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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: Subduction's slippery slope: how fluid flow controls fault behaviour on the subduction interface

Recipient(s): Dr SA Henrys | PI | GNS Science
Dr RE Bell | AI | GNS Science
Dr N Kukowski | AI | GeoForschungsZentrum
Professor M Simons | AI | Caltech
Dr CA Williams | AI | GNS Science

Public Summary: Crucial for seismic hazard assessment is an improved understanding of how shallow portions of subduction plate interfaces change from weak and aseismic behaviour to stronger, seismic behaviour. However, the physical factors that control this transition are still a mystery. We test the hypothesis that variations in fluid pressure control the behaviour of the plate interface beneath the North Island, using detailed seismic images and numerical models. Our results will be compared to geodetic measurements and patterns of seismicity to improve knowledge of how fluid flow controls seismic behaviour and help define the potential for large earthquakes in New Zealand.

Total Awarded: $849,778

Duration: 3

Host: GNS Science

Contact Person: Dr SA Henrys

Panel: ESA

Project ID: 09-GNS-018


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2017

Title: Subgraph Matching: Theory and Practice

Recipient(s): Dr M Qiao | PI | Massey University Manawatu

Public Summary: Graphs are ubiquitous in computer science and any field that describes the relationships between objects. A classic and important graph problem, subgraph matching, is confronting new challenges arising from higher graph analysis demands in the big data era. This project explores the theoretical limitations and best practices of subgraph matching when the dataset size exceeds the memory limit. The theoretical study will match the upper and lower bounds with provably optimal solutions, while the empirical study will explore novel approaches to finding efficient solutions. Its success will enrich the knowledge and benefit the huge number of practitioners in graph analysis.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University Manawatu

Contact Person: Dr M Qiao

Panel: MIS

Project ID: 17-MAU-104


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2015

Title: Super-volcanic flows: are they just all hot air?

Recipient(s): Dr G Lube | PI | Massey University
Professor SJ Cronin | PI | The University of Auckland
Associate Professor JD Dufek | AI | Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr O Roche | AI | Universite Blaise Pascal
Dr T Esposti Ongaro | AI | Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vuncanologia
Professor GA Valentine | AI | State University of New York
Professor JR Jones | AI | Massey University

Public Summary: Pyroclastic flows are amongst the most destructive phenomena on Earth. They can leap tall buildings, run faster than speeding trains, plus lift-off and fly! But why are they so powerful? Is it their extreme heat and especially the energy and compressibility of the hot air inside them?

We will answer this long-standing quest through synthesizing the natural conditions of hot pyroclastic flows in large-scale experiments. At the NZ eruption simulator PELE we will conduct the most ambitious volcanic flow experiments ever conceived - at up to 400 degrees Celsius! With 6 tonnes of hot pumice in motion, we will systematically compare and measure inside hot and cold pyroclastic flows under a variety of naturally occurring flow regimes. This will test if and under what conditions heat has a leading control on flow velocity, runout and destruction potential.

Unmeasurable in real-world flows, the fundamental thermodynamic effects on pyroclastic flow behaviour remain largely undiscovered. Our eruption simulations will elucidate the interplay between the causative thermodynamics and momentum transport that cushions and accelerates these currents. This will be used to develop robust constitutive relationships that can advance the world's best computational flow models toward minimising the lethal threat of these volcanic super-hazards.

Total Awarded: $745,000

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University

Contact Person: Dr G Lube

Panel: ESA

Project ID: 15-MAU-085


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2017

Title: Supercharging electromagnetism: Tuneable magnetoelectricity in unconventional materials

Recipient(s): Professor UOP Zuelicke | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Professor M Governale | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Professor R Winkler | AI | Northern Illinois University

Public Summary: From the light switch to the laser, applications of electromagnetism are ubiquitous in our lives. The basic physical laws behind them have been neatly formalised in Maxwell's electrodynamic theory, which embodies the well-known facts that electric charges create electric fields, but no magnetic charges exist, so magnetic fields come about only through currents. But this turns out not to be the full story. So-called magnetoelectric materials have been found where electromagnetism is rather strange, and actually much more versatile: electric charges become magnetic without moving, and currents give rise to electric fields. Scientists are eager to understand more about the basic mechanisms that make such magnetoelectricity possible. A better grasp of magnetoelectric phenomena could also lead to very useful applications. In particular, the ability to make materials magnetic at room temperature by applying electric fields would significantly boost possibilities for future microelectronics technologies. It was thus very exciting for us to recently discover that an electrically tuneable version of magnetoelectric behaviour should be exhibited in two-atom-thick sheets of carbon; a material called bilayer graphene. In our planned research, we will investigate the origin and properties of the unusual magnetoelectric type of electromagnetism in bilayer graphene and similar atomically thin materials.

Total Awarded: $905,000

Duration: 3

Host: Victoria University of Wellington

Contact Person: Professor UOP Zuelicke

Panel: PCB

Project ID: 17-VUW-083


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2011

Title: Superspreading and supershedding: integrating contrasting hypotheses for infectious disease transmission, emergence and persistence

Recipient(s): Dr DM Tompkins | PI | Landcare Research
Dr BM Buddle | AI | AgResearch
Prof NP French | AI | Massey University

Public Summary: Managing infectious disease impacts on public, wildlife and agricultural health requires an understanding of their fundamental dynamics, with effects of individual heterogeneity on disease spread and persistence being key considerations. For example, analyses of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) cases indicate that the great majority were barely infectious but a small proportion was highly infectious, while the high variability in transmissibility of foot and mouth disease (FMD) virus makes epidemics difficult to predict. For many infectious agents, either ‘superspreaders’ (highly social individuals) or ‘supershedders’ (highly infectious individuals) are identified as drivers of disease outbreaks, with one concept or the other often exclusively used for the basis of disease management. However, real world scenarios likely involve both mechanisms, and failure to consider the potential additive and interactive effects of these mechanisms is a fundamental oversight. For example, if superspreaders are also supershedders, management strategies could underestimate the effort required to successfully control outbreaks. We aim to provide the first proof for such effects, using bovine tuberculosis (Tb) in wild brushtail possums as a uniquely powerful model system. In doing so, this project will provide a fundamental science advance essential for understanding disease dynamics, and successfully preventing disease emergence, spread and persistence.

Total Awarded: $765,217

Duration: 3

Host: Landcare Research

Contact Person: Dr DM Tompkins

Panel: EEB

Project ID: 11-LCR-004


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2011

Title: Surface Enhanced Raman (SERS) microscopy in the Kretschmann configuration

Recipient(s): Prof PG Etchegoin | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr EC Le Ru | AI | Victoria University of Wellington

Public Summary: We will explore new frontiers in microscopy by combining Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) microscopy with Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) spectroscopy. In particular, we have the very ambitious aim of using SERS to detect single molecules on flat metallic surfaces (where conditions can be easily tailored and predicted theoretically). Detecting single molecules on flat surfaces with SERS, in a new type of microscopy (which includes SPR), will open new horizons in optical spectroscopy for both applied and fundamental studies. Furthermore, we will use some of the intermediate steps in the optimisation of this technique to study the dynamics of the binding of molecules on metal surfaces from liquid phases. The dynamics has typically a very complex behaviour, with SERS and SPR revealing different aspects of it while charged layers are established on the surface. The binding dynamics is actually at the heart of many basic practical applications in biological spectroscopy. We believe that the combination of two ultra-sensitive laser spectroscopy techniques in the same tailor-made framework will provide a new insight into aspects of physical chemistry and surface interactions (of both biomolecules and dyes) that have not been yet observed with conventional techniques on their own.

Total Awarded: $721,739

Duration: 3

Host: Victoria University of Wellington

Contact Person: Prof PG Etchegoin

Panel: PCB

Project ID: 11-VUW-054


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2015

Title: Surprisingly slow dynamics in calcium models: where are the slow time scales?

Recipient(s): Professor J Sneyd | PI | The University of Auckland
Associate Professor VJ Kirk | PI | The University of Auckland
Associate Professor M Wechselberger | AI | University of Sydney
Professor HM Osinga | AI | The University of Auckland

Public Summary: The nonlinear dynamics of calcium is vitally important for a range of physiological processes. Over the past 15 years we have built a major international research team in this area, and have made significant contributions to the study of such physiological processes as saliva secretion, neuronal firing, and smooth muscle contraction. We now propose to study recent experimental results that suggest that new, slow time scales can emerge from the interaction of faster cellular processes. These recent results are potentially highly significant, and will require the development of new mathematical techniques before they can be properly understood.

Total Awarded: $550,000

Duration: 3

Host: The University of Auckland

Contact Person: Professor J Sneyd

Panel: MIS

Project ID: 15-UOA-184


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2012

Title: Surviving in the Eocene ocean: the unbearable warmness of being

Recipient(s): Dr CJ Hollis | PI | GNS Science
Dr C Agnini | AI | University of Padova
Dr G Cortese | AI | GNS Science
Prof GR Dickens | AI | Rice University
Assoc Prof M Huber | AI | Purdue University
Dr SI Kamikuri | AI | Kochi University
Dr DK Kulhanek | AI | GNS Science
Mr HEG Morgans | AI | GNS Science
Dr BS Wade | AI | University of Leeds
Prof JC Zachos | AI | University of California, Santa Cruz

Public Summary: During episodes of extreme global warming in the Eocene (56 to 34 million years ago), the polar oceans are thought to have become as warm as the tropics are today. If this is true, the oceans must have become unbearably warm for those organisms living at the limits of their tolerance in both tropical and polar waters. The Eocene was the last time that the Earth experienced a truly greenhouse climate with atmospheric CO2 levels >1000 ppmv. It is thus a critical interval for understanding the influence of extreme warmth on the oceans and predicting how physical and biological systems will respond to future global warming.
We will investigate how cool-water species that thrived in the late Paleocene ocean (~60 million years ago) responded to episodes of global warmth in the early Eocene. Our aim is to determine if trends in species turnover and geographic distribution for Paleogene marine plankton are consistent with evidence for extreme polar warmth during the early Eocene.
Potential advances in knowledge stemming from our research include: resolving the current high latitude proxy-model mismatch for greenhouse climate states; identifying the impact of extreme global warming on high-latitude marine organisms; and developing new fossil-based tools for Paleogene climate reconstruction.

Total Awarded: $834,783

Duration: 3

Host: GNS Science

Contact Person: Dr CJ Hollis

Panel: ESA

Project ID: 12-GNS-001


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2009

Title: Sustainability at the cross roads: examining the vulnerability of New Zealand's global environmental positioning

Recipient(s): Professor JP Roper | PI | University of Waikato
Professor G Cheney | AI | University of Utah
Dr E Collins | AI | University of Waikato
Professor MS Stohl | AI | University of California, Santa Barbara

Public Summary: New Zealand's 'clean, green' image is invaluable. With global environmental concerns, especially about climate change, challenging NZ's agricultural and tourism industries in terms of 'food and air miles', it is increasingly vital that NZ's commitment to sustainability has substance. However, in the face of economic recession, environmental sustainability policy could be sidelined for short-term economic priorities, leaving NZ's environmental position increasingly vulnerable. Through analysis of surveys, interviews, policy documents, national and international print media commentaries on NZ's positioning nationally and internationally, this research critically assesses and compares NZ priorities and vulnerabilities in policy formation with those of its international markets.

Total Awarded: $687,111

Duration: 3

Host: University of Waikato

Contact Person: Professor JP Roper

Panel: SOC

Project ID: 09-UOW-036


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2009

Title: Sustainable citizenship: transforming public engagement on new and emerging technologies

Recipient(s): Associate Professor P Kurian | PI | University of Waikato
Dr D Munshi | PI | University of Waikato
Professor RV Bartlett | AI | University of Vermont
Professor L Kathlene | AI | Colorado State University

Public Summary: This research will execute the first empirical study of sustainable citizenship by getting diverse publics to deliberate on the contentious issue of new and emerging technologies. It will conceptualise ways in which an innovative framing of citizenship--interweaving ecological, economic, social, cultural, and political concerns--can be used to build a robust policy on new technologies. A multi-method approach, using discourse analysis, Q-sort surveys and a policy jury, will facilitate the research-led deliberations. The findings will transform scholarship on citizenship and provide a policy design to implement an equitable policy on new technologies vital to 21st century NZ.

Total Awarded: $496,889

Duration: 3

Host: University of Waikato

Contact Person: Associate Professor P Kurian

Panel: SOC

Project ID: 09-UOW-041


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