Dr Maxime Aubert, Senior Research Fellow in the School of Humanities, has been invited to participate in the fifth Indonesian-American Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium in Indonesia from July 28-31.

The symposium is sponsored by the Indonesian Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Sciences and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Kavli Frontiers of Science Symposium brings together outstanding young scientists to discuss exciting advances and opportunities in a broad range of disciplines.

This year Australia will join the symposium for the first time and send its 10 best early to mid-career researchers. About 70 young scientists will attend the symposium from the US, Indonesia and Australia.

Dr Aubert will discuss the history of early human creativity. He will elaborate on his groundbreaking discovery of 40,000-year-old cave art on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The study was published in the scientific journal Nature in October last year and was rated by the journal Science amongst the Top 10 Scientific Achievements of 2014.

Other topics to be discussed at the symposium include: nanomaterials, astrophysics, infectious diseases, health informatics and marine microbiology.

The symposium series is the premiere activity within the US Academy of Sciences for distinguished young scientists. Since its inception in 1989,more than 100 of its “alumni” have been elected to the US National Academy of Sciences, and10 have received Nobel Prizes.