The Scholars' Podcast is a show featuring Scholars from the General Sir John Monash Foundation. Hosted by Justin Kelly from Media & Capital Partners, our podcasts feature interviews with the best, brightest, boldest and bravest across all fields of academia, business, science, humanities, and the arts.
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Episode 72 - Dr Jacqui Baker
In 1997, a backpacking trip from Bali to Lombok threw Jacqui and her friends, then aged 19, straight into the heady world of Indonesian politics — setting her on a career-long journey toward understanding more about this incredible archipelago.
Jackie’s countless experiences across the country have been nothing short of extraordinary — from hanging with jihadists to hearing songs of revolution — it is the country’s kaleidoscope of perspectives that makes this nation so incredible.
We speak with Dr Jacqueline Baker, 2004 John Monash Scholar, about what makes Indonesia so special, and the role Australia ought to play in supporting its social and political stability. Jacqui is a lecturer in South East Asian Studies at Murdoch University where she is President of the Indonesia Council. She is an editor at the Journal for Southeast Asian Studies and host of the podcast Talking Indonesia.
Episode 71 - Associate Professor Harrison Steel
Synthetic biology has changed the way we live: from genetically modified food to insulin production and engineered mosquitos. This is the science that shrinks traditional engineering to the nanometre, tailoring life from inside a cell.
Can we engineer bacteria to remove waste products from our environment and reverse the effects of climate change? Will the future of meat be from within a lab? Can we create new kinds of cells that live within the human body, changing their colour to notify us of disease?
We join Professor Harrison Steel (2016 Roden Cutler NSW John Monash Scholar) from the University of Oxford to discuss how he combines robotic technologies with biological engineering to tackle the world's challenges. At the forefront of scientific possibility, Harrison reflects on which hurdles may take down a billion-dollar investment, and the necessary ethical questions arising when we try re-design life.
Episode 70 - Professor Katherine Daniell
Professor Katherine Daniell (2005 John Monash Scholar) joins us to explain how and why she established the Australian National University's School of Cybernetics Masters Program, the first and only program of its kind it's in the world and the first new School at ANU in nearly half a century, in only five weeks.