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Search Marsden awards 2008–2017

Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017

Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2009

Title: Exceptionally ductile magnesium alloys

Recipient(s): Professor W Gao | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr MA Hodgson | AI | The University of Auckland
Professor MP Taylor | AI | The University of Auckland

Public Summary: Magnesium is much lighter than any other metals used in industry, but the brittleness severely limiting its development. We accidentally discovered a new Mg alloy system that has ductility of 3-6 times better than most Mg alloys, which has attracted substantial interest from scientific and industrial communities because ductility has been the subject of many unsuccessful investigations in the past. This project is to study (1) how small alloying additions can totally change Mg alloy microstructure, (2) what is the plastic deformation mechanisms, and (3) how we can use this mechanism to improve the toughness of other brittle alloys.

Total Awarded: $746,667

Duration: 3

Host: The University of Auckland

Contact Person: Professor W Gao

Panel: PSE

Project ID: 09-UOA-076


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2011

Title: Experience, rationality, and the way things seem

Recipient(s): Dr CS Tucker | PI | The University of Auckland

Public Summary: Every day we rely on experience to tell us about the world, and we suppose that we are rational for doing so. But what is the connection between experience and rationality? This is no idle query. Many people claim that they believe in God because of various religious experiences. We also believe that torturing for fun is morally wrong because it seems intuitively obvious, and this intuitive obviousness is taken to be a type of experience. Will the correct answer to this question vindicate or condemn such moral and religious belief?
In this project, I develop a simple account of the relation between experience and rationality that:
• Explains why and when it is rational to rely on experience;
• Overturns basic assumptions about experience made in epistemology (study of knowledge and rationality) and the philosophy of mind;
• Provides a single solution to variegated problems in the epistemology of introspection, perception, morality, math, and religion; and
• Shows that the evolutionary history of our moral and religious beliefs does not cast doubt on our moral and religious beliefs.

Total Awarded: $284,551

Duration: 3

Host: The University of Auckland

Contact Person: Dr CS Tucker

Panel: HUM

Project ID: 11-UOA-061


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2008

Title: Experimental philosophy and the origins of Empiricism

Recipient(s): Prof PR Anstey | PI | University of Otago
Dr RW Serjeantson | PI | Trinity College, Cambridge

Public Summary: This project will test the hypothesis that the dominant (though not the only) terms of reference by which philosophy was understood in the 17th and 18th centuries was the distinction between Speculative and Experimental philosophy. It will argue that these terms of reference provide a far richer way of partitioning early modern philosophy, and especially the knowledge of nature (natural science) and moral philosophy, than the traditional distinction between Rationalism and Empiricism. This will mark a significant advance in our understanding of 17th- and 18th-century philosophy and will provide an enhanced framework within which to generate new historical knowledge.

Total Awarded: $422,222

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Prof PR Anstey

Panel: HUM

Project ID: 08-UOO-014


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2009

Title: Exploding the pyroclastic-flow enigma with life-scalable experiments

Recipient(s): Associate Professor SJ Cronin | PI | Massey University
Professor MI Bursik | AI | State University of New York
Professor A Freundt | AI | Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Professor MH Hort | AI | University of Hamburg
Dr JR Jones | AI | Massey University
Dr G Lube | AI | Massey University
Professor GA Valentine | AI | State University of New York

Public Summary: Volcanic pyroclastic flows defy all direct and remote observation attempts; hence their internal physics remains enigmatic. Competing paradigms of their nature have evolved and are vigorously defended by researchers with independent sedimentological and numerical approaches. We will bridge this gap by conducting the first life-scalable pyroclastic-flow experiments. Our large explosive analogues will be mathematically scalable to reality and steady enough to allow geophysical measurement inside resulting moving currents. The results will define a new foundation for physics of pyroclastic flows, producing a testable physical model to close existing debate and open a path toward reliable simulation tools for hazard forecasting.

Total Awarded: $701,333

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University

Contact Person: Associate Professor SJ Cronin

Panel: ESA

Project ID: 09-MAU-111


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2017

Title: Exploiting gauge theory and duality in geometry

Recipient(s): Dr P Hekmati | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr DP Baraglia | AI | The University of Adelaide

Public Summary: Gauge theory underpins particle physics and has become a transformative force in geometry. Since the 1980s, it has furnished mathematicians with a powerful set of tools for studying the subtle properties of spaces in dimensions four and lower. It is widely believed that gauge theory will have profound implications also for higher dimensional geometries, but much work remains to be done and fundamental challenges lie ahead.

This proposal will instigate an entirely new research strand within higher dimensional gauge theory. It will utilise a variety of techniques from foliation theory to produce new geometric invariants and target challenging open problems. The proposed research will also advance the theory of the Fourier-Mukai duality, a geometric analogue of the classical Fourier transform that has witnessed a rapid progress in recent years. It will build on this momentum to significantly extend its applicability to include solutions to Einstein’s equations and topological insulators.

These areas are at the forefront of international research and have an enormous potential for generating concrete computational tools and answers to significant questions in geometry and mathematical physics.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: The University of Auckland

Contact Person: Dr P Hekmati

Panel: MIS

Project ID: 17-UOA-061


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2011

Title: Exploring an oxymoron: smoking as an 'informed choice'

Recipient(s): Prof J Hoek | PI | University of Otago
Prof R Edwards | PI | University of Otago
Dr H Gifford | AI | Whakauae Research for Maori Health and Development
Dr G Thomson | AI | University of Otago

Public Summary: Do tobacco companies’ claims that smokers' make 'informed' decisions to smoke match young adults' experiences, or is 'informed choice' an oxymoron that inhibits tobacco control? We will test ‘informed choice’ arguments by implementing a new theoretical framework to explore the circumstances of smoking onset among young adults, the group with the highest smoking prevalence. In-depth interviews will explore general, specific, actual, personal and cumulative risk understanding and how risk understanding, optimism bias, and regret evolve as smoking duration increases. A quantitative phase will use the same theoretical framework to develop measures that estimate risk awareness, knowledge, understanding, and regret. The final phase will use data from the earlier studies to develop interventions that address factors in participants’ environments impeding ‘informed choice’. We propose undertaking in-depth interviews with policy makers, service providers and commentators to test the feasibility, and likely acceptance and impact of these interventions, and will conduct focus groups with smokers to evaluate their views and likely responses. The findings will provide the first insights into how those at greatest risk understand the 'informed choice' they are assumed to make. They will also suggest how the discrepancies between young adults’ risk understanding, environment and behaviour might be ameliorated.

Total Awarded: $534,783

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Prof J Hoek

Panel: SOC

Project ID: 11-UOO-134


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2014

Title: Exploring Maori legal traditions

Recipient(s): Dr CH Jones | PI | Victoria University of Wellington

Public Summary: The state legal system recognises some aspects of tikanga Maori as customary law. In recent years, there has been a growing recognition by legal academics and practitioners that Maori law is not limited to those practices that the state legal system incorporates. Maori legal traditions exist as part of a distinct Maori legal system. This project aims to build on that foundation but also represents an important shift from the existing literature. The objective is to develop an internal perspective of Maori law, exploring the overarching framework by interrogating specific instances and practices of Maori law-making and dispute resolution.

This project seeks to understand Maori legal traditions on their own terms, rather than through the lens of the state legal system and will focus on identifying Maori legal reasoning from within traditional Maori stories. The project will develop a case-analysis framework that is specifically tailored to Maori legal traditions. This project has the potential to radically increase the accessibility of Maori law in a way that not only empowers Maori communities but also enables the state legal system to engage with Maori legal issues with a significantly greater degree of sophistication than is currently the case.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: Victoria University of Wellington

Contact Person: Dr CH Jones

Panel: HUM

Project ID: 14-VUW-025


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2016

Title: Exploring Māori Social Justice Concepts

Recipient(s): Dr KPM Watene | PI | Massey University

Public Summary: What makes society just? Plato’s answers tend to be thought of as fundamentally part of our philosophical heritage: he provides a framework for discussion which we generally accept as the precursor to our modern society. But what would Plato’s Republic have sounded like if Plato had been Māori? What if Plato himself had taken ideas that are basic to Māori society as his starting point? What kind of approach to social justice would we have inherited?

This project provides the philosophical research required to articulate an approach to social justice grounded in Māori concepts. In so doing, this project breaks new ground in two important ways: firstly, it introduces the first Māori approach to social justice into mainstream justice theorising; secondly, it brings this approach explicitly into conversation with other indigenous concepts, and western theories of justice. Each of these advances is valuable in its own right. But taken together they have the potential to create shifts in some of the foundation of contemporary political philosophy, initiating a new framework for global justice theorising.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University

Contact Person: Dr KPM Watene

Panel: HUM

Project ID: 16-MAU-034


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2011

Title: Exploring mood systems in the Oceanic languages of Vanuatu

Recipient(s): Dr JR Barbour | PI | University of Waikato
Dr B Hellwig | AI | La Trobe University

Public Summary: Every time speakers of the Neverver language of Malakula Island (Vanuatu) prepare to talk, they must make one crucial decision: 'Is the situation I am describing real or unreal?' This decision is necessary because in Neverver, real situations take different sentence forms compared to unreal ones. These different forms are known to Oceanic linguists as grammatical 'mood' forms. The project involves an exploration of grammatical mood in around two dozen Vanuatu languages including Neverver. Grammatical mood is interesting to linguists because in each mood language, the system works in a slightly different way. Thus, one important goal of the project is to establish exactly how diverse mood systems are. A second goal is to determine which characteristics of mood systems are shared among all the languages investigated. A new research method is being developed to identify both differences and patterns in the functions and distribution of mood forms. Expanding on existing grammatical accounts of Vanuatu languages, fieldwork in Vanuatu will facilitate the collection of context-rich natural language data for the project. Findings will help us to understand better the complexities of these unique languages, and will shed light on the phenomenon where it occurs elsewhere in the world.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: University of Waikato

Contact Person: Dr JR Barbour

Panel: HUM

Project ID: 11-UOW-007


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2010

Title: Exploring the Alpine Fault Zone: Localisation of deformation at depth

Recipient(s): Dr JD Eccles | PI | The University of Auckland
Prof YG Li | AI | University of Southern California

Public Summary: New Zealand's transpressional plate boundary, the Alpine Fault, represents a major earthquake hazard. Establishing its structure is critical to understanding of strain localisation processes at depth in this, and other, crustal-scale faults as the hanging wall uplift permits both the shallow and deep fault processes to be studied. Our project contributes unique seismic data and interpretations to these collaborative studies.

The highly anisotropic Alpine Fault zone will be systematically modelled from the centimetre to kilometre scale using (1) geophysical well logs integrated with the results of core analyses, (2) an active-source, walk-away Vertical Seismic Profiling (VSP) experiment and (3) observations of Fault Zone Guided Waves (FZGW) generated from both active sources and natural seismicity. FZGW propagate along the fault’s low-velocity damage zone and provide high-resolution seismic illumination of the fault zone. Borehole-based recording of these phases through the installation of an array of seismometers into the fault zone will piggy-back off of geological-drilling scheduled for early 2011. The spatial development of brittle deformation will be numerically modelled and seismicity occurring on the main fault and secondary structures differentiated. The influence of the highly anisotropic, ductilely-deformed, rock in the hanging wall on FZGW propagation will also be explored.

Total Awarded: $260,870

Duration: 3

Host: The University of Auckland

Contact Person: Dr JD Eccles

Panel: ESA

Project ID: 10-UOA-155


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