astronomy

Mary-Louise McLaws

Mary-Louise McLaws is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mary-Louise McLaws rather than just read about it. In short: Mary-Louise McLaws (née Viney; 17 March 1953 – 12 August 2023) was an Australian epidemiologist. Specialising in infectious diseases, she was a professor of epidemiology at the University of New South Wales for over 30 years.

Key takeaways

Mary-Louise McLaws belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mary-Louise McLaws to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mary-Louise McLaws from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mary-Louise McLaws (née Viney; 17 March 1953 – 12 August 2023) was an Australian epidemiologist. Specialising in infectious diseases, she was a professor of epidemiology at the University of New South Wales for over 30 years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she became a "household name" in Australia, regularly providing public information and advice on the disease.

Early life Mary-Louise McLaws was born in Tasmania on 17 March 1953, the daughter of Barry and Louise Viney. She and her elder brother spent their early years with their mother in Bondi, New South Wales, before moving to the Central Coast where she attended Gosford High School. She took the surname of her step-father Bruce McLaws. She was raised in a Jewish family. McLaws attended the University of Sydney, graduating Bachelor of Science and later completing a diploma in tropical public health in 1984, Master of Public Health in 1988 and Doctor of Philosophy in 1992.

Career McLaws joined the University of New South Wales in 1992. During her career she "wrote more than 180 research papers and supervised and supported many PhD students for decades". She specialised in hospital-acquired infections. Her early research also included a 1995 study on HIV/AIDS in Australia, which examined women who had acquired HIV from their male sexual partners. In 2004, McLaws was sent to Beijing for two months to monitor bird flu for the World Health Organization. She also consulted to Hong Kong's authorities during the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. McLaws became "widely known to the Australian public through her media appearances" during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. She was one of the first public advocates for mandatory face masks and the closure of the Australian border. She later advocated for mandatory vaccination, including the establishment of vaccination hubs to achieve herd immunity. In 2021 she was named by the Australian Financial Review as one of the ten "most culturally powerful people" in Australia during the year.

Personal life McLaws married Richard Flook in 1988, with whom she had a son and a daughter. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in January 2022, and died on 12 August 2023, at age 70.

Honours McLaws was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours, for "distinguished service to medical research, particularly to epidemiology and infection prevention, to tertiary education, and to health administration". In June 2023, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies hosted a reception in her honour at Emanuel Synagogue.

References

External links Wikidata: Q56795179 (Scholia)

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mary-Louise McLaws

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mary-Louise McLaws claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mary-Louise McLaws before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mary-Louise McLaws ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mary-Louise McLaws

In research: Mary-Louise McLaws appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mary-Louise McLaws in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mary-Louise McLaws is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1953 births, 2023 deaths, 21st-century Australian Jews, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mary-Louise McLaws outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Mary-Louise McLaws” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Mary-Louise McLaws in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mary-Louise McLaws means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mary-Louise McLaws out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mary-Louise McLaws in simple terms?

Why does Mary-Louise McLaws matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mary-Louise McLaws?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mary-Louise McLaws.