[Catalist] Professor John de Laeter’s enduring Endowment to WA and World Science

[Michael McGarry]

Greetings Science Colleagues,


A recent e-post to CATALIST URL: http://stawa.net/catalist/ <http://stawa.net/catalist/> from the Outreach and Education Officer at ICRAR URL: http://www.icrar.org <http://www.icrar.org/>, alerted subscribers to this excellent TED video URL: https://www.ted.com/talks/natasha_hurley_walker_how_radio_telescopes_show_us_unseen_galaxies#t-569907 <https://www.ted.com/talks/natasha_hurley_walker_how_radio_telescopes_show_us_unseen_galaxies#t-569907>.


I then explored the ICRAR website and found this informative ICRAR webpage URL: http://www.icrar.org/de-laeter-colloquium/ <http://www.icrar.org/de-laeter-colloquium/>. I remember with fondness the physics lectures delivered at WAIT by Professor de Laeter because physics concepts presented in his lectures were always clearly and patiently explained.


But most noteworthy, John de Laeter always treated his students with respect and never used sarcasm, as did a mathematics lecturer at Perth Technical College (PTC), when some students had difficulty in understanding say third-order and higher differential equations with Laplace transforms. [We then transferred from PTC to WAIT, now Curtin University.]


I would like us to share in Professor de Laeter’s professional accomplishments informed at this URL: http://about.curtin.edu.au/who/history/people/john-de-laeter/ <http://about.curtin.edu.au/who/history/people/john-de-laeter/>. I believe that Professor de Laeter’s enduring endowment to WA Science are the tertiary science staff and students who ‘follow in his footsteps’ at Curtin University. 


For example, Curtin University staff like Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker URL: http://oasisapps.curtin.edu.au/staff/profile/view/Natasha.Hurley-Walker <http://oasisapps.curtin.edu.au/staff/profile/view/Natasha.Hurley-Walker>.


ICRAR URL 3: http://www.icrar.org/people/nhw/ <http://www.icrar.org/people/nhw/>
“WHAT GOT YOU INTO ASTRONOMY?”


“In terms of direction, I was very inspired by all the sci-fi I read and watched as I was growing up, and still enjoy now. The Earth is such a tiny place in a vast Universe and it baffles me that the study of ‘everything other than the Earth’ is such a small topic in our schooling. I also had a computer from an early age and learned how to solve problems methodically while trying to get my computer games to work, even if I didn’t learn formal programming until my teens. School seemed to be a tedious exercise in memorisation so it was wonderful when I discovered research, where one never runs out of problems to solve!”


ICRAR URL 4: http://www.icrar.org/multimedia/interviews/dr-natasha-hurley-walker/ <http://www.icrar.org/multimedia/interviews/dr-natasha-hurley-walker/>
“For a lot of people working in science fields, their interest in science was sparked when they were young. How did you get into astronomy?”


“Ever since I first saw an episode of Star Trek I wanted to know more about space and was inspired by my visits to NASA’s Johnson Space Centre while I was living in Houston, Texas, during childhood. My parents fed my interest giving me access to as many science fictions and books as I could read, and I pursued mathematics and science at school. When it came to choose a path through university, I was strongly drawn to physics, which I felt was the only discipline that comes close to explaining how the universe operates.”


SKA URL: http://skatelescope.org/skapeople/natasha-hurley-walker/ <http://skatelescope.org/skapeople/natasha-hurley-walker/>
Perhaps, we could invite Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker into our Schools to inspire more boys and girls to choose U/S STEM subjects, and to continue into a career in secondary or tertiary STEM education or in STEM industries?


Best Wishes,


Michael John McGarry

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