Tropical science: Survival of the fittest

Her 30-year career has taken her from Sydney to Wales to South Africa, from biology at Wollongong to nuclear science at Australia's only research reactor. And now Prof Helen Garnett has a new challenge, as vice-chancellor of the Northern Territory's new Charles Darwin University.

Along the way, she has pursued a scientific career that has given her broad experience across disciplines, universities, government research labs and industry. She believes in teamwork, in drawing on her experience -- and is obviously not shy of change.

Garnett's scientific career began at the University of Sydney, where she studied microbiology. A PhD in viral pathology from the University of Wales followed, but it was in South Africa from the mid-1970s that her career advanced rapidly. But by the end of 1986, political stagnation in South Africa took her back to Australia.

The rigid Australian universities she was used to were starting to change. "When I saw the advert for professor of biology at the University of Wollongong, it was painting a picture of an institution that was trying to be on the move, to develop research," Garnett says. "It was an exciting time -- Wollongong had decided that if it was to be any good, it needed to put a stamp on its undergraduate programs to make them a bit different."

Garnett played an integral role in bringing out the university's strengths in biotechnology and biomolecular science, and used similar skills in her next role, as general manager scientific and deputy director of Australia's nuclear science organisation, ANSTO.

"I was convinced there was a lot you could do with nuclear science and technology," she recalls. Her aim was to create a forward-looking, project-based organisation by making sure people were teaming with the best people and knew what was going on around them. Her approach worked, and in 1994 she took over the role of executive director.

Much of her time at ANSTO was taken up with developing its replacement reactor, a process she said she was unexpectedly landed with when she first arrived there in 1992. Funding finally came through in 1997, and by the time she left for her new Darwin job last October building of the new reactor was well under way.

She couldn't have left, otherwise, she says -- "It had been so much a part of my previous 12 years with the organisation."

Charles Darwin University (CDU) was formed last year when four institutions came together -- Northern Territory University, the Northern Territory Rural College, the Centralian College in Alice Springs, and the Menzies School of Health Research, which still operates as its own entity, but has become part of the institute for advanced studies of the university.

Garnett is enjoying Darwin, and being back in the university environment. But she admits there are many challenges ahead, including overseeing the integration and development of the university's varied agenda, which embraces tropical knowledge, desert knowledge, music and creative art, in both city and rural environments.

"We certainly are focusing on the areas of tropical knowledge on the one hand and desert knowledge on the other," says Garnett. "And that's pretty obvious -- there are not many other universities around the globe that have got a campus in the tropics and a campus in the desert." CDU is involved with the Alliance for Tropical Knowledge, a recent initiative by the Territory government to engage with the Queensland and Western Australian governments to set up alliances between institutes and further knowledge in the tropics (see page 12).

Garnett says the territory government provided funding to help get CDU's Institute of Advanced Studies off the ground and is also providing funding to help generate a critical mass in tropical knowledge research areas.

Tropical knowledge and desert knowledge, including sustainable development in both of these climates, and how indigenous and cross-cultural issues feed into this is a focus for the university. On the other hand, how tropical knowledge and desert knowledge, in turn, feed back into indigenous education and health services, and the further development of creative arts and arts business is another area of specialisation.

Garnett speaks of developing socially robust knowledge that allows sustainable development in the tropics, and another for the desert, that would improve outcomes in health services, education services and advancing indigenous peoples role in and benefits from the arts.

"Our strengths are in health, environment, creative and performing arts areas, and then we are building strengths in governance and cross-cultural environmental issues in rural environments," she says.

Garnett sees herself staying a while in Darwin, and says she has brought extra experience back with her that gives her a fresh view on things. "I draw on that background, my networks and my experiences in trying to take this [institution] into the future."