News Archive

SIS Graduate and astronomer, Dr Stacy Mader

Recently, UWA graduate, Dr Stacy Mader returned to the School of Indigenous Studies and Shenton House where he was a student in the early 1990s.

Originally from Wyndham in the Kimberley, Stacy was one of 30 Aboriginal students at UWA at that time.  He graduated from UWA with a Bachelor of Science (Physics Hons) in 1993. After attending the World Indigenous People’s Conference on Education at Wollongong in 1993, Stacy decided to move to the University of Wollongong, where he completed a Master of Science (Hons) and PhD in star formation studies of outflows from low-mass stars. In 1999, he accepted a position at the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales and is now Senior Experimental Scientist within CSIRO's Astronomy and Space Science.

Over the last 17 years, Stacy has supported both Australian and international astronomers who use the Parkes facility, the largest radio antenna in the Southern Hemisphere dedicated to astronomy. He has also supported several NASA spacecraft missions to Mars and the outer reaches of our Solar System. Stacy's current focus is supporting the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, CSIRO's new radio-telescope located in the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in mid-west region of Western Australia.

Apart from wanting to meet with staff at the School of Indigenous Studies who were working at the School (then the Centre for Aboriginal Programmes) in the 1990s, Stacy also wanted to take the opportunity to speak to students in the Aboriginal Orientation Course and other Indigenous students about Science, astronomy and his work.

Stacy was in Perth on the invitation of the Perth Observatory to present the summer lecture on a perspective of his time at Parkes Observatory covering surveys he has been involved with, and his work with NASA on the Mars rovers Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity and Voyager 2. Stacy also wanted to offer a perspective of the Orion region, from his own research in star formation and how other cultures have viewed the region over time.

Media references

Gabrielle Garratt (UWA School of Indigenous Studies)  (+61 8) 6488 2467