Marilyn Anderson is Director of the Department of Biochemistry's Plant Biotechnology Laboratory. She has helped forge alliances between La Trobe, the University of Queensland, the University of Melbourne, Agriculture Victoria and CSIRO, to ensure Australia continues to play a leading role in the development of pest resistant crops.
Her laboratory works on new classes of insecticides and anti-microbial molecules by focusing on three main areas: plant proteinase inhibitors and insect proteases; floral defensins; and plant cyclotides.
The proteinase inhibitors have a significant effect on two species of Helicoverpa larvae, major pests for Australia's cotton crop. Defensins, small proteins with antimicrobial activities derived from flowers and part of their immune system, are being investigated to determine their potential use in agribiotechnology and medicine. And a series of plant-derived proteins, cyclotides, - which have exceptional chemical and biological stability and have already shown themselves useful in medical applications - are being studied for their ability to defend crops against micro-organisms and insects.
Professor Anderson has a BSc (Hons) from the University of Melbourne and moved to La Trobe University in 1972 to study for a PhD. She has held post-doctoral positions at the University of Miami Medical School and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. She returned to Australia in 1982 to take up a senior research post at an ARC Special Research Centre at the University of Melbourne, from where she joined La Trobe in 1995 to set up the Plant Biotechnology Laboratory.
A Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Professor Anderson has also served on the Biological Sciences Study Panel of the Australian Research Council and is Director on the Boards of South East Water and Hexima Ltd.
Professor Judith Brett, a political historian, biographer and author, specialises in research into political culture - the interaction between people's everyday experiences and their political beliefs, values and actions.
Formerly a Reader in Politics at La Trobe, where she has worked since 1989, Professor Brett spent two years (1998-2000) as the Visiting Professor of Australian History at University College, Dublin, Ireland. She has just completed a three-year term as Associate Dean, Research, in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
A Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Social Sciences, she is the author two award-winning books, both about the non-labour side of Australian politics - Robert Menzies Forgotten People (Macmillan, 1992) and Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard (Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Professor Brett has also edited a collection of biographical essays on Australian leaders, Political Lives (Allen & Unwin, 1997) and co edited Developments in Australian Politics (Macmillan, 1994.) A regular media commentator on Australian politics, she has been editor of the literary journal, Meanjin, and was involved with the political-cultural magazine, Arena, for many years.
Her current research, 'Ordinary People's Politics', is an interview project exploring the way ordinary Australians have understood the recent past.
Professor Brett holds a BA (Hons) degree in politics and philosophy and a PhD in psychoanalysis and literature from the University of Melbourne, as well as a postgraduate diploma in social anthropology from Oxford University, UK.
Professor Ian Robinson is Deputy Dean, and Associate Dean (International) in the Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering. He is also Head of the School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, and former Head of the Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering.
His major research interests are in mathematical software development and, in particular, the design of multi-dimensional numerical integration algorithms. His research has been published in leading international journals, including ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software and the journal of numerical analysis, Numerische Mathematik.
Professor Robinson was recently involved in jointly developing an algorithm called r2d2lri, which is several orders of magnitude faster than other algorithms for two-dimensional problems. It is also effective in evaluating several difficult integrals over infinite regions that cannot be solved by other published algorithms.
His work has been to applied to a wide range of IT projects, including computer simulation of walking to help design better prosthetic limbs for amputees, and he has played a key role in attracting the 'Matchbox' cultural communities cataloguing project to La Trobe University. This is an ARC-funded project based at James Cook University with the University of Melbourne as the previous partner.
Professor Robinson's international activities have also helped build up overseas student numbers in Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at La Trobe by more than 100 per cent in the last two years.
A PhD graduate and former lecturer at the University of Melbourne, Professor Robinson joined La Trobe in 1975 as a lecturer in Applied Mathematics. A former Australian Football League umpire, he now serves as the AFL's Video Reports Officer.
Professor Leann Tilley heads a malaria research laboratory at La Trobe University studying oxidative stress, protein trafficking, antimalarial drug development and malaria diagnostics. The laboratory is supported by funds from both the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council.
Her research probes the interactions of the malaria parasite with the erythrocytes of its human host. The aim is to understand the basic cell biology of the parasite and the molecular basis of drug action and drug resistance, and then develop novel antimalarial drugs and new antimalarial strategies. The malaria parasite, rapidly developing resistance to current antimalarial drugs, is responsible for an estimated two million deaths annually.
Professor Tilley teaches in biochemistry in the areas of membranes, protein structure and function and bioinformatics. She is also an expert in the development and use of fluorescence-based techniques and has set up a confocal microscopy facility at La Trobe used by University and outside researchers.
A member of the University's Research and Graduate Studies Committee, Professor Tilley is also involved in the organisation of major conferences for Australia's scientific community. For example, she is Vice-President, and Chair of the Program Committee, for the annual Lorne Protein Structure and Function Meeting.
Professor Tilley has a BSc (Honours) in Biochemistry from the University of Melbourne and a PhD from the University of Sydney. She has held postdoctoral positions the University of Utrecht, in the Netherlands, at the College de France, Paris, and at the University of Melbourne before joining La Trobe in 1989. back to top back contents next
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