Keep the fire burning: Traditional Knowledge in STEM

Join us as we celebrate NAIDOC week with our free webinar titled "Keep the fire burning: Traditional Knowledge in STEM" which brings together some of Australia’s experts and emerging leaders in utilising Traditional Knowledge in STEM, including ATSE Fellow Professor Jason Sharples, Director of the Bushfire Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, to explore how Traditional Knowledge is being used to enrich STEM in our nation.

This webinar is the latest in our 2024 Shape Your Future series, an educational initiative from the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), which brings experts in science, technology and engineering into Australian classrooms for a virtual chat with students on the things that matter to them.

FREE CAREERS IN STEM WEBINARS — Brought to you by STELR
Shape Your Future webinars show students the different pathways that Australian scientists, engineers & technologists have taken in their careers. To watch previous sessions, visit Shape Your Future webinars

STELR
ATSE’s STEM in schools' education initiative — STELR (Science and Technology Education Leveraging Relevance) — modules include equipment, curriculum resources for classrooms, and teacher support. Teachers can access professional learning sessions as well as online and telephone support.

Speakers

Professor Jason Sharples

FTSE

Director, UNSW Bushfire Research Group

Professor Sharples is a mathematical scientist and internationally recognised expert in dynamic bushfire behaviour and extreme bushfire development. He currently leads several Australian Research Council (ARC) and Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) projects and is involved in international wildfire research projects. These projects consider various aspects of extreme and dynamic bushfire propagation, the development of large conflagrations and bushfire risk management. His expertise is particularly relevant because of the large gap between the predictions of current mathematical models of fire behaviour and actual fire behaviour, and because of the increasing prevalence of extreme wildfires due to climate change.

He is Director of the UNSW Bushfire Research Group which aims to improve understanding of the fundamental processes that drive extreme bushfire development and their relation to firefighter and community safety.

Professor Sharples was an expert witness in the 2014 Coronial Inquiry into the Wambelong Campground bushfire, the NSW Independent Inquiry into the 2019/20 bushfires and the 2020 Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements. He is a key contributor to the international dialogue around wildfire modelling and risk management. His research has been adopted in national firefighter training materials and into the operational procedures of bushfire management agencies such as the NSW Rural Fire Service.

Professor Sharples is also an active member of the ACT Rural Fire Service.

View profile

Dr Rhett Loban is a Torres Strait Islander academic with connections to Mabuyag and Boigu. He is a Senior Lecturer at Australian Catholic University, and his research areas include culture, game-based learning, virtual reality and design-based pedagogy. Rhett is the winner of the 2018 CSIRO Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander STEM Professional Career Achievement Award and recently is an NSW Education ambassador for the new computing syllabuses: Computing Technology 7-10, Enterprise Computing 11-12 and Software Engineering 11-12. Rhett has also recently authored a book titled Embedding Culture into Video Games and Game Design: The Palm, the Dogai and the Tombstone which explores the implications of cultural depictions in video games and opportunities to generate deeper cultural representations through the game design process.

Jamie Graham-Blair (also known as Jam) is a proud land and sea defender, of the trawlwoolway and plengermeirenner clans of North-Eastern lutruwita/Tasmania. Nearing the end of their Bachelor of Marine and Antarctic Science with the University of Tasmania’s Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies and a proud Muttonbirder and holder of many cultural knowledges, Jamie blends Western and Southern knowledge systems together to educate whoever will listen about the ecological and social benefits of assertion of Indigenous sovereignty and land and sea return.

Jamie’s work, particularly in the movement for climate justice, has seen them take out the CSIRO Indigenous STEM award for 2019 and represent his people at many national and international knowledge and cultural gatherings. Their artistic work includes stunning and vibrant photography of lutruwita, videography, dance and regenerative art, where they continue to blend modern technology with ancient teachings.

Our priorities

Who we are

What we do

News

Events

Search ATSE

Keep the fire burning: Traditional Knowledge in STEM

Speakers