Biggest Marsden funding boost yet for Otago uni researchers
UNIVERSITY of Otago researchers are celebrating after gaining $28.5 million in the latest Marsden Fund round.
It is the university’s greatest success in this highly competitive grant process.
This year, Otago researchers were funded for 41 research projects, including $300,000 Fast Start grants for earlycareer researchers, well up on Otago’s $24 million for 33 projects last year.
Associate Prof Sian Halcrow, of the anatomy department, was yesterday ‘‘very, very happy’’ to receive $826,000, over three years, to study the ‘‘impacts of social inequality on human health in ancient China’’.
The funding would meet overall costs and support the work of associate investigator Dr Melanie Miller, Prof Halcrow said.
The study covered the period 5000BC to AD2020 and was the ‘‘first New Zealandrun bioarchaeological project in China’’.
The Otago researchers would work closely with Chinese and other international colleagues to assess health and diet in large skeletal samples.
Social inequality had ‘‘significant repercussions’’ for nearly half the world’s population who now lived in poverty, ‘‘affecting women and children most severely’’.
The overall funded Otago research was broad and varied.
Vicechancellor Harlene Hayne will receive $827,000 to investigate how judicial instructions and questions influence jurors.
The project aims to develop better processes to help juries evaluate the evidence before them, and to use that evidence to reach a just verdict.
Palaeontologist Prof Ewan Fordyce, of the geology department, received $928,000 to investigate a ‘‘global dark age’’ in whale evolution, 2320 million years ago, about which little was known.
South Island fieldwork had recovered unprepared whale fossils of the right age and investigations would be made, he said.
OTHER grants. — Prof Liz Franz, $959,000; Dr Mele Taumoepeau, also psychology, $823,000; Dr Inga Smith, $954,000, Dr Mikkel Andersen, $935,000, Dr Philip Brydon, $900,000, all physics; Prof Hallie Buckley, anatomy, Prof Peter Petchey, anthropology and archaeology, $827,000; Dr Timothy Hore, $854,000, Associate Prof Stephen Bunn, $911,000, Prof John Reynolds and Dr Louise ParrBrownlie, $959,000, Dr Laura Gumy, $938,000, all anatomy; Associate Prof Jacob Edmond, English, $568,000; Dr Tania Slatter, pathology, $786,000; Dr Karyn Paringatai, Te Tumu School of Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies, $823,000; Associate Prof Angela Wan halla, history, Dr Lachlan Paterson, Te Tumu, $746,000; Dr Wayne Stephenson, geography, $958,000; Associate Prof Boris Baeumer, mathematics and statistics, $680,000; Associate Prof Bruce Robertson, $933,000, Prof Jon Waters, $876,000, both zoology; Dr Peter Mace, biochemistry, $958,000; Dr Steven Smith, geology, $837,000; Prof Christine Winterbourn, Christchurch campus, pathology, $915,000; Associate Prof Alexander McLellan, microbiology and immunology, $960,000; Prof Michelle Glass, pharmacology and toxicology, $939,000; Prof Merata Kawharu, CSAFE, $605,000; Associate Prof Nigel Lucas, chemistry, $709,000; Prof Catherine Day, biochemistry, $935,000.
Fast Start grants, each $300,000.— Dr Khoon Lim, orthopaedic surgery & musculoskeletal medicine, Christchurch campus; Dr Sarah McKenzie, Wellington campus; Dr Christina Ergler, geography; Dr Rebecca Kinaston, Dr Michael Garratt, both anatomy; Dr Tobias Langlotz, information science; Dr Fabien Montiel, mathematics and statistics; Dr Boyang Ding, physics; Dr Soledad (Maria) PerezSantangelo, biochemistry; Dr Simon Jackson, Dr Sarah Saunderson, Dr Matthew McNeil, all microbiology and immunology.