Faculty of Science success in Marsden Fund
Ten research groups led by investigators from the Faculty of Science were awarded a total of $7.3 million in this year’s Marsden Fund grants. They join thirteen other groups from across The University of Auckland to be successful in the prestigious funding round.
Their research will address topics as diverse as how native kauri forests will respond to climate change, how the hemispheres of the brain specialise in different functions, and using statistics to better understand dark matter.
“The Marsden Fund supports the very best investigators to do world class basic research,” said Marsden Fund Council chairperson Professor Juliet Gerrard in announcing the funding results.
“It is widely accepted worldwide that the most important breakthroughs are made when the best researchers are funded to work on their most exciting ideas. This is what makes the Marsden Fund so vital for the long term success of New Zealand and makes Marsden researchers such an inspiring community."
This year the fund distributed $54.6 million to 86 research teams around the country. All of the funded proposals are for three years.
Successful projects with first-named investigators from the Faculty of Science are (in alphabetical order):
Dr Addis
School of Psychology
The imaginative brain: Neural networks supporting flexible future thinking
$780,000
Dr Brewer
Department of Statistics
Answering the hard questions: Massive Bayesian inference in astrophysics
$345,000
Professor Corballis
School of Psychology
Brain asymmetries for gesture and speech
$760,000
Dr Hay
School of Biological Sciences
Unlocking the untapped therapeutic potential of peptide receptors to combat diabetes, obesity and heart disease
$910,000
Dr Hunt
School of Psychology
The genetics of complex cognition
$920,000
Dr Kingston
School of Biological Sciences,
Tracing the footsteps of a viral polymerase
$975,000
Dr Leemans
Department of Mathematics
Highly symmetric polytopes
$580,000
Professor Lumley
Department of Statistics
Statistical methods for complex samples
$700,000
Dr Macinnis-Ng
School of Environment
Ready for climate change? The ecophysiology of New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis) forests
$345,000
Assoc Prof Metcalf
School of Biological Sciences
Towards atomic resolution biological imaging using free electron X-ray laser radiation - the granulovirus connection
$970,000
