Community & Business
9 November, 2025
Scientists on flying visit
FREE events aimed at highlighting everything interesting about science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) will be held next month.
The Flying Scientists are heading to Malanda, Atherton, Mareeba and Kuranda libraries, giving locals a rare opportunity to hear from specialists in their fields.
“This is a great opportunity to participate in hands-on science activities and discover some of the science behind our everyday lives,” Tablelands Cr Maree Baade said.
“You’ll get to hear from Dr Sangeetha Kutty, Dr Nathan Cook and Sam Gastrell about their STEM careers and research in artificial intelligence (AI), sports nutrition and hospital food waste.”
Dr Kutty is the Discipline Lead for Emerging Technologies and a lecturer at the School of Engineering and Technology at CQ University. Her research interests span data science, AI and machine learning, text mining, social media mining, deep learning, generative AI, recommendation systems, and information retrieval.
Dr Cook is an early career academic at the University of Queensland. He is an Accredited Practising Dietitian and Accredited Sports Dietitian who teaches nutrition science and researches how to reduce food waste in hospitals and to support distance runners to perform better.
Sam Gastrell is a microbiologist at the University of Queensland who studies bacteria with the goal of discovering new antibiotics. Sam grows bacterial cultures and purifying proteins for antibiotic testing and high-powered microscopy.
To register for the Malanda session (3.30pm-5pm on 12 November) or the Atherton session (3.30pm-5pm on 13 November), go to trc.spydus.com
To register for the Mareeba (3.30pm-5pm on 11 November) and Kuranda (11am-12.30pm on 11 November) sessions, call Kuranda library on 4886 4622 and Mareeba library on 4093 9185.
