Despite social isolation and workplace restrictions, Flinders University staff continue to register success in their fields – from progressing with new medical testing devices, to offering mental health tips and publishing respected new political theory books.
Centre progresses with new device developments
It has certainly been a challenging year for the Australia-China Centre for Personal Health Technologies (ACCPHT). The devastating COVID-19 outbreaks have affected the Centre’s partners across China and Australia, resulting in many lab and office closures – although the Flinders University lab currently remains open. This resilient international team is still working hard to deliver outstanding research results while working remotely.
The Centre is developing a point-of-care testing device to measure a wide range of biomarkers from bodily fluids that will be incorporated into a smartphone.
The Flinders University team is being led by Centre Director Professor Karen Reynolds and Australian Project Manager Professor Youhong Tang. Other key staff in the Flinders team include:
- Professor Anthony Maeder, User Interface Lead
- Professor Richard Reed, Clinical Panel Lead
- Dr Angus Wallace, Research Fellow in Medical Devices
- Carolyn Ramsey, Centre Manager
- Xinyi Zhang, Research Officer
- Joerg Boesalt, Software Developer
- Anh Pham Tran, PhD Student
- Hao Fu, Research Assistant
- Damian Tohl, Image Processing Specialist
The Centre, led by Flinders University in Australia and Nankai University in China, also includes La Trobe University and Motherson Innovations in Australia and Chinese partners Nankai University, Shandong Academy of Science, South China University of Technology and Shenzhen AIEgen Biotech.
Advising how best to face your fears
Professor Michael Baigent from the College of Medicine and Public Health was the focus of an expansive interview in SA Life magazine, promoting Flinders University’s psychiatry research efforts and how they have a positive impact in the wider community. As a specialist in addictions, anxiety and depression, he provided insights into his upbringing, family, career and how the coronavirus can affect our mental health. He also offers practical mental health tips – “My basic advice is to live by the mantra ‘Face Your Fears’,” he says – and reveals how he switches off from the pressures of work through surfing and painting in his home studio.
Expanding on political theory
George Crowder, Emeritus Professor in Political Theory at the College of Business Government and Law, is enjoying a strong response to his latest book release – The Problem of Value Pluralism: Isaiah Berlin and Beyond (published by Routledge: Innovations in Political Theory series).
As one of the world’s leading analysts of eminent British political philosopher Isaiah Berlin, Emeritus Professor Crowder assesses a range of responses to problems proposed by Berlin’s theories. He ponders the difficult questions, that if fundamental human values are incommensurable, how do we decide between them when they conflict? In such instances, should liberty come first, or equality, or justice, or tradition?
The book has won high praise from leading academics, including William A. Galston, Senior Fellow of The Brookings Institution (“No one has explored the link between value pluralism and liberalism with more persistence and precision than George Crowder”) and Henry Hardy, who was Isaiah Berlin’s principal editor and is a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. “George Crowder’s well-established reputation will be further burnished by this new volume … the most complete treatment of this crucial seam of moral and political thought that has yet been given to us, and required reading for all serious students of pluralism,” says Mr Hardy.
Emeritus Professor Crowder reflects critically on three main approaches found in political-theory literature: universalism, contextualism, and conceptualism.
He argues that the conceptual approach is the most fruitful, yielding norms of value diversity, personal autonomy, and inclusive democracy, and that together these approaches indicate a liberal politics of redistribution, multiculturalism, and constitutionalism, and a public policy in which basic values are carefully balanced. The book is now available online at routledge.com
New role for Reverend Doctor
Associate Professor Matthew Anstey has been appointed as the new Adelaide College of Divinity Academic Dean. Reverend Doctor Anstey is an outstanding academic administrator and an internationally recognised scholar and researcher. He will be an asset to the ACD and to the teaching of theology through the College of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences.
Diana part of Dante focus
Emeritus Professor Diana Glenn featured in the radio series Illuminations on 3MBS fine music in the Dante in Music series, part 3 on “The Women of the Commedia“. The program included music depicting the women of Dante’s Commedia with compositions by Britten, Purcell, Donizetti and Massenet.