3 Minute Thesis 2020

Take a look at this sketch, you know they used to imagine times like these in science fiction novels.

In fact, we used to think a time like this would never come, a time when water is a luxury and a day

is planned with a limited amount of fresh water.

Well, science fiction may soon become a reality.

Last year drought affected 98 percent of New South Wales, the worst ever recorded.

Soon after the Australian bushfires placed immense pressure on our depleting water resources.

Until today the ashes continue to contaminate our water supplies.

Growing population and reduced projected rainfall mean that we need to be prepared for water shortages.

But fear not, today I'm here to share with you there is a solution right along our very vast coastline:

desalination plants it is.

Now desalination plants use membranes which are like filters to produce fresh water from seawater.

However, these membranes require frequent cleaning and have a low throughput that drive energy costs through the roof.

My PhD looks into improving the efficiency of these membranes.

So here's a bit of a back story: there is this amazing chemical found in a tool that every single one of us have used before, a pencil.

Graphene oxide or GO derived from pencil lead can be added to the membranes for improved performance, but my research found that GO creates defects that require toxic chemicals to be fixed.

So what can be done to get rid of these defects?

I found that all we need to do is mix GO with something special found in all living organisms, the water channels in our cell membranes. We call them Aquaporins.  

While GO acts as a magnet to attract the water molecules to the membrane surface, Aquaporins act as plaster to heal the defects created by GO.

Together they selectively allow water molecules to pass through and increase water production by three folds, improve selectivity by 30 percent and remove the use of toxic chemicals.

The kicker: my membrane can be prepared using standard industrial printing process.

This technique is a proprietary method for increasing water production and reducing water costs by 40 percent in a typical desalination plant.

With our water supplies entirely dependent on rainfall without desalination, it's time to transform our desalination plant with innovative technique such as mine for guaranteed security of future generations water supply, as they live through drought.

Thank you.

I often get asked why I started a PhD, and the easiest answer that I can give to this question is to describe a patient that I met in my new graduate year while working as a physiotherapist.

And for today we'll call him John.  So I met John when I was working on the rehabilitation ward

after he'd unfortunately suffered a large right-sided stroke that was affecting the left side of his body.

But what was more unique about John than my other stroke patients was that he had a condition called unilateral neglect which is a fascinating condition because it results in the inability to perceive

or respond to stimuli that happen on the opposite side to a stroke.

And there's nothing actually wrong with the eyes in unilateral neglect. It's more that the brain is failing to process everything that's happening on one side of space. And it's a really important condition, too, because it affects about a third of people after stroke, results in poorer functional outcomes after rehab, and reduces the likelihood of going home when people are actually discharged from hospital.

But this was not the only thing that stuck out to me about John, because John also had impairment in what's called proprioception, which is equally as fascinating as unilateral neglect because it's kind of like our sixth sense.

Proprioception enables us to tell where our body is in space at any given point in time, and it does this by giving us information about the degree to which our joints have moved, the forces that our muscles are exerting, and also what the moving parts are, so our concept of our body and what it is that's stored in our brain.

So john had these two impairments, and being a newborn physio the first thing I did was go straight to the literature to see what I could do about them.

And I found three main things.

The first was that unilateral neglect and proprioceptive impairment seemed to be related to each other.

However, the second was that there was no comprehensive assessment tool for either of them, which meant that treatment options were really limited for both.

And the third was that no assessment of unilateral neglect actually included a direct measurement of proprioceptive impairment, despite the two seeming to be related to each other.

So I limited options with John and unfortunately he followed the usual pathway of a neglect patient in that he was discharged to a nursing home unable to stand up by himself.

And this is what my thesis is trying to change from a very clinical perspective: my thesis aims to investigate how clinicians currently understand and assess both unilateral neglect and proprioceptive impairment.

So that we can identify the gaps in clinical practice in this area, and design targeted translational research to fill them, including designing a more comprehensive assessment of any unilateral neglect, that includes a measurement of proprioceptive impairment, so that patients like John stand a better chance and a good functional rehab outcome, and going home when they're discharged from hospital.

Empathy helps end our bias about who deserves the benefits of science. Wise observations from Melinda Gates.

Let’s talk about this.

Put yourself in the shoes of an older Australian who have with a very limited income, and struggling to pay energy bills. What would you do to make ends meet?

Switch the lights off when leaving the room?

Unplug appliances not in use?

That sounds okay, right?

But what if I told you that for these venerable household, these simple actions are not enough, and more extreme measures are necessary.

And you’d have to avoid cooking, forget the heater, and even delay your medical exams to try to pay the bills on time. This is the reality of one in four Australian households, and there is still not enough research about how we can pivot our effort to benefit these disadvantaged people.

My PhD is about to change this!

Inability to pay Energy Bills limiting consumption to the detriment of your health and spending a high proportion of your income on energy is known as Energy Poverty.

My research aims to extend the limited knowledge about energy poverty in Australia, and I’m focusing on low income older household, as they are among the most venerable.

There are some national surveys exploring some basic energy hardship indicators, but I’m taking this a step further. So besides analysing the survey data, I also had chance to head into a Sydney community of age pensioners and conduct in-depth interviews, to understand how energy poverty affect and is affected by their capabilities.

After analysing the data, I found many older Australians are unable to deal with certain technologies and online systems; and lack energy literacy, which could empower them to make informed and rational energy decisions.

The result? Age pensioners are over charged, and might end up paying 30 percent more for their energy. 

Nevertheless, remember what I said about empathy end bias on science? Well, most of the current scientific research is focused on the smart homes, those Jetsons’ like futurist scenarios - while they’re cool, they hardly help the energy-poor. And this is why empathy, and science, need to go hand in hand when addressing problems like energy poverty.

Energy-poor seniors have taken the time to share their struggles with me, and their stories have allowed me to better understand what energy poverty really looks like, no on paper, but in a fellow Australian’s home, and what do they need to make things better.

At its core, my research is laying a foundation that leads to policy frameworks which eliminate energy poverty and influence science to shift towards a more empathetic focus on our one in four vulnerable Australian households.   

We’re all exposed to something lurking in our very own backyards, in high concentrations most cause cancer, some cause gastrointestinal distress, reduced IQ, developmental delay, behavioural problems.

Have you guessed what it is?

It's not months of back-to-back zoom meetings now. I'm talking about something we rarely even think about.

Heavy metals are not just a popular music genre, they're also popular among environmental scientists as the most widespread and persistent class of land contaminants across the world.

And they're here at home where we've been spending so much quality time.

Roland and colleagues found that 40 percent of Sydney homes contain lead in their vegetable garden soils over the Australian guideline level.

But what about the plants in these soils?

Well what if I told you plants suck. Literally.

I mean we know this already, plants suck up nutrients, water, love. But did you know that plants can suck up contaminants and clean soils in the process?

They're like mother nature's vacuum cleaners, although the scientific term is phytoremediation.

Phyto meaning plant, and remediation meaning to clean up.

For my research, I’m investigating where edible plants may store heavy metals that they've vacuumed from soils, are they taken up into the edible leaves of fruits

And what does that mean for food safety, both here at home and on degraded agricultural land?

I'm conducting glasshouse experiments and i've asked people to donate their plants and soils to me so I can analyse for the different sections so the roots stems leaves fruits and flowers.

And the good news is my tested backyard plants were for the most part within safe limits, because most participants didn't use roadside soils or they used barrier plants like hedges, or mulch layers to capture heavy metals before they reach their garden soils, which is a handy tip for your garden.

I’ve found most plants tend to hold heavy metals in their roots which could be problematic for root vegetables like, carrots which i'm still testing. But I’ve found that carrots are able to accumulate toxic levels of lead into their edible tissue.

Ideally what we'd like to find a species that can take up or hold heavy metals but exclude them from their edible tissues.

So they would be safe to eat. These could be powerful tools in remediating part of the 2.4 billion square kilometers of degraded land surface area across the world and support food security in the process.

And that's the real win-win for discovering plants that rule simply by the way they suck.

Have you ever made an investment based solely on a gut feeling or a “tip” that you received from a friend?

Perhaps you’ve bought a product, just because you really felt like buying it at the time, and ended up regretting it later.

If you have, your behaviour might be considered rash and irrational by academics.

But don’t worry, you are not alone.

The average person tends to make many rash and irrational decisions.

In fact, these rash decisions cost small-time investors like you and I billions of dollars in stock markets throughout the world. And sadly, the worst of this phenomenon is playing out right now.

During this lockdown, millions of investors have flocked to stock markets and put tons of money in worthless stocks of bankrupt companies, in the hopes of making a quick buck.

Unfortunately, things are probably going to end badly for them. So, how can we help these small investors?

In my research, I examine whether making some minor changes to the structures of stock markets can help small investors make better investment decisions.

I conducted an experiment in which around 150 people, participated in a simplified version of a real world stock market.

Many investors made losses, probably because they cared too much about the stock’s price and too little about its value.

A stock’s value is the total income that it pays the owner.

Like in the real world, loss-making investors in my experiment bought low value stocks, like those of bankrupt companies, just because their prices had gone up.

These guys were tempted to buy these stocks because they thought that the price will keep rising and they can sell it at a higher price.

They probably did not seriously consider the possibility that the price might not rise further, and they may be left holding a worthless stock.

One of the changes I implemented involved asking them what they think the stock’s value is, just before they finalized an investment decision. This helped them pause and carefully think about their investment decision with the stock’s value in mind.

My results suggest that even such a simple prompt can help loss-making investors lose around 50% less money.

So, what does this mean for stock markets throughout the world? Well, changes like this can stop investors from fixating on stock prices and make them consider other important information, like the stock’s value. This can prevent them from acting hastily, based solely on their impulses and help them make well thought out investment decisions.

Such changes seem to be necessary to protect investors from their own selves and stop them from losing billions of dollars every year.

Let me tell you a story about a little girl named Tara from California and her two aunties.

One of the aunties lives with Tara. She loves to play music, tell jokes and teach nursery rhymes.

The other auntie, Auntie Bua, lives a thousand miles away, here in Australia. She can spend hours talking to Tara’s mom and always manages to make the little girl laugh.

Both aunties use the internet to speak to the little girl.

Their voices are amplified through small black devices.

Auntie Bua uses a phone to call and speak to the little girl.

The other auntie chimes in from the corner of the living room.

Auntie Alexa says Tara play the baby shark song.

If you haven't caught on one of the aunties is actually a coded algorithm, an artificial intelligence that listens and responds to the little girl through a conversational interface.

Tara's dad is always talking to uncle Google in the kitchen while he's trying to cook dinner.

And Tara’s mum is always asking auntie Siri for directions when she's in the car.

You’ve probably talked to them too.

All of these are examples of AI enabled voice assistance.

But to Tara, Alexa is not an assistant. She's her auntie.

So when prompted by the device, what kind of information do you think Tara would share with her auntie, when really she's sharing it with a giant corporation called amazon.

The way we perceive and start to give human identities to these devices is when the lines between human and artificial intelligence starts to blur.

My PhD takes a social science perspective to study these AI devices.

I'll be introducing Alexa to different age demographics, to observe how they socially construct identities as a group for the AI.

As part of my field work I’ll be introducing seniors to Alexa through educational tea parties.

Will they think Alexa is just as smart as their grandchildren who teach them about computers?

I'll then be interviewing people in their homes to find out how alexia operates in their family dynamic.

And lastly I’ll be holding story time events at public libraries, inviting children to interact with Alexa.

I’ll then be asking them to paint a picture of who they think they were interacting with.

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My results can help find new ways that this form of artificial intelligence can be more than just an assistant.

Being mindful of the ethics and concerns of human-like artificial intelligence by harnessing the human of these devices, we can better understand the technology.

From there we can create and design better tools to help enrich all of human life.

Imagine an earth where two billion humans live in homes without safe reliable drinking water and 4.5 billion live without safe sanitation.

That’s the world we live in right now.

Imagine an earth where passionate smart creative humans are working to address this challenge: people in governments, civil society, the private sector, community advocates and researchers like me.

That's also the world we live in right now.

Now cast your mind forward to a time when these numbers look a whole lot better: millions or billions more have safe water and toilets.

And I ask you to consider in this future: what's happening with the natural environment?

In scenario one cities drink for now but groundwater is depleted. We deal with the pathogens in faecal waste but we also dispose of its valuable and scarce nutrients, nutrients which are essential for food production.

In scenario two, we seek win-wins. We manage our water to ensure everyone everywhere has safe water to drink without compromising the resource on which this depends. We treat our waste to be safe and also support food security.

The decisions we make today will determine which future we create.

And I’m hoping you agree with me the second is the one we want.

My research is about this future, about how we can realise people's human rights to water and sanitation, in a way that strengthens rather than threatens the earth's environmental integrity.

I’m inspired by a framework all about achieving social foundations whilst not pushing the ecological limits.

Go search for planetary boundaries and doughnut economics if you're keen to know more.

What this framework makes clear is that we have to do things differently.

Historically, we have exceeded our planetary limits and failed to meet basic needs.

So I’m exploring through three studies proactive ways the water and sanitation sector can shape a better future.

First, I analysed how water and sanitation discourse stacks up when viewed with a sustainability lens. The outcome was identifying future directions for maximizing win wins and addressing gaps in current approaches.

Second, I addressed a gap in global monitoring frameworks. My research established that 80 percent of people in Asia pacific countries rely on groundwater as a source of drinking water.

With increasing threats to groundwater, water and sanitation professionals must be a voice for sustainable resource management, and my work identified priority actions for national and local institutions.

Third, I investigated an innovative resource oriented sanitation system in Sri Lanka to find out what it costs to achieve the kind of circular system we saw in the image of our preferred future, and what it takes from a governance perspective to make these kinds of systems the norm.

Weaving these studies together, I hope my research provides signposts for all of us passionate about people having safe water, sanitation and a sustainable environment.

If we make good choices now, I think we can achieve both.

Would you put a Band-Aid on a broken arm?

Would you use sticky tape on a sinking ship?

Probably not.

When it comes to an emergency, we tend to be a bit better prepared with resources, education, a splash of PR.

When it comes to waste, our world is just not prepared.

It's a risk to health, life, sustainability, and yet for the majority of Australians the waste that they produce is out of sight and out of mind.

The impact of this kind of mindset is that by the year 2050 we are expecting to hit the point of no return. We call this peak waste when the earth can no longer recover from what we've dumped on it.

So my research is building a strategic map, to not only empower Australians to make change towards sustainability goals, but equip them with the knowledge of the barriers and enablers that exist to doing that, in partnership with industry stakeholders, I'm building this rich picture.

So when we look at these big problem spaces, there's normally two things we have to keep in mind: the acknowledgement that a city is a moving and shifting space with different parts; and the role of people, relationships, powers even the physical flows of waste that move around. Something called a holistic approach addresses both of these and has been linked for success in zero waste goals.

So I’m applying this to a case study in the city of Sydney area.

Through interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders, we are building this rich strategic map. I'm also including my design background where I create graphics and illustrations from the discussions to help us talk about ideas and communicate.

Through these conversations, I’m also looking for something called an object which might be a conceptual literary or physical thing that we both have a shared and differing understanding of.

Like when I say drink bottle you might think of yours at home. I think of my metal one here. Yet we both have a shared understanding it's something we drink from.

So bringing together this rich map made with stakeholders, the analysis of how objects work in collaborative conversation, I can pull out the barriers and enablers that exist for the city of Sydney to reach their 2030 zero waste goal.

Results are not only going to help Sydneysiders prevent that next waste crisis, but also inform future programs that want to use the same methodology.

It might sound cheesy but together we can go from growing waste to zero waste.