National Science Week: UQ Ideas Forum
In recognition of National Science Week (12-20 August 2023) the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) is hosting a special event in collaboration with the Institute of Molecular Bioscience (IMB) and the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) on Friday 18 August. QBI, AIBN and IMB are world-class research institutes, based at the University of Queensland (UQ), pushing the frontiers of knowledge about the brain, human biology and technology.
This year’s theme for National Science Week is Innovation: Powering Future Industries. We would like to take this opportunity to build connections with the next generation of researchers and create an engaging platform to raise awareness of the importance of discovery research with advancing science and potential therapies and technologies of the future, by hosting a special ‘UQ Ideas Forum’ at QBI titled: The future of Artificial Intelligence: Should we be worried?
We have partnered with the Queensland Academy of Science Mathematics and Technology (QASMT) with an invitation for their year 10 students to attend a panel discussion with experts from UQ’s three flagship scientific institutes on the broad theme: ‘The future of Artificial Intelligence: Should we be worried?’
Please join us for a Q&A-style panel discussion around the importance of basic science to inform the innovations of tomorrow with a focus on AI, facilitated by energy expert and science commentator, Dr Joel Gilmore.
In the second hour we plan to include an interactive component which will involve a competitive group pitch involving four teams of students, outlining an AI solution to a non-AI problem/challenge and vice-versa. The winning team will be awarded a summer internship at one of the three UQ Institutes of their choice. This competition will be opened up to all schools next year.
Watch the livestream here
Speakers
Chair
Dr Joel Gilmore
Dr Joel Gilmore is a skilled science communicator, regularly featuring on television and public lectures. He was the host of Food Lab on SBS Food, talking about the science behind cooking and has previously featured on Catalyst, Scope, and a range of other fun shows. His specialties are food science and renewable energy, but he has previously spoken on quantum mechanics, particle physics, and the mathematics of Bad Santa.
Panellists
Professor Bruno van Swinderen
Bruno van Swinderen is a group leader at the Queensland Brain Institute. His research focus is on selective attention, sleep, and general anesthesia. His laboratory uses simple animal models such as fruit flies to understand how brains process and prioritise information, with a view to understanding the evolution of animal consciousness more broadly.
Associate Professor Jessica Mar
Associate Professor Jessica Mar is a research group leader at the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN). In a process called bioinformatics, Associate Professor Mar and her research group collect data from individual cells and construct statistical models to identify which combination of genes are being altered in a specific cellular condition like disease.
Dr Conan Wang
Dr Conan Wang is a Group Leader with the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) and has been involved in peptide and protein research since 2004. He is highly experienced in bioinformatics, chemistry, structural characterisation, biophysics, and biochemistry. His research involves interdisciplinary methods for the design and engineering of peptides.
Benjamin Armstrong
Benjamin Armstrong works as a Principal Group Program Manager with Microsoft. Based in Brisbane. He moved to America in 2001 to start working for a small Silicon Valley company – Connectix and moved to Microsoft in 2003. Since then he has been working in virtualization for approximately 20 years. He currently lead the Product Management team for AKS hybrid deployments.