Sarah Charnaud: Central Clinical School PhD student profile

See video: 40 sec

Sarah Charnaud is a Research Assistant and a Central Clinical School PhD student based at the Burnet Institute, researching Malaria. Sarah's research is focused on understanding the Malaria parasite and how it survives inside the human body. It invades red blood cells, where disease happens. Her research is particularly focussed on a previously unknown protein which is produced by the parasite and exported into the red blood cell itself.  See Sarah's profile: http://www.med.monash.edu/cecs/education/profiles/charnaud.html and video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-tNO321GXU (Note, low sound so you'll need to turn up the volume to hear it.)

Social media for scientists - is it worth the bother?

What is social media good for? For scientists, that is. A PLOS Biology article says, "...scientists are increasingly using social media as a way to share journal articles, advertise their thoughts and scientific opinions, post updates from conferences and meetings, and circulate information about professional opportunities and upcoming events." The metrics, for all the caveats, indicate that if you tell people about your work, they look at it and are more likely to cite it. See:

• http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/dec/02/why-do-academics-blog-research?CMP=twt_gu
• http://cameronwebb.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/can-social-media-increase-the-exposure-of-newly-published-research/
• http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001535
• http://melissaterras.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/is-blogging-and-tweeting-about-research.html

Image: nexalogy.com

Monash@Alfred saving trees and money with MACE project

Did you know that Australians use more than 3.5 million tonnes of paper each year? That’s about 40,000 trees!! (For estimation see link). Monash@Alfred is tackling this problem head on with our new printing policy (available at https://sites.google.com/a/monash.edu/monash-alfred-cost-efficiency-project/home).  Enquiries: mace-alfred@monash.edu.