June 13, 2018
Early-career researchers from infectious disease Centres of Research Excellence (Joint-CRE ECR group) met in Darwin during the HOT NORTH Annual Scientific Symposium on May 24–25, 2018.
Image (L to R): Phil Britton (CREID), Mary Wyer (APPRISE), Andrea Parisi (ISER), Trish Campbell (PRISM2), John-Sebastian Eden (CREID) and Teresa Wosniak (HOT NORTH).
Dr Mary Wyer reports.
The highlight of the meeting for me was learning from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, including Richard Fejo’s beautiful and informative welcome to country, the Aboriginal Voices panel, and the wonderful Upai Purri Dancers. I also learned how to treat a snake bite AND I got to hold a crocodile. In all, it was great event that really helped me to identify where our team’s research fits into the bigger picture. I’m very keen to go back “up the escalator” to Darwin to collaborate!
The conference was held over two days. The first day was structured into five key research themes (e.g. skin health, antimicrobial resistance) and featured a series of fascinating 10-min presentations by researchers from around Australia. The second day ran at a slightly slower pace including updates on CREs and other network activity (CREID, APPRISE, PRISM2, Northern Australia Research Network), as well a professional development forum which provided a chance to network with other colleagues, to understand infectious disease modelling, and to learn how to diversify the funding of our research. A productive meeting was also held at the inaugural gathering of ECR representatives from across the CREs – it was nice to put faces to names and to start planning for future support and events.
