UC awarded record number of Marsden contracts
Published by Communications and Development
8 October 2009
University of Canterbury researchers have been awarded more than $7 million in funding in this year’s Marsden Fund round.
The awards are government funded and are administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand on behalf of the Marsden Fund Council.
Canterbury University has received grants for 15 research projects totalling $7,287,000. It is the most contracts awarded to the University in a single Marsden round.
Mathematics and Statistics is celebrating Marsden funding for two major projects being led from the department which aim to further unravel the web of life.
Associate Professor Charles Semple and Professor Mike Steel will receive $576,000 funding over three years to use state-of-the-art mathematical techniques to unravel complex ancestry.
Their research, which replaces the traditional mathematical approach of an evolutionary tree with an entwined graph (web), will enable scientists to quantify the extent of horizontal gene transfer in the evolution of a species. It will help develop new theories whereby networks can accurately represent evolution and finally, it should also provide an easier means of determining how far into the past a population history can reliably be constructed.
Their colleague, Dr James Degnan, is also working to fathom this sophisticated model. He has been awarded a $282,000 Fast-Start grant (over three years) to use primarily statistical techniques to analyse the conflicting evidence that genes give us about relationships between species.
Dr Ishwaree Neupane (Physics and Astronomy) is also a Fast-Start grant recipient. He will receive $300,000 over the next three years to throw light onto dark matter.
His project will investigate ways to extend the standard model of particle physics and cosmology to accommodate the mysterious dark sector: dark energy and dark matter, which together make up about 95 per cent of the Universe’s total mass.
Other UC principal investigators awarded funding are: Professor Jack Heinemann (Biological Sciences), Dr Frederick Grant Pearce (Biological Sciences), Dr Arvind Varsani (Biological Sciences) Dr Ben Kennedy (Geological Sciences), Dr Mark Quigley (Geological Sciences), Associate Professor Michael Reid (Physics and Astronomy), Dr Jenni Adams (Physics and Astronomy), Associate Professor Steven Durbin (Electrical and Computer Engineering), Associate Professor Antony Fairbanks (Chemistry), Associate Professor Paul Kruger (Chemistry), Dr Richard Vokes (Social and Political Sciences) and Dr Brigid McNeill (Literacies and Arts in Education).
Professor Markus Milne (Accounting and Information Systems) and Professor Eric Pawson (Geography) are also involved in externally-led projects awarded funding in this round.
For further information please contact:
Maria De Cort
Communications Officer
University of Canterbury
Ph: +64 3 364 2072
maria.decort@canterbury.ac.nz