Our Board

Pip has been a Registered Nurse for 25 years, firstly as a graduate caring for victims of the Port Arthur Massacre. She is a Clinical Nurse Educator in Perioperative Services at the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH). In this role she was involved for a number of years with coordinating and training the Lay Surgical Assistants Course for Australian Customs Border Protection Marine Enforcement Officers, and the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) Expeditioners. It was through this long-standing program with the RHH and AAD that Pip met Dr Van Twest and they forged a friendship and common interest in polar medicine, and later worked together in the same Army Reserve unit where they furthered their love of working in altered environments. Pip has also worked in the Hyperbaric & Diving Medicine Unit for 19 years and is looking forward to the challenges, training and research opportunities the new triple hyper/hypobaric chambers in K Block bring in furthering advancement of the RHH, and Hobart, on a world scale.

Pip is currently seconded as statewide Project Lead for Infusion Pump Procurement for the Tasmanian Health Service. She has also been an Army Reservist for 23 years, originally enlisting as a Musician, and accepting a Commission as a Nursing Officer in 2006. Pip is posted remotely as an Instructor to the Army School of Health in Albury, NSW where she holds the rank of Major.

Pip is mother of 4 young girls, and her partner Pete is a Pharmacist. Her family are actively involved in community events and organisations, and passionate about supporting Tasmanian opportunities, preserving culture and heritage. Tasmanian by birth, and Tasmanian by choice, Pip is also well-travelled having spent 2 years seeing the world early in her career, and 8 trips overseas since. She brings her insights and broader understanding to providing support locally; more recently with logistic assistance to the Tasmanian Fire Service Regional Operations Centre Interoperability Arrangements as part of the Bushfire Incident Management Team response in 2019. Pip has also had a long-standing interest in tourism and leadership since organising and taking a group of young people around our beautiful state for 2 weeks as part of her Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award. Pip enthusiastically accepts the challenge of the RSV Aurora Australis Museum so the ‘orange roughy’ can be remembered for generations and remain connected to the Australian community she has served for 30 years!

Michael Stoddart was formerly Chief Scientist of Australia’s Antarctic program, and the first director of the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. His academic career spans the universities of Aberdeen, Oxford, London, Monash, New England and Tasmania, where he is currently a professor emeritus. He is an eco-physiologist with interests in the mammalian sense of smell. He lives in Hobart.

Melanie Van Twest travelled on board the Aurora Australis for six weeks in early 2012 and felt immediately that this remarkable and historic ship should be protected and shared with other Australians. She has spent the past few years working towards creating an Australian Antarctic museum based around the Aurora Australis, seeking expert advice from a wide variety of sources and setting up the Aurora Australis Foundation in 2020.

Melanie’s work and academic experience includes history, architecture, archaeology, medicine and public health. She has been a member of the Army Reserve for over 30 years in administration and logistics and is currently a medical officer.

Melanie travels extensively in eastern Australia working as a rural general practitioner with extended skills in emergency medicine and anaesthetics.