The conference will take place at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne between January 29 - February 2, 2024. January is summer in Australia and the conference immediately follows the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament held just a few kilometres from campus.

More information will become available in the coming weeks/months.

Venue

AMDC Lecture hall
Foyer Sky Lounge Terrace
ATC ATC101

The conference will be held in the AMDC building on the Swinburne campus (upper left) in the AMDC 301 lecture hall (upper right). The venue also offers the foyer, SkyLounge, and Terrace (center images, left to right) where the coffee breaks and poster sessions will be held. Within the same campus, parallel sessions will be held in the ATC building at the ATC 101 lecture hall (bottom left and right pictures, respectively).

Swinburne is in a rather urban area and parking nearby the conference venue for more than ~2 hours can be difficult. The public transport system is good within Melbourne and many people use that to get around to most places.

Depending on where your accommodations are, you may find parking at the nearby train station. If so, you can park there, and you can ride in to the Glenferrie train station on campus (~$10 AUD for an all-day pass for all trains, trams, and buses). These trains run every few minutes to about every 15 minutes in the evening.

If you are driving in, keep in mind that there are no university parking lots. Most parking near the venue is for 2-4 hours, some free, some have a ticket that you can purchase. There are a couple of paid parking lots where you can pay $10 AUD for the day, but they can fill up. On this map you can find one of these parking lots (upper left) and the conference buildings (lower right).

There may be long duration (~8-hour) day parking behind the Hawthorn Town Hall across Burwood road from the buildings where the conference will be. Otherwise, you might need to find parking several blocks away on the streets and walk to the conference. Be sure not to park where they require residential permits and check all signage.

Format

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on Australian-based researchers, as many of us were not allowed to travel overseas for 2 years. For this reason, we believe that holding a conference where speakers can network in-person is very important for the scientific community. In this line, all talks will be delivered in person and we are having no online talks. Participants who cannot attend on-site can still view the talks live and are encouraged to present their work as an e-poster. All participants who are presenting a poster will also have the opportunity to present a short ~1 minute ‘sparkler talk’. More information about that will come soon!

Fees

In-person registration (early bird; before Nov 15) fees are: students $200 AUD; non-students $300 AUD; online-only $50 AUD flat rate. After Nov 15 in-person fees are $250 AUD students and $350 AUD non-students.

Financial assistance

Thanks to our major sponsor OzGrav, financial assistance has been made available to multiple conference participants.