CPAS in 2025: Thank you for all your support!

Friday, 19 Dec 2025

CPAS Director end-of-year message/season’s greetings

I write this in the shadow of the tragedy at Bondi, and a sense of collective grief and solidarity with those whose lives have been completely overturned in a shocking instant.

Until things turned sombre this week, the year-end mood in CPAS was palpable relief at having made it through the many disruptions, pride at our accomplishments and cautious optimism as we look to celebrate our 30th anniversary in 2026.

Now based in the new ANU College of Systems and Society, CPAS continues to shape and connect science and society through our leadership, research, education and wider conversations across diverse communities.

We rejoiced at the achievements of many colleagues, while bidding a fond farewell to some. After more than 20 years at CPAS, Rod Lamberts said ‘see you later!’ as he moved to an Honorary Associate Professor position. Our Director for nearly 10 years, Joan Leach, was appointed ANU Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), which meant that I had the privilege of following in her and Sue Stocklmayer’s footsteps to take the helm at CPAS. Merryn McKinnon became ANU Interim Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching).

Meanwhile, we’re thankful to hold on to Will Grant while he fulfils the role of Associate Dean (HDR) at the College. We celebrated Emeritus Prof Mark Howden’s appointment as AC in the Australian honours list, coming just a few weeks after his election to the Australian Academy of Science.

See below for more highlights of what we accomplished in 2025.

Thanks for your enduring interest and support. I hope 2026 brings peace and good cheer as we look to consolidate old conversations and friendships, and strike up new ones.

With best wishes

Sujatha Raman

Professor and Director, CPAS

Advocacy and Expertise We released Advancing Australia's Science-Policy System a report which identifies 6 opporunities for 2025 and beyond to advance Australia's science-policy system. CPAS is building a body of work grappling with the challenge of changing how we extract, process and use materials in pursuit of energy transitions. We look forward to kicking off some new projects in this space with funding from the Department of Industry, Science and Resources; the Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials; and the Open Society Foundation. CPAS had a strong presence at other science communication events through the year, with keynotes by CPAS Associate Director (Research) Fabien Medvecky at the Shanghai Science Communication conference, Merryn McKinnon at the Australian Science Communicators Conference in Melbourne and Sujatha Raman at the PCST Asia Symposium in Tokyo Dr Laura Dawes contributed expert commentary for ABC TV’s Weekends Breakfast program and its accompanying written piece on Kathleen Folbigg. Laura also delivered the keynote speech at “Bodytalk: Science Communication, Health and the Body in Asia and the Pacific Symposium” Dr Jasper Montana and Dr Rachael Gross are helping establish the Nature Relationship Index Ehsan Nabavi talked to The Guardian about why Politicians hoping AI can fix Australia's housing crisis are risking another Robodebt Fabien Medvecky and Will Grant discussed on 360info.org Why Social Media Checking Promised Too Much?	Image Former CPAS Director Joan Leach and current CPAS Director Sujatha Raman Image Dr Graham Walker presented at both of the ANU College of Systems and Society's Orientation Weeks
Image POPSICULE's 2nd Science Goes Pop! event at Smith's Alternative	Insights and Breakthroughs It’s been a big year for research funding with CPAS staff leading the way on integrating societal, cultural and environmental perspectives into science and technology domains across a suite of projects: ARC Training Centre on Plant Biosecurity; Ethical engagement with Indigenous leaders in Astronomy (Kavli Foundation), the Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials, and the ANU People-Nature relations initiative (which secured funds from UKRI). Our leadership in informal science learning is as strong as ever with new support from the Asian Development Bank for climate change work in the Solomon Islands. We were pleased to launch our new research themes on our website, which better capture the ways in which we are reimagining science communication for the 21st century. This year, Team CPAS published upwards of 47 research outputs Karina Judd, Bridget Gaul and Anna-Sophie Jürgens published monoghraph Women Scientists in American Television Programs Science and law is an exciting cluster of work emerging at CPAS with new projects funded by the Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History and by the ARC Linkage scheme.
Community and Celebrations We remain committed to enhancing national and international early career research capacity in our field, welcoming Research Fellows Matt Nurse, Karina Judd and Rachael Gross, as well as our biggest new HDR cohort in our history. We also welcomed Visiting Fellows Elena Denia and Weli De Costa. Alumni and edu-tainer Lee Constable won the University's Young Alum of the Year Award Colleagues were out in force at the 2025 PCST conference in Aberdeen, and Fabien was elected President of the PCST (Public Communication of Science and Technology) Network, our international association. At the end of a busy year of engagement activities, we were thrilled that our Science in Popular Culture and Entertainment Hub, POPSICULE, was awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Programs that Enhance Learning! This is on top of a busy year, running events such as Science. Art. Film. Seasons 6 and 7 and Science Goes Pop! Parts 1 and 2. It's Electrifying! With the support of the ACT Government, Dr Graham Walker continued to teach children about sustainability through his library shows, and taught teachers through workshops like Hands-on Climate Change Finally congratulations to our many brilliant students graduating! A special shout out to our Australia Award Scholar (AAS) Jade Suaesi even delivering a speech during their AAS EOY event	Image CPAS's small celebration, farewelling Rod after all his years with us Image Discussions at the CPAS Retreat 2025
Image Drinks to celebrate Joan's new position	Image CPAS Honours Students 2025