National Reconciliation Week: 27 May to 3 June

By Lenka Vodstrcil, Vaughan Macefield and Zhoujie Ding on behalf of the Gender Equity Diversity and Inclusion (GEDI) Committee

National Reconciliation Week is a time for all of us to learn about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements, and a time to reflect on how we can contribute to reconciliation between First Nations people and the wider community.

These dates commemorate two significant milestones in the reconciliation journey: the successful 1967 referendum, which acknowledged the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as citizens, and the High Court's Mabo decision, in which First Nations peoples were acknowledged as the rightful owners of the lands on which we live. These two dates mark the beginning and end of National Reconciliation Week, respectively.

This year's theme, 'Be a Voice for Generations, spurs us all to be an active voice for reconciliation in tangible ways in our everyday lives – where we live, work and socialise. We are encouraged to use our power, words and actions to promote reconciliation and foster respectful relationships between ourselves and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on whose lands we share our lives.

Perhaps this week especially, and the next time you are travelling around different parts of Australia, you can research more about the Traditional custodians of the lands on where you are, and reflect on the generations that walked on these lands prior to invasion/colonisation. 

The traditional custodians of the lands from the Wirribi-yaluk (Werribee River) to Wamoon (also known as Yirik, Woomom or Wilson’s promontory), which is where the main Central Clinical School campus sits, are the Boon Wurrung/Bunurong peoples. The Wurundjeri are the traditional people and custodians of the land from the Birrarung (Yarra River) to Werribee and the Great Dividing Range, the land on which the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre sits. The Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri peoples form part of the East Kulin Nations group of people, which includes many different language groups. 

The Central Clinical School GEDI and School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine EDI committees will be joining forces to host an event in coming weeks that will raise awareness of the roles we each need to play in understanding cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander co-workers, students and patients, and decolonising our research practices. Details to come!

If you would like to attend a Monash University Reconciliation Week event at the main campus, including an event that celebrates Indigenous Perspectives in Science, details are available here.

We also encourage you to complete the Cultural Foundations: Building your knowledge of Australia's First Peoples training on My Development.

Where we live and work always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land and we offer our deep respect to the traditional custodians of the lands and waterways we all share.

Alfred Alliance Event:

The  Baker Institute will have two speakers for our National Reconciliation Week talk on 2 June at 12:30 – 1:30pm. The event is both in person and via Zoom. Please see this flyer for more details. Attendees who wish to join on Zoom, please email reception@baker.edu.au.

Congratulations to the ‘Find a Friend’ seed grant recipients

Congratulations to the latest ‘Find a Friend’ grant recipients, Drs Matt Hudon and Joshua Allen (‘Psilocybin as a treatment for traumatic brain injury’), and Drs Muhammad Shahid Javaid and Antonia Reale (‘Extracellular vesicles from epilepsy patient-derived neurons promote epileptogenesis and drug resistance: uncovering new drug targets’). Each partnership received a seed grant of $25,000 from the Department of Neuroscience to complete their projects.

The Department of Neuroscience launched their inaugural ‘Find a Friend’ initiative in 2021 to provide funding for two Early Career Researchers or late stage (final year) PhD students to undertake a small (pilot) research project over 12 months. The successful awardees will not only gain skills in developing collaborative partnerships, but also will build their careers as expert researchers in their field, and use the findings from their projects to enable larger funding opportunities.

Learn more about this round’s successful projects below.

Dr Lodge wins prestigious Career Investigator Award

Congratulations to Dr Margot Lodge, a geriatrician and PhD student at Central Clinical School's Peninsula Clinical School, who has won the prestigious Australian and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine (ANZSGM) Career Investigator Award.  

Dr Lodge presented part of her PhD work on improving perioperative care systems in older people (POPS) at the Australia and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine (ANZGSM) Annual Scientific Meeting in Brisbane.

“This research forms part of a mixed-methods approach to closing the implementation gap in the perioperative care of older people and improving the outcomes of older people undergoing surgery,” Dr Lodge said.

“Implementation science is an exciting next step to improving outcomes for older people undergoing surgery and as a clinician-researcher I look forward to advancing this approach.”

IDAHOBIT: The International Day Against LGBTQIA+ Discrimination!

By Zhoujie Ding and Lenka Vodstrcil, Co-Chairs of the CCS Gender, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee

Pride Week coincides with the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT). Acknowledged worldwide since 2004, this day of global awareness takes place each year on 17 May, a significant date in the ongoing fight for equality. At Monash, we honour IDAHOBIT within Pride Week (15-19 May).

As part of the event, an in-person Pronoun Pro Training for Monash staff and students at the Alfred Precinct was organised by the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine Diversity & Inclusion committee. This interactive training session was led by Natalie Charlotte Sist from the Respectful Communities Team at Monash. 

The Pitch: Round 1 winner, applications open for Round 2

Congratulations to Dr Julia Boehme (Immunology), Erskine Chu (Neuroscience) and Marissa Sgro (Neuroscience) for being awarded funding in Round 1 of The Pitch for their project Exploring the Brain-Bladder-Immune Axis.

Around 69 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI) each year, representing a significant economical and healthcare burden. Brain injuries increase susceptibility to infections, with urinary tract infections (UTIs) among the most common bacterial infections after TBI.

US funding support to open the doors on neonatal traumatic brain injury research

Dr Sabrina Salberg, a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Neuroscience, has received a Young Investigator research grant (US$35,000) from the Society for Pediatric Pathology (USA) – one of the first for Monash University and an Australian university. The award was announced at the society’s spring meeting held on 22 March in Baltimore.

Dr Salberg completed her PhD degree only last year, with her thesis entitled, “Pain in the developing brain: Early life adversities that affect the development of chronic pain in adolescence.” Her project found that early life neglect and high fat-high sugar diet consumption increased chronic pain sensitivity following traumatic brain injury (TBI) and surgery in a sex-dependent manner. Dr Salberg said, “Interestingly, females demonstrated more pain behaviourally, while males demonstrated more significant effects at the molecular level.”

GEDI committee statement on World Autism Awareness Day

April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day. Autism is a developmental condition that affects people throughout their lives and can be characterised by difficulties in social interaction, communication, restricted and repetitive interests and behaviours, and sensory sensitivities. It is estimated that 1 in 70 people and 1 in 100 children are on the autism spectrum (WHO ‘Key facts about Autism’). World Autism Awareness Day is a day of observance that has been sanctioned by the UN “to highlight the need to improve the quality of life of those with autism, so that they can lead full and meaningful lives as an integral part of society.”

Within the Central Clinical School, the GEDI committee acknowledges that people living with Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are all unique. Some people with Autism may not require any additional support, but for others who do need support, their needs are not identical. We also recognise that many in the school provide care or support to people (including children) with Autism, and appreciate that there are additional appointments or tasks that you attend to in order to provide that care or support.