News & Announcements

April 2013

Congratulations to Sue Bennett
Congratulations to Sue Bennett who along with colleagues Terri Seddon, Dawn Benett, Janette Bobis, Neil Harrison, Sue Shore, Edica Smith and Philip Chan co-authored an important research report published earlier this year titled Living in 2.2 World: ERA, Capacity Building and the Topography of Australia Educational Research. This report support by the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) and the Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE) sought to describe the Australian educational research environment in light of the ERA 2010 results and provide input into the future strategic research capacity of educational research in this country. 

Congratulations to Valerie Harwood, Sarah O'Shea, Jan Wright, and Lisa Kervin
Congratulations to Valerie Harwood who, along with IERI colleagues Sarah O'Shea, Jan Wright, and Lisa Kervin, were recently awarded the contract to evaluate the AIME Outreach Program. We wish you all the best with this important research and look forward to hearing of the outcomes.

Congratulations to Kathryn Harden-Thew
Congratulations to IERI Communications Officer and PhD candidate Kathryn Harden-Thew who was recently awarded a Graduate Scholar Award to support her presentation at the 2013 Humanities Conference in Budapest, Hungary. Well done Kathryn and we wish you all the best with your presentation.

January 2013
Congratulations to Shirley Agostinho, Sharon Tindall-Ford and Kylie Roodnerys for the recent publication in Computers and Education, a highly prestigious journal in Computers in Education.

December 2012
Imagining Education/Imagining Youth Workshop
This workshop help on December 7th was a great success. To read further, please click here.

December 2012
Congratulations to Shirley Agostinho
Congratulations to Shirley Agostinho who, along with colleague Sharon Tindall-Ford was recently awarded a UOW Research Partnership Grant for their application titled "Annotate to understand: investigating how eReader annotation tools can enhance learning". This project is in partnership with Pearson Australia and aims to explore how learners can use the Pearson Reader annotation tools to manage their cognitive load.

December 2012
Congratulations to Sarah Howard
Congratulations to Sarah Howard on her recent grant success as a CI on an ARC Discovery Project and OLT Innovation Grant awarded to colleagues at the University of Sydney.

December 2012
Congratulations again to Paul Chandler and the Early Start Team
As you are all aware, UOW was successful in the recent round of EIF funding winning $31M in federal government funding for the Early Start Project. We congratulate Paul and the other IERI member involved in the application (Ian Brown). It will represent a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary research in this area and we look forward to hearing more about this at our IERI planning day in February next year. The details of this day are being finalised and will be emailed this week.

October 2012
IERI Member Tony Okley presents at Uni in the Brewery series
University of Wollongong's Uni in the Brewery series presents Professor Tony Okely giving 'The skinny on Childhood Obesity: what really works in preventing unhealthy weight gain in children and adolescents'. Please follow this link to watch the presentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCaP3Hg8JGg&feature=youtu.be

September 2012
IERI Members are URC Grant Winners
Congratulations to Dylan Cliff and Rachel Jones, who along with colleague Markus Hagenbuchner in Informatics were successful with their interdisciplinary project "Artificial neural networks to predict activity type and energy expenditure in preschool children: a feasibility study". Congratulations to Shirley Agostinho and Rose Dixon for their project "How can iPads facilitate learning, communication, social skills and positive behaviour in students with ASD?". Congratulations to Shirley Agostinho, who along with Sharon Tindall-Ford and Sahar Bokosmaty from the Faculty of Education were awarded funding for their project "Handing control over to the learner to manage split-attention in digital instructional materials: does movement aid learning?". Congratulations to Stuart Woodcock, who was a CI on another successful interdisciplinary project led by Xiaoping Gao in Arts titled "The effects of motivation, learning strategies and learning contexts on the acquisition of Chinese as a second language".

September 2012
IERI Member Collin Webster Successful NIH Grant Recipient
Congratulations to Collin Webster who along with colleagues from the University of South Carolina (including Michael Beets and Russell Pate) were awarded a NIH/NHLBI R21 grant for $US717,550 from the US National Institutes of Health. These are widely regarded as the most prestigious research grants in the area of health and Collin's role as a co-PI will be to oversee the staff training component of the intervention (and associated assessment of implementation). The title of the project is "Physical activity and nutrition intervention in after school programs." Well done Collin on this fantastic outcome!

August 2012
IERI Members Honglin Chen, Bev Derewianka and Pauline Jones awarded Economic and Social Research Council Grant
Congratulations to Honglin Chen, Bev Derewianka and Pauline Jones who were CI's on a recently announced Economic and Social Research Council Grant (the UK equivalent of our ARC). The grant, led by colleague and Faculty of Education Visiting Professorial Fellow Debra Myhill (from the University of Exeter) will undertake a three your longitudinal study to investigate the development of metalinguistic understanding and its relationship to writing skills.

6-9th July 2012
IERI Member Prof Beverly Derewianka was invited as a Keynote presenter at the Australian Literacy Educators Association's Conference titled 'Literacy, Language, Literature, Learning'
Congratulations to Bev who presented an excellent keynote presentation at ALEA's conference, entitled 'Learning to love grammar'. Her talk was about the Australian Curriculum, and the challenges English places on teachers to take a fresh look at grammar and see it as a resource for expanding their students' meaning potential. Her presentation traced the experiences of a number of teachers as they came to grips with the new curriculum and attempted to interpret what it meant for their own teaching practices.

28th June 2012
IERI Member Dr. Sue Bennett and Team Awarded on OLTC Innovation and Development Grant
Congratulations to Sue Bennett who was a CI on a successful OLTC Innovation and Development Grant led by Monash University and involving the University of Queensland and University of Technology Sydney. The project, entitled "Improving assessment: Understanding educational decision-making in practice" aims to support university teachers' and course teams' decision-making processes through an assessment decision-making framework, annotated case studies of assessment decision-making, strategies and guidelines for good assessment decisions, policy, research and professional development. The amount awarded to the team was $220,000.

28th June 2012
IERI Members Recognised for their Excellence in Vice-Chancellor's Awards 2012
A number of IERI members also received 2012 Vice-Chancellor's awards recognising their expectional success and outstanding service to the University. Award recipients included Dr. Honglin Chen (VC's Award for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning), Dr. Shirley Agostinho and Dr. Jessica Mantei (Faculty Award for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning), Dr. Michelle Eady (Early Career Academic Award for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning), Dr. Dylan Cliff (VC's Award for Research Excellence for Emerging Researchers), Dr. Irina Verenikina (Highly Commended for Excellence in Research Supervision), as well as a team of IERI researchers taking home the VC's Award for Interdisciplinary Research Excellence (Dr. Tony Okely, Dr. Julie Steele, Dr. Dylan Cliff). Congratulations to all!

28th June 2012
IERI Higher Degree Research student Jonell Uptin Places Second in 3 Minute Thesis Awards
A reounding congratulations to Higher Degree Research student Jonnell Uptin, who placed second in this year's 3 Minute Thesis awards! Well done!

7th June 2012
IERI Members' Recent Funding and Publication Successes
Congratulations to IERI members Dylan Cliff and Julie Steele and their team of collaborators, who were successful in the recent round of URC Research Infrastructure Block Grant (RIBG) Pool 2 funding. Full details are below, with IERI members bolded:

• Cliff DP, Okely AD , Groeller H, Sampson J, Brown M, Jones RA, Batterham M, Webster C, Perlman D, Magee C, Parrish A. Portable metabolic system.
• Steele JR , Munro B, Mickle K, McGhee D, Spinks G, Riddiford-Harland D. OPTOTRAK Certus position sensors for capturing motion.

A further congratulations to Dylan Cliff and collaborators for the recent acceptance of their article, 'Objectively measured sedentary behavior, physical activity and plasma lipids in overweight and obese children', in the prestigious high-impact journal, Obesity.

16 May 2012
IERI Member Receives ESDF Small Grants for 2012
Congratulations to IERI Member Garry Hoban who is a recent recipient of an ESDF Small Grant for 2012. Garry, in collaboration with Mr Anthony McKnight, received the grant for their project 'Experiencing "Country" and Cultural Aboriginal Community Members in an Aboriginal Ways of Knowing Subject for Pre-Service Teachers'.

8th May 2012
IERI Members Awarded Vice-Chancellor's Excellence in Research Awards
Four IERI members have been announced as successful recipients of the UOW's Vice-Chancellor's Excellence in Research Awards for 2012. Associate Professor Tony Okely, Dr. Julie Steele, and Dr. Dylan Cliff were each awarded an Interdisciplinary Research Excellence Award. Dr. Dylan Cliff was also Highly Commended for Research Excellence as an Emerging Researcher. Dr. Irina Verenikina was Highly Commended for Excellence in Research Supervision. Congratulations to all award recipients. The awardees will be formally recognised at the 2012 Vice-Chancellor's Research Excellence Award Ceremony on 22 June 2012. For more information on these awards and the winners, citations are available at http://www.uow.edu.au/research/award/

8th March 2012
IERI Director Tony Okely's Expertise Featured in Sydney Morning Herald
In the 8th March edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, an article advocating play, rather than the use of fitness equipment, for children featured the research of child and adolescent physical activity expert and IERI Director Dr Tony Okely. Read the full article here, where he describes why he believes it is not developmentally appropriate for children to use fitness equipment.

2 1st February 2012
Professor Barbara Comber speaks about schools as meeting place in IERI Seminar Series
For a number of years Barbara Comber has worked with teacher-researchers to explore aspects of the relationship between the places in which their schools are located and the everyday lives and literacy learning of their students. Featured in IERI's first seminar of the 2012 season, Professor Comber spoke about schools as meeting places. In her presentation she described that while intellectual resources from place- and community-based education have been helpful, they have not fully addressed the fact that teachers who work in schools in challenging circumstances are forced to look for innovative ways to design curriculum in order to accommodate difference (e.g., recent arrivals from multiple countries of origin) and change (e.g., social policy designed to effect large-scale reconstruction of housing and essential services). In particular, she used the concept of 'thrown-togetherness' used by feminist geographer Doreen Massey (2005) to re-think schools (especially those in culturally diverse communities) as sites of thrown-togetherness. A full recording can be accessed on our seminar series page.

24th January 2012
IERI Cognitive Load Theory seminar draws eminent researcher presenters and attendees
On 24 January 2012, IERI sponsored a highly successful half-day Cognitive Load Theory seminar at the University of Wollongong. The seminar featured presentations by three world-renowned researchers discussing real world educational issues that can be informed by Cognitive Load Theory research. To start the afternoon Professor Fred Paas, from Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Netherlands and Professorial Fellow at the University of Wollongong, discussed strategies to manage working memory capacity and improve learning. Professor Andre Tricot, from the University of Toulouse in France, then spoke of the blindness that exists to domain-specific knowledge when discussing working memory and cognitive load. Dr Paul Ginns, from the University of Sydney, ended with a presentation of the development of an embodied Cognitive Load Theory. These presentations were followed by a particularly lively open discussion amongst the diverse range of attendees, including eminent researchers, current teachers, as well as current and future educational research degree students.

5th December 2011
IERI researchers awarded prestigious Heart Foundation of Australia Fellowships
Associate Professor and IERI Director Tony Okely and IERI member Dr. Dylan Cliff have each been awarded prestigious fellowships from the Heart Foundation of Australia. Tony Okely was awarded a Career Development Fellowship spanning 2012 to 2016, valued at $432,568, for his work on understanding and promoting physical activity and reducing sedentary behaviour in children and adolescents. Dylan Cliff received a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship for his work investigating the measurement, patterns and determinants of sedentary behaviour in children. In addition, a team of IERI researchers were awarded Grant-in-Aid from the Heart Foundation worth $130,000 to investigate they validity of activity monitors for measuring physical activity, sedentary behaviour and energy expenditure in children. Congratulations to all!

21st November 2011
2011 Higher Degree Research (HDR) Student Conference a resounding success
A day-long conference for the Faculty of Education's Higher Degree Research students, entitled 'Research Directions', was held on 21 November. The conference was officially opened by Aunty Barbara Nicholson, a Wadi-Wadi Elder and Honourary Senior Fellow in Law, the Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Tim Marchant and the Dean of Education, Professor Paul Chandler. The morning symposiums entailed faculty and student presentations, covering a range of topics include: creative leadership of the independent school principal; e-learning for empowerment; meaningful Aboriginal consultation processes; and investigating secondary school students' understanding of climate change. Concurrent workshops in the afternoon adressed the topics of publication and PhD completion. Many IERI researchers and HDR students presented their important research findings at the conference and IERI member Dr. Lisa Kervin was instrumental in the planning and organisation of the event.

15th November 2011
Four Endeavour Awards presented to overseas researchers to work with IERI members in 2012
It was recently announced that three Endeavour Awards (two fellowship and two executive) were awarded to overseas researchers seeking to visit the University of Wollongong to work directly with IERI members in 2012. Two of the three were awarded to researchers coming to work with Garry Hoban and Wendy Nielsen. Not only is this a unique feat for a single educational institution, but even more unique for one research group. Congratulations to all involved!

28th October 2011
IERI's Dr Jessica Mantei wins prestigious award for outstanding thesis
Dr Jessica Mantei, Associate Member of IERI, has recently been announced winner of the NSW Outstanding Thesis Award for 2010 for her PhD thesis titled "The development of professional identity in early career primary teachers and its relationship to designing authentic learning experiences". The Beth Southwell Research Award was named for the well known educator and academic who gave many years of committed service to the NSW Institute for Educational Research. The award ceremony is to be held on 11 November 2011 a the University of Technology, Sydney.

25th October 2011
IERI's Dr Steven Capaldo helps drive "outstanding" operatic night
'A Night at the Opera' was held on Tuesday 25 October at Keiraville Public School as part of an initiative of the University of Wollongong and respected Australian composer, Dr Damien Barbeler. IERI member Dr Steven Capaldo helped drive this outstanding event. Four 'Kids' Operas' were staged by Year 5 and Year 6 students at the school and more than 200 people attended the event. "The whole night was a brilliant celebration of what public schools can achieve and how we can never underestimate what children are capable of," remarked Dr Capaldo.

23rd October 2011
IERI HDR student Catherine Wild judged "best of the best"
Catherine Wild, a PhD student from the Biomechanics Research Laboratory, School of Health Sciences and student member of IERI was awarded the premier prize at the prestigious Australian Conference of Science and Medicine in Sport. Catherine was initially awarded the Asics Award for Best New Investigator - Lower Limb for her paper titled "Does higher anterior knee joint laxity alter landing biomechanics in pubescent girls?' The top papers from each of the five categories then re-presented their papers in a plenary "battle of the best" session. Catherine's "best of the best" paper won he the Asics Medal and a $3,000 prize, in addition to a presentation package to attend the prestigious American College of Sports Medicine Meeting in 2012 and a guaranteed place in the American College of Sports Medicine program. Congratulations Catherine!

2 8th September 2011
IERI's Dr Steven Capaldo and Dr Lisa Kervin secure URC grants
Dr Steven Capaldo and Dr Lisa Kervin were both recently successful in the 2012 URC Small Grant Application process. Dr Capaldo's grant, entitled 'Investigating student engagement with music through technology in formal and informal settings' was awarded $10,555 in funding. Dr Kervin's grant, which is shared with Dr Debra Dudek, entitled 'Living with the Living Dead: The impact of vampire and zombie imagery on identity formation in children and young people' was awarded $5,226. Congratulations to you both!

26th September 2011
IERI's first inaugural 'Showcase Day: New Ideas for Teaching and Learning' a resounding success!
IERI, in collaboration with the Australian College of Educators, hosted a Showcase Day for teachers on the 26th September 2011 at the University of Wollongong. The Assistant Director of National Programs for the NSW Board of Studies, Mr Howard Kennedy, delivered a keynote address on the implementation of the new Australian curriculum in NSW during the morning session of this full-day free event. This was followed by a selection of seminars for teachers, highlighting the latest advances in research and innovative classroom applications. The afternoon session provided four hands-on workshops to choose from with new research ideas for teaching practice. IERI researchers and educators presented cutting-edge research sessions to the participants. One hundred and six delegates, including NSW Catholic and Independent schools classroom teachers, Department of Education and Communities executives, principals and postgraduate students and 34 presenters participated. Most delegates were from the Illawarra and South Coast region, south western Sydney and rural NSW. Check out the WIN News feature here . Thank you to all for making this an excellent event!

25th August 2011
Prestigious journal to feature Dr. Garry Hoban's work with Slowmation
The prestigious Journal of Research in Science Teaching - currently the 4th highest ranking education journal in the world - is set to feature the work of Dr. Garry Hoban and his collaborators in their upcoming November issue. The article, which will be featured as the lead manuscript for the issue, explains the theoretical framework of students learning science through creating a Slowmation. Garry is the creator of a new form of stop-motion animation called "Slowmation" (abbreviated from "Slow Animation"). This new teaching approach greatly simplifies the process of making animation so that students of all ages can create their own animations of educational concepts. In 2006, Slowmation won two international awards for the innovative use of technology in teacher education. Congratulations Garry!

25th August 2011
Prestigious journal to feature Dr. Garry Hoban's work with Slowmation
The prestigious Journal of Research in Science Teaching - currently the 4th highest ranking education journal in the world - is set to feature the work of Dr. Garry Hoban and his collaborators in their upcoming November issue. The article, which will be featured as the lead manuscript for the issue, explains the theoretical framework of students learning science through creating a Slowmation. Garry is the creator of a new form of stop-motion animation called "Slowmation" (abbreviated from "Slow Animation"). This new teaching approach greatly simplifies the process of making animation so that students of all ages can create their own animations of educational concepts. In 2006, Slowmation won two international awards for the innovative use of technology in teacher education. Congratulations Garry!

9th August 2011
UOW research team to evaluate $12.8 million national kitchen-garden program in schools
A UOW research team that includes Dr. Wendy Nielsen has been selected to evaluate the national Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden National Program. The program, currently implemented in more than 100 Australian primary schools, aims to influence food choices among children. This government-funded project aims to develop lifelong healthy eating habits in students from years 3-6 years of age by teaching them how to grow, harvest and prepare fresh food. Four years since its implementation, he research team is now set to evaluate a variety of factors including changes to food preferences, lifestyle, behaviour and cooking skills.

8th August 2011
Dr. Bev Derewianka's book, A New Grammar Companion, shortlisted for 2011 Australian Educational Publishing Awards
Dr. Bev Derewianka's book, A New Grammar Companion, has been shortlisted in the Tertiary entry category for the 2011 Australian Educational Publishing Awards. Congratulations Bev!

22nd July 2011
IERI member Dr Lisa Kervin awarded UOW Faculty Scholar
Lisa has been appointed the Education Faculty Scholar for the next 18 months to research 'Embedding Research Skills into a 4-year Teacher Education Program'. Congratulations Lisa!

18th July 2011
PhD Student, Janine Delahunty awarded 'runner up' in the UOW 3 minute thesis competition
PhD student Janine Delahunty represented the Faculty of Education at The University Three Minute Thesis Competition on Wed 29th June. Janine was one of the two runners up of the university wide competition for her outstanding presentation "Learning from a distance: getting connected ... feeling connected". The aim of the competition is to present a complex topic to a lay audience - congratulations Janine.

4th July 2011
Congratulations to IERI member Wendy Nielsen who was a CI on a recently announced international grant and national competitive tender.
Congratulations to IERI member Wendy Nielsen who was appointed CI on a recently announced international grant and national competitive tender. Her international grant titled "Learning and teaching science in the 21st century: Realities and possibilities of social media." was from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and these are the equivalent to our ARC grants in terms of their prestige. This project strengthens the links between Wendy and the PI, Rachel Moll from Vancouver Island University.

Wendy was also part of a group based at the Australian Health Services Research Institute led by Kathy Eager and involving Heather Yeatman (School of Health Sciences) that were recently awarded a $400,000 tender for a national evaluation of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program, funded by the Commonwealth of Australia.

7th June 2011
IERI welcomes its newest member, Associate Professor Ian Brown
Ian is currently Senior Associate Dean in the Faculty of Education. His research interests are in the areas of multiliteracies, visual literacy–practices and pedagogy for K-12 classrooms and visual design. Ian has an excellent track record in this area and has led several ARC Projects in recent years. We welcome Ian and look forward to the valuable contribution his research will make to IERI in the future.

1st June 2011
Congratulations to IERI members Lori Lockyer and Peter Caputi who recently, with their collaborators received an Australian Research Council Linkage Project valued at over $200, 000.
The project titled "Multiliteracy testing: a criterion-referenced tool to assess secondary students' multiliteracy learning within a technology-rich, multimodal domain" will be co-investigated by Ian Brown, Lori Lockyer, Peter Caputi and Jim Tognolini over the next four years. Evidence shows that while multimodal learning in schools is occurring, a valid measurement and diagnostic tool to provide reliable scores and accurate diagnostic information does not exist. This project aims to develop a criterion‑referenced tool to measure students' multiliteracy learning within technology‑rich, multimodal domains.

20th May 2011
Welcome to Associate Professor Steven Roodenrys
IERI would like to welcome our newest member, Associate Professor Steven Roodenrys. Steve is currently Head of the School of Psychology. His main research interests are short-term memory, cognitive deficits in developmental disabilities, and the effects of diet and dietary supplementation on cognitive function. We look forward to Steve being part of IERI and his research making a contribution to IERIs vision and mission.

6th May
IERI congratulates Joseph Ciarrochi (an ARC Future Fellow)
who has been elected President of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), an organization that has approximately 4000 members and over 30 chapters located in the U.S., U.K., and Europe. ACBS is the home of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Relational Frame theory. More about the organization can be found here: http://contextualpsychology.org/

28th April 2011
Dr Sue Bennett, Dr Shirley Agostinho and Professor Lori Lockyer receive $15,000 government funding grant to assist in the production of an online training program for teachers
The grant, which includes $15,000 of in kind commitment, was awarded by Dynamic Learning Online (DLO) and will support an exciting Tech Vouchers Project established to drive the culture of research collaboration between NSW small-to-medium enterprises and public sector research organisations. Specifically, the project will result in the design, development and testing of an online training program for Australian Kindergarten to Year 12 teachers. See more.

27th April 2011
Success by IERI members in Vice-Chancellor's Excellence in Research Awards 2011
Congratulations to Dr Lisa Kervin who, along with IERI Associate member and CHI Director Prof Sandra Jones, won the award for Interdisciplinary Research Excellence for their ARC-funded project examining food advertising to children. This project combines Lisa's expertise in Literacy with Sandra's in marketing and was successfully funded as an ARC Discovery Project in 2009.

Congratulations also to Professor Jan Wright who received one of two high commendations in the Excellence in Research Supervision award. This is testimony to the outstanding supervision that Jan has and continues to provide to her HDR Students, and is nominated by the students themselves.

13th April 2011
Professor Debra Myhill from the University of Exeter presents seminar on 'Grammar matters'
Debra Myhill, Professor of Education at the University of Exeter and Acting Dean for the College of Social Sciences and International Studies, presented to an audience of both teachers and IERI researchers' with convincing evidence as to the importance of embedding grammar in the English curriculum. Drawing on statistical and qualitative data from a large-scale national study, Debra explored how teachers’ knowledge of grammar fundamentally influences the teaching of writing. She also highlighted how a lack of confidence and substantive knowledge of grammar plays out in the writing classroom in terms of generating misconceptions about grammar and writing, and missing opportunities to make meaningful connections for developing writers. It was announced at the seminar that Debra Myhill will be a Visiting Professorial Fellow of the Faculty of Education and IERI later in 2011. We look forward to having her back in Wollongong collaborating with IERI members, Dr Honglin Chen, Professor Bev Derewianka and Dr Pauline Jones later in the year.

5th April 2011
IERI welcomes new Post-doctoral Research Fellow Trina Hinkley
Dr Trina Hinkley has recently started as IERI's Post-doctoral Research Fellow, a position that spans three years. Trina completed her PhD at the Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research at Deakin University and her research interests primarily focus on young children and their physical activity and sedentary behaviours. Trina is keen to identify strategies we can use to support young children to be more active and spend less time in screen-based entertainment, along with the ways policy can support healthy behaviour. We extend a warm welcome to Trina as she begins this research position with IERI.

21st March 2011
IERI associate member and HMRC Fellow in the Smart Foods Centre, Dr Yasmine Probst, has been awarded a highly-regarded Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian (AdvAPD) credential
The Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA) announced that Dr Probst and eight other Australian-based dietitians had been given the award. The DAA is the peak nutrition body in Australia. DAA President Mrs Julie Dundon said she was extremely proud of the outstanding professional commitment and excellence of practice that the members had shown during their careers. She said the credential formally recognises Australian dietitians’ advanced skills and expertise, and identifies them as role models and mentors in the nutrition and dietetic profession. Last year, Dr Probst saw her book containing a collection of graduated food portion photographs for use in dietary assessment or nutrition education officially launched at the Unishop. ‘Food Portion Images for dietary assessment’ is the first book of this nature available in Australia and one of only a few available worldwide. All photographs contain measured and weighed foods. These measures are hidden in the back of the book to reduce bias when the book is being used for dietary assessment purposes.Dr Probst said it was an easily transportable alternative to plastic food models or food packages which are often costly and bulky to transport. The book was presented at the Dietitians Association of Australia conference

3rd March 2011
IERI member, Dr Valerie Harwood recently received a grant from the US Studies Centre to investigate the US Charter School Movement and the Issue of Educational Disadvantage
US charter schools are part of the public education system, and cater to numbers of students experiencing poverty. Charter schools support the creation of school modalities within a publicly funded system, with many schools supporting students from non-traditional backgrounds to gain access to higher education. Australia does not have charter schools provision, but has limited number of alternative schools. This study will investigate how US charter schools address educational disadvantage and pathways to higher education. The study will involve social mapping of the demographics of US charter schools and case studies of two schools that cater to children from disadvantaged groups/displaced from traditional schooling. IERI PhD student Nici Humrhry will be working with Valerie on this project. The grant will fund Nici to travel to the US to conduct fieldwork in US Charter Schools. Valerie has been made a Research Associate of the US Studies Centre for the duration of the grant.

IERI researchers awarded prestigious Heart Foundation of Australia fellowships
Associate Professor and IERI Director Tony Okely and IERI member Dr. Dylan Cliff have each been awarded prestigious fellowships from the Heart Foundation of Australia. Tony Okely was awarded a Career Development Fellowship spanning 2012 to 2016, valued at $432,568, for his work on understanding and promoting phsical activity and reducing sedentary behaviour in children and adolescents. Dylan Cliff receved a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship for his work investigating the measurement, patterns and determinants of sedentary behaviour in children. In addition, a team of IERI researchers were awarded Grant-in-Aid from the Heart Foundation worth $130,000 to investigate the validity of activity monitors for measuring physical activity, sedentary behaviour and energy expenditure in children. Congratulations to all involved!