Search James Cook Fellowship awards 1996–2017

Public Summary: A major goal of ecologists is to understand how biodiversity is maintained in nature. Parasitic organisms living inside other animals are often ignored in biodiversity studies but they can be a source of biodiversity in two ways. First, there are more parasitic species than non-parasitic ones in natural ecosystems, such that parasites themselves account for most of the existing biodiversity. Second, parasites can drastically modify the ecology of their hosts, and even determine which host species are able to coexist in the same ecosystem. Experimental and comparative analyses will be used to investigate the roles of parasites in the maintenance of biodiversity.

Public Summary: Predators that specialise on disease vectors will be investigated, concentrating on Evarcha culicivora, a salticid spider from East Africa that specialises on blood by seeking out blood-carrying mosquitoes as prey. Special attention will be given to how the biology of this predator may be linked specifically to Anopheles, the vector of malaria. Malaria is one of the most pressing public-health problems on Earth, and finding a predator that may single out the malaria vector is unprecedented. A wider goal is research on other predators that may feed on blood indirectly by selecting disease vectors as prey.

Public Summary: When, how and why people first colonised the remote Oceanic islands, including New Zealand, is the oldest and most fundamental of archaeological issues in the Pacific. It has recently been joined by interest in the distinctive nature of colonial behaviour and the impact of it upon island environments. Much remains unknown and many current conclusions are controversial. My research investigates archaeological sites of the colonisation era (3000 to 1000 years ago), and associated environmental histories in a series of cases including Fiji, Tuvalu, Niue, New Zealand, and Norfolk Island. It aims to define the events and patterns of initial colonisation and environmental change and to infer the underlying motives and processes of early settlement in our region.

Public Summary: Software is ubiquitous in everyday life; however its shortcomings have never been more apparent. A word processor crashing when asked to save a document, an immobiliser refusing to unlock a car, and a telephone exchange refusing to connect emergency calls are all symptoms of our inability to engineer software that works correctly and reliably. This research will directly address this problem by identifying important recurring design patterns in the specification and design of software systems, and then develop tools based on ownership types to verify the software by ensuring those patterns are constructed correctly.

Public Summary: Epigenetic information and regulation are superimposed on the DNA sequence and are heritable. We aim to evaluate how this regulation affects mechanisms of implantation and parturition and whether defects in this regulation have significant impact on vulnerability to a range of diseases in later life. This information may result in the development of new approaches for prevention of diseases both in pregnancy and in adult life.

Public Summary: Typically we can model finite space and discrete objects using real numbers. The set of real numbers is of course infinite. But as we move into the world of computers, where information is represented as either zeros or ones, mathematicians need to consider finite and discrete sets of numbers. These digital systems are discrete, and not the open and infinite fields of real numbers. Matroid theory is the study of collections of discrete points and finite space. Matroids are mathematical objects that capture the essence of such discrete geometric structures. Forty years ago Gian-Carlo Rota suggested that the matroids that arise from a fixed finite set of numbers could be characterised by a finite collection of “forbidden structures”: Rota’s Conjecture, the central challenge of Matroid theory. This conjecture, if proved, would provide a way into mapping the possibilities of matroids, and the underlying discrete points used in digital systems. After 15 years of work, Professor Geoffrey Whittle and two colleagues, have a proof of Rota’s conjecture. His work now is to bring this work to fruition in the form of a humanly readable, certifiably correct collection of papers so this hard won knowledge can be shared and make a contribution to the ever more sophisticated mapping of mathematical possibilities.

Public Summary: It is rare to identify factors that are important for cell proliferation and survival, but which are also excellent strategic targets for designing therapies for cancer and other diseases of cell proliferation. One goal of this programme is to characterize the regulatory pathway(s) of one such factor, PAX2. PAX2 is an excellent strategic target because it is critically required for proliferation and survival of cells in the genitourinary tract, and it is minimally expressed in normal adult tissue. Methods will be developed to target and disrupt the function of the PAX2 protein.

Public Summary: Advanced electron optical and magnetic resonance techniques available at Oxford University will be used to gain a detailed understanding of the atomic structures and reaction processes of novel hybrid gel materials from which high-technology ceramics can be synthesised. The components of these new gel precursors are mixed at a molecular level and transform to crystalline ceramics with greatly increased energy efficiency compared with conventional processing technology. Their structure and transformation behaviour can however be complex, and may involve unusual chemical species which will be studied experimentally and by theoretical calculations.
The opportunity will also be taken to complete a research monograph on applications of magnetic resonance to solving problems in advanced materials research.

Public Summary: Large multiprotein membrane-bound complexes are essential components of any cell. The FiF0- ATP synthase is an example of such a complex and is the enzyme responsible for the generation of ATP, the energy source of every living cell. As yet, there is no high-resolution structure for the intact enzyme. We propose to solve the structure of a FiF0-ATP synthase from a unique group of bacteria known as thermoalkaliphiles. The structural information will help us to understand how this enzyme works and advance our knowledge on how the energy from food is converted to the energy source that cells use for metabolism.

Public Summary: This project is about developing a better understanding of the nature of symmetry. A James Cook Fellowship will enable me to spend a focussed and unbroken period of research time addressing fundamental questions about the existence and properties of discrete structures that have maximum possible symmetry subject to given constraints (such as chirality, which means being distinct from its mirror images). Highly symmetric structures are not only interesting and aesthetically pleasing, but also have important applications, in diverse fields such as molecular structure, data communications and security, and network construction and analysis — fields which have experienced significant recent growth owing to the availability of fast computers and improved algorithms for finding, constructing and analysing specific examples. The proposed research will involve the development of new methods and novel application of existing theory.