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Search Marsden awards 2008–2017

Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017

Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2011

Title: Geomagnetic calendars: biological regulation at the planetary level

Recipient(s): Dr JM Steyaert | AI | Lincoln University
Dr T Hurst | AI | GNS Science
Prof A Stewart | AI | Lincoln University
Dr M Templeton | AI | The New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Limited
Prof L Varecka | AI | Slovak University of Technology
Dr RJ Weld | PI | Lincoln Ventures Limited

Public Summary: Fungal reproduction exhibits seasonal variation in response to daylength, temperature and humidity
cues, however seasonal changes in the absence of these cues have also been reported - so just how do sensory deprived fungi tell what time of year it is? A seasonal change not normally controlled for in laboratory experiments is the daily variation in the geomagnetic field. This daily variation is produced by the sun and is much stronger in Summer than in Winter. All organisms on Earth are sensitive to magnetic fields and geomagnetic fields have been shown to influence biological rhythms. We propose a novel hypothesis: Fungi use the natural seasonal variation in the Earth's geomagnetic field to sense the time of year. We will explore our hypothesis by asking four key questions: What extent does the season and hemisphere influence reproduction? What is the range of Trichoderma's magneto-response? Can Trichoderma sense the seasonal variation in the Earth's field? How does Trichoderma perceive magnetic fields?

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: Lincoln University

Contact Person: Dr JM Steyaert

Panel: CMP

Project ID: 11-LIU-001


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2010

Title: Geometric invariant theory, complete reducibility and spherical buildings

Recipient(s): Dr B Martin | PI | University of Canterbury
Dr ME Bate | PI | University of York
Prof GE Roehrle | PI | Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum

Public Summary: Group theory is the branch of mathematics that deals with symmetry: whenever symmetry appears in a problem, there is usually a group involved. A group is a set of symmetries which is closed under certain natural operations. We will investigate geometric objects called spherical buildings. These are highly symmetric spaces on which many groups can act; studying the geometry of spherical buildings yields information about these groups. We will tackle a long-standing open problem called the Centre Conjecture, which concerns fixed points of symmetries of spherical buildings.

Spherical buildings admit actions by reductive groups, which are certain groups of matrices. We will apply ideas from geometry, algebra and the theory of reductive groups to probe the structure of these spherical buildings. This research will have applications to two other branches of mathematics—geometric invariant theory and the theory of complete reducibility—which in turn will lead us to a better understanding of reductive groups and their properties.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: University of Canterbury

Contact Person: Dr B Martin

Panel: MIS

Project ID: 10-UOC-007


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2014

Title: Geometric numerical integration: new structures and applications

Recipient(s): Professor RI McLachlan | PI | Massey University
Professor GRW Quispel | PI | La Trobe University
Dr O Verdier | AI | Umea University
Dr K Modin | AI | Chalmers University of Technology

Public Summary: Geometric integration is a novel approach to simulation, a key enabling technology. It is being used to study areas as diverse as the origin of the ice ages, the structure of large molecules, quantum mechanics, particle accelerators, nanotechnology, and weather forecasting. These systems all have underlying geometric structures that influence the phenomena they generate. In geometric integration these properties are built into the computational methods, making them faster, more reliable, and often simpler than traditional approaches. The project will explore these geometric structures and study the design and performance of such novel computational methods.

Many numerical methods involve 'Butcher series', named in honour of New Zealand mathematician John Butcher. Our project will determine exactly which geometric properties can or cannot be preserved by Butcher series, and exactly which numerical methods do in fact have a Butcher series. We will also develop methods for partial differential equations (such as those describing waves and those that arise in computer vision and image processing) that deliver the same good performance that geometric integrators have demonstrated for ordinary differential equations.

Total Awarded: $440,000

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University

Contact Person: Professor RI McLachlan

Panel: MIS

Project ID: 14-MAU-101


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2016

Title: Geometric structures critical for analysis and physical theories

Recipient(s): Professor AR Gover | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor A Cap | AI | University of Vienna
Professor MG Eastwood | AI | University of Adelaide
Professor AK Waldron | AI | University of California, Davis

Public Summary: This is a fundamental research project concerning continuously varying geometries and their role in mathematics, physics, and neighbouring sciences. It extends powerful recent advances that show how important geometries can be usefully understood as arising from components that are, in a suitable sense, simpler and less rigid but which encode hidden structure.

A key theme is the role of these ideas in treating the natural equations that govern structures in mathematics and science. Such natural (or geometric) equations are those with coefficients that are determined by the geometry of the space on which they are defined.

The project is strongly motivated by important problems in geometric analysis, representation theory, and fundamental physics. Results will be used to solve these problems, and will be achieved by intensive international collaboration with world leading experts. Existing strong links with top international research groups will be extended in the project. Top researchers will be brought to New Zealand to share applicable new knowledge and techniques with local researchers, including graduate students.

Total Awarded: $525,000

Duration: 3

Host: The University of Auckland

Contact Person: Professor AR Gover

Panel: MIS

Project ID: 16-UOA-051


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2014

Title: Getting inside the earthquake machine: fine-scale imaging of the Alpine Fault zone

Recipient(s): Dr L Adam | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor DR Faulkner | AI | University of Liverpool
Dr VG Toy | AI | University of Otago

Public Summary: The Alpine Fault produces large earthquakes on average every 330 years, with its last rupture in 1717 AD. Studying a major fault this late in its cycle of stress accumulation is a unique opportunity to understand the subsurface conditions ahead of an anticipated large earthquake. The Deep Fault Drilling Project (DFDP) is an international research endeavour focusing on the structure, ambient conditions, and evolution of the central Alpine Fault via scientific drilling and multidisciplinary research. As such, the DFDP is working towards understanding how micro- and macro-scale rock properties affect large-scale rupture processes and the evolution of an earthquake cycle at upper- and mid-crustal depths. Although geophysical imaging has been successful at qualitatively mapping the Alpine Fault at large scales, we propose to fill the need to quantitatively interpret these signatures in terms of rock microstructure, geochemistry and fluid pressure-modulated processes occurring at the grain- and fracture-scale. This work will help decipher the dynamics of earthquake rupture. We have forged a multidisciplinary team to obtain quantitative insight into fault zone architecture and to examine how processes occurring within the fault zone control Alpine Fault earthquakes, by making systematic measurements of the microstructure and geophysical rock properties with novel laboratory techniques.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: The University of Auckland

Contact Person: Dr L Adam

Panel: ESA

Project ID: 14-UOA-028


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2013

Title: Global ocean anoxia during ancient 'greenhouse' climates: prospects for a warming world

Recipient(s): Dr CH Stirling | PI | University of Otago
Associate Professor JS Crampton | AI | GNS Science
Professor H Jenkyns | AI | University of Oxford
Dr CM Moy | AI | University of Otago
Dr D Porcelli | AI | University of Oxford

Public Summary: Today, the world's oceans are generally oxygenated, but there have been times in the past when warm, 'super-greenhouse' climates prevailed and vast expanses of the oceans were devoid of oxygen. These so-called 'ocean anoxic events' caused immense chemical change in the oceans and devastated Earth's ecosystems for up to half a million years at a time. We will use variations in the isotope composition of uranium, a trace element affected by anoxia that is emerging as a powerful new palaeo-redox tracer, in conjunction with other trace element isotope systems, to reconstruct the timing, duration and extent of anoxia across known anoxic events of the Mesozoic Ocean. Importantly, we will quantify the degree to which oxygen depletion extended from the deep ocean into the shallow photic zone, which currently remains uncertain. These high-resolution records will constrain the mechanisms leading to extreme oxygen deprivation in the oceans, and in turn, will have a direct bearing on predicting future climate-change impacts over the coming decades, given the rapid expansion of anoxic waters that has occurred in recent years due to global warming.

Total Awarded: $739,130

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Dr CH Stirling

Panel: ESA

Project ID: 13-UOO-169


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2013

Title: Global romantics: how the Porter family changed nineteenth-century art and literature

Recipient(s): Dr TE McLean | PI | University of Otago

Public Summary: Recent research in the British Romantic era has called attention to the importance of families, religious communities, and social networks in the creation of cultural works. However, few scholars have examined the lives and works of nineteenth-century British novelists Jane and Anna Maria Porter and their brother, the artist and traveller Robert Ker Porter. Yet their works influenced and altered some of the major literary and artistic movements of their era, and their lives offer fascinating, new perspectives on a remarkable range of fields. The Porters' story explores the challenges faced by women in the literary marketplace, and the global network of friends and family women writers utilised to further their careers. But it also extends our knowledge of Romantic-era archaeology, museum development, and the links between art, literature, and politics. Thousands of unpublished Porter family letters survive in US and UK collections, and these provide a unique opportunity to study both the public and private expressions of a British family with connections to five continents. A critical study of the Porter family will offer new information on the historical novel, women authors, cosmopolitanism, and the nineteenth-century family as a global, creative network.

Total Awarded: $391,304

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Dr TE McLean

Panel: HUM

Project ID: 13-UOO-167


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2009

Title: Global simulation of gravitational waves from isolated systems

Recipient(s): Professor J Frauendiener | PI | University of Otago

Public Summary: The search for gravitational waves requires accurate numerical simulations of the relevant astrophysical processes. The computation of emitted wave-forms is a global problem, which cannot be solved with standard methods without introducing artificial errors. We propose to use sophisticated methods from conformal geometry, by which unnecessary errors are avoided and long-term behaviour can be studied on finite computational domains. As a first application we want to simulate the long-time behaviour of a black-hole, distorted by impinging gravitational waves and check whether the final state is a Kerr black-hole, as conjectured. This proposal will bring gravitational wave research to New Zealand.

Total Awarded: $786,667

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Professor J Frauendiener

Panel: PSE

Project ID: 09-UOO-003


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2009

Title: Glycosylation with endohexosaminidases: synthetic access to defined homogenous glycopeptides and glycoproteins

Recipient(s): Associate Professor AF Fairbanks | PI | University of Canterbury

Public Summary: Glycoproteins are unavailable in homogeneous form, impairing studies of the effect of glycosylation on protein function, and meaning that current glycoprotein therapeutics are administered as mixtures of compounds, a proportion of which may have undesired biological effects. Synthesis of N-glycan oligosaccharides will be undertaken, and these used with wildtype and mutant endohexosaminidase enzymes to synthesize defined homogeneous glycopeptides and glycoproteins. Cloning, expression and site directed mutagenesis of enzymes will produce better irreversible catalysts. Development of key enabling synthetic methodology will allow future study of the effects of glycosylation on function and allow access to novel defined homogeneous glycopeptides and glycoproteins.

Total Awarded: $750,222

Duration: 3

Host: University of Canterbury

Contact Person: Associate Professor AF Fairbanks

Panel: PSE

Project ID: 09-UOC-102


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2017

Title: Going straight home? The role of stable housing in reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners

Recipient(s): Dr AL Mills | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr SAM Groot | AI | The University of Auckland
Professor MJ Halsey | AI | Flinders University
Dr BJ Milne | AI | The University of Auckland

Public Summary: Existing international research has suggested that stable housing can reduce re-offending by ex-prisoners. However, research on this relationship in New Zealand is lacking and internationally little is known about how and why stable housing can help to reduce recidivism. Does it create strong social capital or facilitate community integration, particularly if provided by family members? Does stable housing represent a ‘home’ around which pro-social identities are constructed?

Utilising a mixed methods approach, this research will explore the potential role of stable housing in turning ex-prisoners away from crime. It will follow up a cohort of ex-prisoners, and will use short pre-and post-release interviews and statistical analysis to ascertain the relationship between stable accommodation and recidivism in New Zealand. Longer life history interviews with a subsample of this cohort will examine how stable housing can constrain or enable ex-prisoners' choices to desist from further criminal activity. By examining the influence of housing and conceptions of ‘home’ alongside structural factors and impact of colonization, this study will substantially advance global knowledge in this area by ensuring it has greater resonance for Māori. It will also contribute to the development of improved policy and practice around prisoner reintegration.

Total Awarded: $845,000

Duration: 3

Host: The University of Auckland

Contact Person: Dr AL Mills

Panel: SOC

Project ID: 17-UOA-192


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