Good fellows and great science

The Australian Synchrotron has announced the establishment of the Australian Synchrotron Fellows Program, available to outstanding individuals whose passion for science matches that of the AS’s staff and who will be rewarded with access to Australia’s premier scientific and innovation support facility.

The Australian Synchrotron provides a light source - one million times brighter than the sun - for use in experiments, allowing researchers to investigate the structure and composition of material, and how various molecules interact in real time. The synchrotron provides sophisticated techniques available to medicine, materials studies and industry. This includes the ability to create 3D movies of live creatures, showing the composition of hard and soft tissue, blood flow and breathing activity; measure fine detail of energy levels in materials and chemical processes in real time; and probe minutely small quantities of sample.

As well as attracting excellence from the ranks of post-doctoral academic researchers, the Australian Synchrotron Fellows Program is keen to recruit from the industry sector as part of a suite of commercially focused activities including the recent formation of an Industry Advisory Group. Organisations involved in the program will benefit from new opportunities for knowledge transfer and access to resources and beamtime. They will also benefit from having a dedicated staff member providing support for other synchrotron users from the same organisation.

Principal Scientist Bruce Cowie now advises AS Scientist Anton Tadich, a past postdoctoral candidate.

Fellows will be selected based on the scientific quality of the programs they propose to conduct at the synchrotron and their ability to attract and support new scientific and commercial synchrotron users. Each of the 10 Fellows selected will be offered a two-year term (with the possibility of a third year), with the synchrotron providing up to 50% of the funding required and the rest coming from external sources.

Candidates and their supporting organisations are invited to discuss their ideas with relevant staff at the Australian Synchrotron before submitting a formal application.