Hi! I’m the sole Chief Investigator at the Western Sydney University (WSU) Node of the Centre – but I am far from alone! Our Node draws together Associate Investigators from my current workplace at WSU’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (HIE) (Rachael Gallagher, Brendan Choat, Jonathan Plett), and from my former place of work, Macquarie University (Brian Atwell, Hendrik Poorter, Michelle Leishman, Andrea Westerband, Yuki Tsujii, Shubham
The life of a scientist can be complex. Scientists need to be creative, executive, and efficient. They also need to be leaders, managers, administrators, teachers, and mentors. Becoming a scientist is challenging because of the plethora of hard and soft skills the job demands, and there is little time to develop them before entering the job market. So, how do you
I can’t believe we are halfway through the year already! We held our annual Research Retreat at the end of May/start of June, and it was fantastic to finally be able to get many of our Plant Success members together in person. Listening to the variety of exciting research going on across our Centre and celebrating our people was so
There are many reasons teams are formed. For our early career Centre members, you are likely to be undertaking new research and administrative roles as you engage in teamwork within the Centre. Team effectiveness for the Centre’s tasks and research projects, with many examples on display in our 2021 Annual Report, will vary along a complex continuum, from low to high
True “transdisciplinarity” is starting to take form in the Centre – and I think it’s great! A major challenge in the plant/crop science communities has been to enhance the ability of scientists operating at differing scales of biological organization to connect their efforts. We have not been able to capture well the nexus between molecular and ecophysiological understanding and concepts
My research interest is in beneficial symbioses between plant roots and nutrient-acquiring microbes. The Centre for Plant Success is enabling me to connect this underground world to other aspects of plant success by collaborating with Centre members, including the role of symbioses in crops and water relations. Being part of the Centre, one of the things I am proud of
Welcome to our first newsletter of 2022. I was fortunate to have an extended break to welcome in the New Year, with time to relax and unwind. As I reflect on 2021 and the year ahead however, I wanted to acknowledge that I am not starting off as mentally refreshed as I normally would. Given the start to the year here
Today, December 22, officially marks one year of the ARC CoE for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture and what a year it has been! We have established our various committees and working groups, held our first Centre-wide Research Retreat and produced some great publications – all whilst dealing with the ongoing struggles that COVID-19 has produced. I am very grateful
The Centre for Plant Success research retreat next week will give Centre members time to reflect on the progress we have all made so far and look towards the future. In my group, after a long period of planning, we are starting to see activity in the lab as we set up our rice editing system with Postdoctoral Research Fellow Pauline Okemo and PhD Student Muhammad
September is Biodiversity Month, an opportunity to reflect and promote the importance of nature in all its diversity. Maintaining plant biodiversity in nature and increasing the diversity of agricultural crops are core aims of the Centre for Plant Success and we look forward to celebrating our achievements in this space in September each year. It has been an exciting and successful time down
