Andrew Willes completed his PhD and took up a post doctoral fellowship in Queen Mary and William College of the University of London in September. Andrew has since been awarded one of the University of Sydney's prestigious Eleanor Sophia Wood Travelling Fellowships. Stephen Hardy completed his thesis at the end of 1996 and submitted it early in 1997. Some of the 1996 research highlights are explained elsewhere in this Annual Report. I confine my comments on specific research highlights to contributions made by some of our students.
Any interpretation pushes existing models beyond what is presently considered plausible.
Our favored interpretation is in terms of scintillations due to density inhomogeneities in our Galaxy. Stephen Hardy has made major contributions to the new field of neutrino-induced plasma processes. An application to shock waves in supernova explosions that has been suggested in the literature seems not to be viable in view of Stephen's calculations. Andrew Willes made important new contributions to the theory of electron cyclotron maser emission and to plasma emission. A major highlight of the year was IAU Colloquium 160 in January, on which I commented in the 1995 Annual Report.