Conferences

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For the first time ever, SUGUNA is coming to Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Organizing Committee is delighted to invite you to join us in an event to celebrate the achievements and diversity of Sydney University alumni living on the North American continent. Come to listen to what your fellow graduates are doing; come network, come party, come participate!

Our 2009 annual gathering will be held on the campus of UCLA in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, August 20 – 23, 2009, and the committee is working hard to bring you an exciting line-up of presentations.

Confirmed speakers

Ian Masters: Matters of National Security
Host of KPFK radio programs Background Briefing and Live from the Left Coast.

Professor Jane Dyson: How Does Your Protein Fold?
Department of Molecular Biology, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla.

Professor Bernard Balleine: The Executive Brain
Associate Director for Research, Brain Research Institute.

David Lyle: The Future Face of Television
President, Fox Reality Channel.

Associate Professor Fiona Cowie: The Acquisition of Language
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Mr John Mott Motion Picture Production Design in a Digital Age
DNA Productions, Los Angeles. Motion picture designer.

Dr Tony Yeo: AIDS and HIV Twenty Five Years On
Medical scientist specializing in infectious diseases and translational medicine.

Susan MacDonald: Conservation at the Getty
Head of Field Projects, Getty Conservation Institute

Aviva Layton: The Sydney Push
Writer and Author

Bill Lew: The Origins and History of SUGUNA
Retired physician. Founding member of SUGUNA.

We invite each and every University of Sydney graduate living in America or Canada to come and join us. These meetings are fun. Find out what your fellow University of Sydney graduates here in the US are up to. Network with colleagues and with graduates working here in completely different fields. Learn fascinating things to which you were oblivious before you came. At the SUGUNA meeting you will make useful and interesting contacts. You might even (as has happened more than once) meet someone who can help push your career in a new or more productive direction. And there will be plenty of activities to suit all tastes.

The meeting will be preceded by a luncheon and program for University of Sydney medical graduates on Thursday August 20. For further information about this particular part of the event contact Trish Harrison at .

Among the extracurricular activities planned are visits to both Getty museums – the Brentwood campus and the Malibu Villa; tennis, golf and kayaking; a trip to the LA Brea Tarpits and LA County Museum of Art; and a special tour of Los Angeles Freeway Operations Center. Social events will include an opening night reception at the LA Consular Residence, a buffet dinner at UCLA's Fowler Museum of Cultural History on Friday evening and the banquet on Saturday, when the annual Wolfensohn Award will be presented to the 2009 awardee.

The beautiful UCLA campus is in the heart of Westwood on Los Angeles' west side. We will be close to the legendary and oft-filmed neighborhoods of Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Santa Monica. Days should be agreeably warm and evenings refreshingly cool. We do not run to extremes.

If you come early or stay a day or two longer, Los Angeles has a wealth of attractions; Disneyland and Universal Studios; the beaches of Santa Monica and Malibu; Sunset Strip, the Hollywood Hills and Hollywood Boulevard; Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive; Pasadena and its twin jewels, the Norton Simon Museum and the Huntington Museum and Gardens; and much, much more.