Bryan Gaensler, 1999 Young Australian of the Year, Talks About Working at Harvard's Department of Astronomy. (November 13, 2004)

    In four days it'll be exactly five years that Bryan Gaensler gave his Telstra Address to Australia's National Press Club luncheon in Canberra.

Dr Bryan Gaensler
[1999 Young Australian of the Year]

When I meet someone and tell them that I'm a scientist, I usually get the same series of reactions. The first comment is something like, "How exotic! I didn't know we had any scientists in Australia." And the question that quickly follows is usually, "So this science stuff, what do we actually get from it?"... 

...the government no longer funds [university] salary increases negotiated through enterprise bargaining, resulting in an effective reduction of a whopping 20% into the money going into the university system. It's almost as if the Government has announced a "Going Out of Business" sale, and the results have left our higher institutions in crisis --- typical across the country are forced redundancies, major staff reductions across the board, increased class sizes, and the merging and, even closing, of various research departments...   [Full Text]

Recently he spoke to the Fairfax papers' Caroline Overington:

If somebody told me five or 10 years ago that one day I'd be [an Assistant Professor of Astronomy] at Harvard, I wouldn't have believed it, or I would have said, maybe when I'm 60. But I don't let it get to me too much. I'm an assistant professor with the emphasis on assistant - so I'm well down the pecking order here. I've got Nobel Prize winners sitting down the hall.

 

I wouldn't say I'm planning to spend the rest of my life in the US, but I don't have a plane ticket back.

 

I stay very connected to Australia; I have my Cottee's cordial sent to me by mail order. But it's more significant than that. I know a lot of expats who feel like I do: they want to contribute to Australia but they are not sure how to do it.

 

When asked what he missed he told Overington: The weather, obviously, the food, the cricket. And even though Harvard is a great place, it's an intense place, and I do miss the relaxed nature of Australia. I used to feel very bad about the fact that I wasn't working there. But now I feel that it would be a bad thing if nobody ever left. We need people to go overseas. I think the key thing is to encourage our best to get to Oxford and Harvard or wherever, but to make sure we keep the door open and find ways for them to stay connected to Australia.

And as Overington points out, "Gaensler has a problem familiar to many expats: most of the big opportunities in his chosen field - astronomy, supernovas and the Milky Way - are in the US."

As to staying connected, Gaensler was instrumental in getting Sydney University to set up its Return Awards for Expatriate Researchers which is now in its third year.