Funding success!
Alan Duffy
Great news with the announcement that my Australian Research Council projects were funded! Huge congratulations to Dr Greg Lane of ANU and Dr Phil Urquijo of UMelb who led them (and I'll explain the science we hope to achieve with them in a bit) but while I'm delighted by my ARC funding outcomes I know that so many (too many!) of my colleagues haven't been so fortunate. There's so much more world-changing research in Australia than there is funding and it's heartbreaking they haven't been funded too.
So what has been funded? Well the world's first dark matter detector in the Southern Hemisphere - SABRE - can now be fully completed thanks to the Linkage grant. The regional town of Stawell in Victoria will host the SABRE dark matter detector at the bottom of a gold mine - imagine the focus of the world's particle physicists will be on this country town. I love it!
Also in that gold mine will be a muon detector to measure the particles from exploding stars and feeding blackholes which blast the surface of Earth (and us!) with Cosmic Rays. Nature's highest energy particles in this country town. Cutting-edge science in the country, how cool is that?!