Dear Members, Supporters and Visitors
All to quickly we are at the halfway point of the year. It has been a busy start to the year with an in-principle MoU agreed between the MSA and the NCSLI, and an application submitted for the MSA to represent Australasia on the General Council of IMEKO. MSA was a key sponsor of NATA’s Accreditation Matters conference in early July. See below for more details!
In this newsletter:
- Vale Graham Smith
- NATA Accreditation Matters Conference
- NZ MSA Emerging Metrologist of the Year award
- Superstars of STEM
- IMEKO and NCSLI membership
- Metrology Lab skills training
- Laboratory Credit Union supports MSA members
- STRIPE payment option for membership payments
Tony Bergen
MSA President
Vale Graham Smith
It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the recent sudden passing of Graham Smith from Abstec Calibrations, Adelaide. Graham was a long time MSA member and supporter, being a regular attendee of MSA conferences. He was also very active on NATA’s Calibration Accreditation Advisory Committee. Graham’s depth of knowledge, friendly demeanour, love of good quality red wine, and sharp wit will be sorely missed.
NATA Accreditation Matters Conference
NATA’s annual Accreditation Matters Conference was held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on July 7th and 8th. The MSA was proud to be the Celebration Dinner sponsor, and MSA President Tony Bergen gave a short speech about metrology and the MSA to the dinner attendees on the night of the 7th. The following day, Tony also gave a presentation “Finding the Metre: The Foundations of Modern Metrology”, and MSA Committee member Jane Warne gave a presentation “Measuring Across Centuries: Why Accreditation Anchors Climate Data”.
MSA NZ Emerging Metrologist Award
The NZ Branch of the MSA awarded Jasher Simmons from Dalton Electrical Ltd the 2026 Emerging Metrologist Award at the NZ World Metrology Day event in May. It was a full room representing a broad cross section from the metrology community at the event hosted by the Measurement Standards Laboratory in Lower Hutt on Friday 22 May. In judging, Jasher stood out for his achievements in setting up a instrumentation and calibration facility, writing technical procedures and uncertainty budgets, gaining ISO17025 accreditation and KTP status in the space of 5 years, when he had no formal training or prior knowledge of metrology concepts.
Click below to learn more about Jasher and past winners.
Superstars of STEM
Science and Technology Australia has a Superstars of STEM programme, which advances gender equity in science, technology, engineering and maths. Superstars receive advanced communications training to build a strong media and public profile, be a role model for the next generations and supercharge their career. Applications for the next intake of Superstars of STEM are open from 20 July to 20 August.
More information can be found at https://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/what-we-do/superstars-of-stem/applicant-info
IMEKO and NCSLI membership
The MSA Committee is committed to promoting metrology within Australasia and raising the profile of Australasian metrologists within the broader global metrology community.
We have recently agreed in principle to a Memorandum of Understanding with the NCSLI (National Conference of Standards Laboratories International), a USA-based global, non-profit organization that focuses on metrology. We expect that this MoU will be signed soon, and will facilitate sharing of ideas and promotion of events between our two organisations.
We are also seeking for the MSA to represent Australasia on the General Council of IMEKO (International Measurement Confederation), a Europe-based global network of scientific and engineering groups that work together to advance measurement technology. The 2026 General Council Meeting will be held in Bangkok on 25th August, and they will consider our application in that meeting.
Amongst other things, membership of IMEKO will enable the MSA to appoint experts to IMEKO’s Technical Committees (TCs). The TCs organize symposia, conferences, workshops and seminars on specific topics and publish proceedings of events, text-books, glossaries, studies, etc.
We hope to announce news regarding these activities in due course.
Metrology Skills Training
The MSA is pleased to endorse two training organisations offering applied metrology and laboratory training.
Chisholm Institute (Dandenong Victoria) is offering a free micro-credential in Applied Inspection and Metrology through the Victorian Governments Skills Solutions Partnerships program. This micro-credential has been designed with support from our industry partners and is specifically designed for the engineering and manufacturing industry. This micro-credential is being delivered by Chisholm free of charge.
Real World Education is offering Metrology skills training to support Lab staff on-the-job development. There are a number of different micro-credential options depending on the background or desired career outcomes. These are free of charge to NZ based students.
Laboratories Credit Union
MSA members can receive special benefits for term deposits and loans from the Laboratories Credit Union (LCU). For details please see the attached flyer. The MSA notes that the offers are general in nature and you should always take your personal circumstances into account and review all terms and conditions.
STRIPE added as a Membership payment option
MSA members can now choose STRIPE as a payment option for membership renewal and new payments. This gives us an alternative to PayPal and reduces our fees.
Members with auto renewals selected in their Membership Account settings will continue to use paypal as per the agreement statement when setup. If members wish to change to Stripe and save money for the MSA they can disable the auto renewals and process a single MSA member fee manually using the website payment checkout and then change their account settings back to auto-renew with new agreement via Stripe for future transactions.
