Anomalous Astronomous Palaeontologists

Networks are everywhere. From social networks to political networks, networks evolve over time. But, can we identify when things are unusual? We explore this question and show some interesting results using political networks.

Sevvandi Kandanaarachchi is an applied mathematician working in statistical machine learning. After completing her PhD in 2011, she taught mathematics to computer game design students. She is now doing exciting, interdisciplinary projects at CSIRO’s Data61.

While the motion of two bodies has a simple solution, the motion of three bodies is notoriously chaotic. We'll embark on a journey that spans billions of length and mass scales and see how the universality of gravity and the three body chaos shape the objects in the Solar system, and the merger of black holes that produce gravitational waves.

Evgeni Grishin grew up in Israel and completed his PhD in theoretical astrophysics at the Technion on Haifa. He moved to Melbourne in 2021 to study dynamics and gravitational waves at Monash University.

Most people could probably name a Dinosaur, but can you name an Australian Dinosaur? Let’s go on a journey to the mid-Cretaceous of Victoria to discover the unique environment, the predatory Dinosaurs that dominate this landscape, and what their fossils can tell us about this lost world.

Jake Kotevski is in the second year of his PhD at Monash University, focused on a reappraisal of all carnivorous dinosaur fossils from Victoria, and the evolutionary relationships of a group known as megaraptors, receiving the Monash University - Museums Victoria scholarship to support his research.