Search Marsden awards 2008–2017

Recipient(s): Dr HM Wolffram | PI | University of Canterbury

Public Summary: The application of psychological knowledge to forensic questions has in the course of the last century become a common feature of both civil and criminal proceedings in Europe, the United States and Australasia. Within these legal systems psychologists are routinely called upon to assess the competence of defendants and the reliability of witnesses or to advise on jury selection, interrogation technique and public policy as it pertains to crime and rehabilitation.
The acceptance of psychologists as experts within the legal system has not, however, always been a given, with jurists, psychiatrists and lay people at different times all claiming authority over the application of psychological knowledge in juridical contexts. This project examines the complex interdisciplinary and conflict-ridden history of forensic psychology, a discipline that emerged at the turn of the century, in order to ascertain how psychologists came to dominate the field. Addressing the neglect of forensic psychology’s history, the consequence of a strong focus within the historiography of criminology on biological models of criminality, this project will also demonstrate how late nineteenth-century psychological research has implications for both the broader public’s understanding of the forensic sciences and contemporary specialist debates over the malleability, fallibility and putative repression of memory.

Recipient(s): Dr WG Lee | PI | Landcare Research
Dr T Fukami | AI | Stanford University
Dr PB Heenan | AI | Landcare Research
Dr AJ Tanentzap | AI | York University

Public Summary: Uneven diversification of plant lineages on islands is a central and unresolved question for understanding the origin of biodiversity. Recently it has been suggested that early colonisation events on islands drive radiations and suppress diversification of later-colonising lineages. We will test this hypothesis using the spectacular radiations in the New Zealand indigenous flora. Colonisation dates in New Zealand, derived from molecular phylogenetic studies, will be linked with results on plant features, competitive ability, and environmental and geographic range. These will be used to determine whether immigration timing has been important in driving rates of speciation on islands.

Recipient(s): Dr SC Cox | PI | GNS Science
Dr MA Gusyev | AI | GNS Science
Dr C Holden | AI | GNS Science
Dr M Manga | AI | University of California, Berkeley
Dr HK Rutter | AI | Aqualinc Research Ltd

Public Summary: Changes in well water levels following earthquakes have been observed for thousands of years, but recent recognition that large earthquakes can induce effects across the planet has generated considerable new interest in such phenomena. Understanding the effect of earthquakes on groundwater and the consequences for engineering strength of land should be fundamental in a seismically active country that relies heavily on groundwater. The M7.1 (2010) and M6.2 (2011) Canterbury and M7.8 (2009) Fiordland earthquakes resulted in proximal liquefaction and groundwater changes throughout New Zealand, as far afield as Northland, that were recorded by hydrological and seismological monitoring networks with unsurpassed spatial and temporal resolution. We aim to understand the driving mechanism(s) of fluid movement during these major, very different, recent South Island earthquakes. In the first systematic investigation of earthquake hydrology in New Zealand, we will examine and model rich datasets of water level-, aquifer- and flow-changes induced by shaking, stress and strain. We aim to elucidate spatial distributions of dynamic stress (‘seismic pump’) vs static stress (‘broken pipe’) causal mechanisms, to deliver internationally important examples of crustal hydromechanics from New Zealand, relevant locally for understanding liquefaction, informed engineering, and security of water supply.

Recipient(s): Dr JE Stuart | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr SJ Denny | AI | The University of Auckland
Assoc Prof PE Jose | AI | Victoria University of Wellington

Public Summary: Young people in New Zealand are falling behind on indices of health and well-being, and fare particularly badly in terms of bullying and victimisation. It is well established that the experience of bullying (as perpetrator or victim) has negative implications for physical and mental wellbeing, but research rarely examines the outcomes of bullying beyond adolescence and often does not take into account the influence of risk and protective factors in the social ecology (family, school, and community). The proposed research suggests that bullying behaviours occur in the context of broader violence and victimisation, that bullying significantly impacts youth adjustment, and that these behaviours result in persistent negative outcomes over the lifecourse. The overall aim of this project is to contextualise the environment in which bullying occurs in order to elucidate potential protective and exacerbating factors. The major outcome of this research is the development of a set of recommendations for effective, ecologically grounded prevention and intervention strategies aimed at all forms of bullying behaviours. These strategies will assist in ensuring that our society fulfils the rights of children to have a safe and healthy life that is free from violence and abuse.

Recipient(s): Prof EB Tribble | PI | University of Otago
Prof J Sutton | AI | Macquarie University

Public Summary: Skill links mind, body, and affect in intelligent action. Performers in theatre, dance, music, and sport, as well as experts in craft, conduct, and science, exhibit extraordinary skills when working in both bodily movement and material culture. Yet literary and cultural history lack full accounts of the vital but under-conceptualised domain of skill. The overall goal of this project is to build upon recent work in literary history, theory and culture, to develop an ecological model of skill. Skill is a property of biological, neurological, social, historical, and material forces operating in concert, and is best studied through a systems-level framework capable of considering all of these areas simultaneously. An ecological model of skill takes account of complex interactions among internal cognitive processes, embodied skill building, technologies, expert practices, and cultural situations to ask how skill is inculcated, appraised, transmitted, valued, and evaluated. This project proposes a historically specific treatment of skill in early modern England, anchored in detailed new studies of embodied knowledge networks and apprenticeship learning in drama and other embodied performance domains; an ethnographic study of the transmission and acquisition of skills in reconstructed Elizabethan playhouses; and a cross-historical collaborative re-assessment of the nature of skill.

Recipient(s): Dr JJ Longdell | PI | University of Otago
Dr WJ Munro | AI | NTT Basic Research Labs
Dr MJ Sellars | AI | Australian National University

Public Summary: Rapid advances are currently being made in quantum information processing using superconducting qubits. Superconducting qubits naturally couple to microwave photons. This project aims to convert these microwave photons into optical photons. Using optical fibers would then allow the long distance transfer of quantum states between superconducting qubits. It would also allow access to the quantum memories that have been developed for light. The conversion will use cryogenic whispering gallery mode optical resonators containing rare earth ion dopants with integrated superconducting microwave resonators.

Recipient(s): Dr AT Marshall | PI | University of Canterbury
Prof DA Harrington | AI | University of Victoria

Public Summary: Efficient conversion of carbon dioxide into methanol would revolutionise energy technologies. This can be achieved through electrocatalytic reduction. While the process has low thermodynamic energy requirements, the reaction is hindered by large activation barriers which substantially increase the energy demands. These barriers can be reduced by well-designed electrocatalysts. We propose investigating how the structure of the reaction sites determine the activity of electrocatalysts for carbon dioxide reduction. From this, we will develop a structural rationale for electrocatalytic activity, paving the way for the development of highly active electrocatalysts and the efficient conversion of carbon dioxide to methanol.

Recipient(s): Prof AR Mercer | PI | University of Otago
Dr EMG Urlacher | PI | University of Otago
Dr AB Barron | AI | Macquarie University
Dr JM Devaud | AI | Université Paul Sabatier
Dr DB Jarriault | AI | University of Otago
Mr HJ McQuillan | AI | University of Otago

Public Summary: Honey bees are critical for pollination, they are an integral part of the natural ecosystem. The proposed research will see three internationally recognised honey bee research groups focus their knowledge and expertise on a problem of significance world wide, colony collapse disorder.

Environmental stressors such as pesticides and Varroa are having profoundly detrimental effects on honey bee survival. We hypothesise that early in adult life, insults to neural circuits essential for learning and stress reactivity compromise honey bee survival and contribute to colony collapse.

The discovery of an opioid-like signalling system in the honey bee provides us with a novel and potentially very powerful tool with which to examine stress reactivity and its ability to shape learning behaviour in the honey bee. We will use this and other tools to establish whether chronic stress leads to deficits in brain function that impact negatively on the survival of this economically important insect.

Honey bees are under threat world wide. Finding ways to enhance the survival of this important insect pollinator is one critically important long-term goal of this research.

Recipient(s): Prof RJ Blaikie | PI | University of Otago

Public Summary: Controlling light at scales much smaller than its wavelength allows us to see, sense and pattern down to the molecular level. The prospect of ‘perfect’ imaging—using visible light (wavelengths 400-750 nm) to sense or image at molecular scales (1-10 nm)—is enticing, and new developments in this field are now entering the marketplace.

This field, known as 'nanophotonics', is rapidly advancing. Using nanophotonics light can confined to precisely-defined nano-scale regions; these so-called near-fields, once in the right place at the right wavelength, can then be used in applied technologies ranging from biosensors to advanced nanofabrication. But the principles and techniques for such engineering are in many ways is still in their infancy. They usually require special ‘tricks’ of the light, and still do not bring to bear many of the powerful ideas of contemporary optical physics, such as negative refraction, superlensing, metamaterials or transformation optics.

We have developed a new surface-state field enhancement framework (SSFEF) and have already made an important demonstration of how it can be used to dramatically improve near-field super-imaging—in this program this discovery will be expanded to provide a comprehensive set of principles for designing new advanced sensing and lithography systems.

Recipient(s): Dr AD Cameron | PI | The University of Auckland

Public Summary: This project explores the relationship between faces and film technologies, from the advent of the cinematic close-up, to the mid-century emergence of sound and colour, to 3D facial imaging in contemporary film. It examines how cinema’s representation of faces has been shaped by technological developments, and also how films and film genres have represented the encounter between faces and technologies, from the robotic and ‘virtual’ faces of science fiction cinema to the depiction of facial recognition systems in espionage and action films. Bringing a crucial historical dimension to discussions of facial mediation, the project will show how the 'cinematic face' has altered over time, in response to developments across cinema and other media forms. Furthermore, the project will outline how the face has been presented in metaphorical terms (as, for example, an image, a screen, a surface for inscription or even a controllable interface), and will explore the ways in which it frames questions of time, ethics, embodiment and materiality.