SRAP Research Bites Victoria – 5th June 2024
On Wednesday June 5th, SRAP organised a Research Bites event at The Spanish Club – Hogar Español Melbourne (57 Johnston St, Fitzroy, Vic, 3065) in collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes Australia.
Entitled “Talks about researching in Australia in Spanish”, Research Bites invited the audience to learn about research in very different topics like musicology, Spanish literature, human genomics, and botanical extracts with talks in Spanish by four members of SRAP. The event was well received, the attendees engaged in insightful conversations after each talk, and there was an opportunity for networking over tapas and drinks during the event.
SRAP Research Bites Victoria speakers. From left to right: Alfredo Martínez Expósito, Yolanda Acker, Irene Gallego Romero, Angy (Instituto Cervantes Melbourne Representative), and Iván Martínez Botella (SRAP Victorian Representative)
Over 35 members of the Spanish speaking community in Victoria attended the event and participated in conversations related to the talks presented.
Attendees at the Spanish Club – Hogar Español enjoying the talks.
The first speaker was Dr Yolanda Acker, SRAP member and Senior Administrative Officer at the Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability (CDES), Business School at Monash University. Yolanda spoke about Musicology and her studies related to music during the Spanish Civil War, as well as her work in translation and editing. See Dr Yolanda Acker’s bio below.
Dr Yolanda Acker
The second speaker was Prof. Alfredo Martínez Expósito, SRAP member and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies; Convenor, Spanish and Latin American Studies at the Faculty of Arts, School of Languages and Linguistics at Melbourne University, and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. Alfredo spoke about the Literature of Sexual Diversity, his career as a researcher in Australia, and several of the books he has authored. See Prof. Alfredo Martínez Expósito’s bio below.
Prof. Alfredo Martínez Expósito.
The third speaker was Assoc. Prof. Irene Gallego Romero, SRAP member and Head, Human Genomics & Evolution at St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research. Irene spoke about Deciphering the Human Genome and her studies in Indonesia. See Assoc. Prof. Irene Gallego Romero’s bio below.
Assoc. Prof. Irene Gallego Romero
The fourth speaker was Mr Iván Martínez Botella, SRAP Victorian Representative and Senior Experimental Scientist, Manufacturing Research Unit, at CSIRO. Ivan spoke about CSIRO’s inventions since the 1920s, his current research related to Australian Plants’ Extracts in Collaboration with First Nations People, and past commercial projects in the areas of polymers and continuous flow chemistry. See Mr Ivan Martínez Botella’s bio below.
Mr Iván Martínez Botella
The event was organised in collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes Australia and The Spanish Club – Hogar Español Melbourne.
Speakers’ bios:
Dr Yolanda Acker, Senior Administrative Officer, Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability (CDES), Business School at Monash University
Published researcher in the area of Music and the Spanish Civil War; Twentieth-Century Spanish music and dance; Women, Music and Conflict. Working casually on the Spanish version of the online course on Violence against Women kNOwVAWdata at the University of Melbourne. Former member of FAST professional services at Monash University. Visiting Fellow at ANU (2021-23). Spanish-English translator with over 20 years’ experience, specialising in academic texts.
Prof. Alfredo Martínez Expósito, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies; Convenor, Spanish and Latin American Studies at the Faculty of Arts, School of Languages and Linguistics, Melbourne University, and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities.
Alfredo Martinez-Exposito completed a PhD in Hispanic Literatures at Universidad de Oviedo and a postdoctoral stay at Columbia University. He joined the University of Queensland in 1993 as Lecturer in Spanish and the University of Melbourne in 2011 as Professor of Hispanic Studies. Alfredo is a world-class researcher with a solid reputation in the field of Spanish and Latin American Studies. Working mainly with literary and cinematic texts, Martínez-Expósito’s contribution to the Spanish discipline is in the areas of sexuality and nation branding.
Assoc. Prof. Irene Gallego Romero, Head, Human Genomics & Evolution, St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research.
As a postdoctoral researcher, Irene was awarded a Sir Henry Wellcome Trust Fellowship to establish pluripotent stem cell lines from non-human apes as a resource for comparative primate genomics and the study of human evolution uniqueness. Since moving to Australia in 2017 her research has focused on the evolutionary challenges of peopling Island Southeast Asia, with particular focus on the population genomics of the Indonesian archipelago and the interactions between Homo sapiens and other regional hominin species. Irene’s search interests have always lain in evolution, especially in the many ways in which natural selection has influenced our species — and our genomes. Her work has consistently broadened our understanding of the means by which multiple cellular processes interact to regulate gene expression, and, under the action of natural selection, ultimately give rise to differences in phenotype.
Mr Iván Martínez Botella, Senior Experimental Scientist, Manufacturing Research Unit, CSIRO.
Iván obtained a Master of Science (Chemistry) from the University of Alicante in 2010. As an undergraduate, he participated in ERASMUS and IAESTE exchanges working in organic synthesis at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (England) and CSIRO (Australia). Iván joined CSIRO in 2012 to work in commercial research projects related to polymers and continuous flow chemistry. As part of the Botanical Pharmaceuticals Team at CSIRO Biomedical Manufacturing, he is currently working in partnership with First Nations Organisations and Business to produce, analyse and test botanical extracts from Australian native plants to unlock the benefits of plants used in Traditional Medicine and Cosmetics.