2001

The successful 2001 Queensland Fellows carried out research at the Smithsonian Institution's Archives, National Museum of Natural History, and National Museum of the American Indian.

Dr Paul Hearty from James Cook University, Townsville

Project title: Sea-Level and Climatic Modulation of Evolutionary Change on the Bermuda Platform, North Atlantic Ocean.

Dr Hearty's project was, in lay terms, about digging down through layers of rock in caves in Bermuda and examining fossilised landsnails to determine the nature of climatic fluctuations over the past 400,000 years.

Dr Jane Hunter from CITEC and on secondment to DSTC Pty Ltd

Project title: An Interoperable Metadata Model for Managing Museum Multimedia Collections.

Dr Hunter's project in information technology was about the development of megadata models and tools for the management of mixed media collections particularly in the cultural heritage field.

Dr Judith McKay from the Queensland Museum at Southbank

Project title: Queensland shows the world: researching a major exhibition for the Queensland Museum at Southbank.

Dr McKay's project focussed on the way in which Queensland has portrayed itself at international expositions and also aimed to extend and share knowledge of these exhibitions.  In 2004, Central Queensland University Press published Dr McKay's book, Showing Off: Queensland at World Expositions 1862 to 1988 which was largely based on the research undertaken as part of her Fellowship project and is the first ever account of Queensland as a global exhibitor.

In 2001 two Smithsonian Fellows visited Queensland

Dr Vicki Funk is a Curator and Research Scientist at the US Herbarium, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. Dr Funk's project evaluated wet tropical forests using information from museum collections as well as Plot and Transect Studies.

While in Queensland, Dr Funk's primary Queensland collaborators were from the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the University of Queensland and the Rainforest CRC at James Cook University in Townsville. She also collaborated with a scientist from the Queensland Herbarium at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens at Mt Coot-tha and a scientist at the Rainforest CRC and CSIRO at the Tropical Forest Research Centre in Atherton.

Dr D Ross Robertson is a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama. While in Queensland, Dr Robertson collaborated with a Professor from the CRC Reef at the School of Marine Biology at James Cook University in Townsville.

Dr Robertson's project was on the demography and population genetics of exploited reef fishes in the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific. Dr Robertson's research complemented and enhanced a joint research project already being undertaken by STRI and James Cook University.