Australia Telescope National Facility

Introduction

The annual CASS/ATNF student symposium will be held on the 20^th of September at the CASS/ATNF Headquarters, Sydney. This event is a forum for CASS/ATNF postgraduate students to present their research to fellow students and staff, all of whom are welcome to attend. It is expected by CASS/ATNF that students will attend, and preferably give a presentation about their work. These are not formal talks: their purpose is for students to gain experience at public speaking, and to provide staff the opportunity to see some of the excellent research they are undertaking. Students also frequently find that the feedback from these symposia is useful for their research. Interstate students are particularly encouraged to present their work and teleconference facilities will be available for those that cannot attend in person.

Prizes
Prizes on offer include:

• Best talk
• Best supporting image or plot
• The talk title most worthy of Rupert Murdoch
• Best astronomy pun
• Best poster

Format
There are a number of ways in which a student may choose to present their work:

• Talk.
  Students are strongly encouraged to give a short talk (about 15 minutes, with time for questions) about their research. This may be:
  • an introduction and description of your thesis topic (for first-year students);
  • a summary of the results you have obtained thus far in your research;
  • an in-depth description of a particularly interesting result; or
  • a description of an interesting problem you have encountered. Feel free to finish your talk early, and ask the audience to speculate about possible solutions.
• Poster.
  Posters will be displayed outside the auditorium. We recommend also giving a sparkler session, to briefly describe your research to the audience and encourage them to come and see your poster.
• Sparkler session.
  If you wish to talk about some interesting piece of science, possibly unrelated to your main project, prepare a single slide and spend a few minutes explaining it in a sparkler session. You may do this in addition to a full-length talk.

Facilities
The symposium will take place in the lecture theatre at CASS/ATNF's Marsfield headquarters in Sydney. Presenters are recommended to prepare presentations in PDF format, and bring them on a USB drive. If you instead choose to show your presentation with your own laptop, please test it well before your talk.

Catering
Morning tea and lunch will be provided. All attendees are welcome to come to a symposium dinner afterwards at a nearby restaurant.

Accommodation
Each participant is responsible for organising their own accommodation for the symposium.

Unfortunately there are few vacancies in the Marsfield lodge at the time of the Symposium, so most students will need to consider other accommodation.

There are a number of suitable options in the area, including the residential colleges of nearby Macquarie University (Dunmore Lang College and Robert Menzies College). These, and other options are listed here: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/observers/visit/Other_accommodation.html. Please note that Robert Menzies College gives student discounts.

If you are arriving a few days before the Symposium there may be vacancies at the Marsfield lodge. Information about the lodge can be found here, and booking requests can be made by filling in the online form. You will be advised if there are no vacancies on your requested dates.

We recommend you organise your accommodation by first emailing Vicki Drazenovic or Leanne Edwards at: accommodation@atnf.csiro.au. They can help you with finding a place to stay and making a booking (including at the colleges), and may also be able to help with organising student rates.

If you require accommodation for the symposium we recommend you organise this ASAP, as all options are likely to book up quickly.

Registration

Registration is now closed for all presenters and other attendees.

Further inquiries:

• Sarah Reeves (sarah@physics.usyd.edu.au)
• Vikram Ravi (v.vikram.ravi@gmail.com)