Tamara Davis, an award-winning astrophysicist from the University of Queensland, is the 2011 Australian Institute of Physics Women in Physics lecturer. Tamara, who was a 2009 L’Oréal Australia For Women in Science Fellow, is giving public talks and talks to school students on the search for dark matter and dark energy in the Universe
Observations of the universe over the last few decades have thrown us some curve balls. We thought we had the basic picture—the universe is expanding, and all the structure we now see formed thanks to gravity out of little over-dense clumps in the hot, dense, early universe. Well that was all true, but we’ve realised that that’s not the end of the story. There’s a dark side to the universe that we don’t usually see, and it seems that everything we thought we knew makes up only 5 per cent of the universe! Dark matter and dark energy make up the rest….
In her talk Tamara will explain why we are so certain of such a seemingly ludicrous proposition, and what we can hope to learn by studying these wild and wonderful phenomena.
The AIP have now announced a number of dates for her public lectures:
| Dates | Details |
| Friday 9 September | 7.30 pm, Wollongong Science Centre, Wollongong, NSW |
| Tuesday 13 September | 6.30 pm, Sydney Observatory, NSW |
| Thursday 15 September | 6pm, venue TBA, ACT |
| Wednesday 28 September | 8pm, Physics Lecture Theatre1, Sandy Bay Campus, University of Tasmania, TAS |
| Thursday 29 September | Venue and time TBA, Adelaide, SA |
| Wednesday 12 October | 10am, VSSEC (The Victorian Space Science Education Centre), Strathmore |
Talks are also being planned in Western Australia and Queensland. Tamara will also be giving over a dozen talks to school students and teachers in capital cities and regional towns, as part of the lecture tour.
For more information, contact Chris Deller, Women in Physics tour coordinator, on (02) 8879 7209 or chris.deller@cisra.canon.com.au.