Provocations public lecture series

Parasites, Australia's silent threat: Coincidence, nature's hand, or policy complacency?

Professor Shokoofeh Shamsi, Professor in Veterinary Parasitology

Australia is facing a surge in parasitic incidents that have increasingly captured news headlines: Australia gives up the fight against eradication of bee mites; Oyster farms are under siege from deadly parasites; native fish fall victim to gut-burrowing invaders, and the country's unique native wildlife faces the deadly threat of cat-borne parasites. Most shockingly, a python worm was recently extracted from a human brain. Despite this growing wave of parasitic challenges, Australia's tendency to downplay their significance is surprising.

This public lecture explores the heart of this enigma, exploring the origins, implications, and possible human factors contributing to Australia's parasitic predicaments. Are these occurrences mere coincidences, driven by the forces of Mother Nature, or do they serve as stark reminders of complacency within the policymaking domain?

For more information, you can read the article on Charles Sturt News.

Thirst for Power - the rivers of conflict in Southeast Asia

Professor Lee Baumgartner, Executive Director of the Gulbali Institute at Charles Sturt University

In our fourth Provocations Lecture Series, Professor Lee Baumgartner takes you on a journey across Australia and Southeast Asia exploring water security challenges, fast fashion, and the innovative ways that communities are developing healthy rivers, in a changing climate with growing regional populations.

Behavioural Data Science as a Game Changer for Understanding the Interface between Human and Digital Systems in the New Digital Economy

Professor Ganna Pogrebna, Executive Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Futures Institute at Charles Sturt University

Professor Ganna Pogrebna is a pioneer in behavioural data science and, in this lecture, introduces the field, discusses its impact on cybersecurity, financial services, talent management, and leadership, amongst other areas, and demonstrates how this new field not only offers new models and methods but also provides significant innovations in the context of the New Digital Economy and the Industrial Revolution 4.0.

Learn more about the Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Futures Institute.

A new history of Australian political thought

Professor Wayne Hudson

In the lecture, Professor Wayne Hudson applies a philosophically informed global intellectual history methodology to Australian political thought in contrast to the national intellectual history approach that dominates historiography.

This approach combines macro and microhistory: it looks wide to find the relevant data, and it seems small to notice international influences, materials in languages other than English, changes in geography and context, changes in the meanings of English words and English words with Australian meanings. To do so, he contests the conceptuality which currently governs the field and introduces new evidence.

For more information, you can read the article on Charles Sturt News.

Children should be seen AND heard: the importance of communication so children can thrive

Professor Sharynne McLeod, Professor of Speech and Language Acquisition

This presentation draws on extensive large-scale evidence regarding Australian children’s communicative competence and capacity.

Children’s drawings, personal insights, and data from 10,000 children within the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) are described and the communicative competence of multilingual and Indigenous children is celebrated.

For more information, you can read the article on Charles Sturt News.