Search Marsden awards 2008–2017
Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2011
Title: Exploring the chemistry of interfaces to enhance adhesion
Recipient(s): Assoc Prof MH Hyland | PI | The University of Auckland
Prof M Fukumoto | AI | Toyohashi University of Technology
Prof PM Munroe | AI | University of New South Wales
Public Summary: What nanoscale interactions take place when two dissimilar materials bond? What surface properties control wetting? Can we engineer interface chemistry for better bonding? These are central issues in the formation of advanced ceramic-metal composite materials such as thermal spray coatings.
,We propose to use a new approach to enhance the adhesion of dissimilar materials by manipulating the microsecond chemical reactions taking place at the interface between the spreading droplet and the substrate. Our research results lead us to believe that such chemical interactions control interfacial attraction (wetting) and hence the way the droplet spreads. They are a powerful tool to maximise adhesion between dissimilar materials. By manipulating these interfacial reactions we will limit splashing and enhance droplet-substrate adhesion in thermal spray coatings. Our approach to the problem is completely novel. The understanding we gain will enable us to tackle the broader problem of metal-ceramic bonding, and open up opportunities to create many new material combinations essential for the development of functional devices. Our research team of international experts in surface chemistry, interfacial analysis, and thermal spray is ideally placed to advance the fundamental understanding of interface formation in complex systems and explore new material combinations using customised interfacial chemistry.
Total Awarded: $721,739
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Assoc Prof MH Hyland
Panel: EIS
Project ID: 11-UOA-128
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2008
Title: Exploring the heart warming but deadly impacts of climate change
Recipient(s): Dr AJR Hickey | PI | The University of Auckland
Prof E Gnaiger | AI | Innsbruck Medical University
Public Summary: In cold bodied animals, the heart is the first organ to fail as temperature rises. For numerous aquatic species the critical temperature is often only marginally warmer than current maximum habitat temperatures. We contend that heart failure results from energy supply disruptions, and induction of cellular suicide by small organelles called mitochondria. The heart is absolutely dependent on mitochondria, which produce nearly all the hearts energy. We intend to explore interactions between temperature and heart mitochondrial function in New Zealand fish. Overall we aim to develop methods enabling the prediction of what species will be impacted by climate change.
Total Awarded: $266,667
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr AJR Hickey
Panel: CMP
Project ID: 08-UOA-056
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Exploring the inaccessible zone in the phase diagram of superconducting films using ionic liquid gating.
Recipient(s): Dr GGJ Dubuis | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Public Summary: The liquid transistor gating technique has recently produced a string of impressive results in 2D materials. Ionic liquids make it possible to bring electric charges in extremely close contact with the surface of a sample. This allows unprecedented modification of the electric charge and thus of the properties of the underlying material, far greater than is possible using the classic solid-state transistor that ushered in our current digital age. It is now possible to work with previously intractable materials.
I will accelerate this development and explore a world of previously-inaccessible states of matter. The goal for this project is to push superconducting films towards their predicted higher temperatures, thus opening a new pathway to room-temperature superconductivity. I will work with a set of materials that all have in common the fact that pure chemical doping has not been able to unleash their full potential. I will use electric double layer gating to explore charge concentrations well beyond the known limits in these materials. This will enable to better understand the richness of their physics and will play a key role in the search for room temperature superconductivity.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Dr GGJ Dubuis
Panel: PCB
Project ID: 17-VUW-087
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2015
Title: Exposed: does a leaky blood-brain barrier elevate the risk for obesity in the offspring of obese mothers?
Recipient(s): Dr CL Jasoni | PI | University of Otago
Public Summary: When a mother is obese during pregnancy, her offspring have an increased risk for obesity. Fetuses developing in this environment show elevated inflammatory mediators, called cytokines, and a leaky blood-brain barrier (BBB). The ability of the BBB to regulate which compounds enter the brain is essential for normal brain function, including control of body weight. This project will use multiple powerful techniques to test the hypothesis that exposure of the fetal brain to cytokines alters BBB formation, which leads to abnormal exposure of the brain to leptin, an essential modulator of body weight, and thus increases risk for obesity.
Total Awarded: $740,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Dr CL Jasoni
Panel: BMS
Project ID: 15-UOO-100
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: Exposing New Zealand's hidden faults: Strain distribution across the South Island's faulted crust
Recipient(s): Dr IJ Hamling | PI | GNS Science
Dr S Hreinsdottir | AI | GNS Science
Mr RJ van Dissen | AI | GNS Science
Professor TJ Wright | AI | University of Leeds
Public Summary: In the Earth's upper crust, deformation is concentrated along narrow fault zones that periodically rupture during an earthquake. However, earthquakes do not always occur along recognised faults and the transition from continuous creep at depth into locked faults in the upper crust remains poorly understood. Across the South Island of New Zealand, up to 75% of the relative plate motion is thought to be accommodated along the Alpine Fault. However, it is unclear as to how and where the remaining plate motion is being accommodated. Previous estimates of fault locking depths and slip rates are generally poorly constrained and limited data have prevented the investigation of along strike variations in fault behaviour. Using Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) and GPS data, we will measure how the South Island is deforming at an unprecedented spatial and temporal scale, provide new constraints on known faults and search for evidence of previously unrecognised structures. The complex pattern of faulting and large convergence rates offers a unique opportunity to identify how and where strain is accumulated across a major plate boundary.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: GNS Science
Contact Person: Dr IJ Hamling
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 16-GNS-006
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2009
Title: Extra dimensions, dark energy and mysteries of the Universe
Recipient(s): Dr I Neupane | PI | University of Canterbury
Public Summary: This project will support fundamental research in theoretical physics and cosmology implementing some revolutionary concepts of physics with extra dimensions of space and beyond Einstein's theory of General Relativity. It will directly address fundamental questions such as: What drove the cosmic inflation? What exactly is dark energy, and what role does it play in shaping our universe? It will develop further a newly proposed model for accelerating universe and construct viable cosmological models of our universe. It also provides answers to the origin of three large spatial dimensions, shedding light on the nature of dark energy.
Total Awarded: $266,667
Duration: 3
Host: University of Canterbury
Contact Person: Dr I Neupane
Panel: PSE
Project ID: 09-UOC-066
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2010
Title: Extrasolar planets in binary star systems
Recipient(s): Prof JB Hearnshaw | PI | University of Canterbury
Dr DJ Ramm | PI | University of Canterbury
Dr SI Barnes | AI | Anglo-Australian Observatory
Dr M Endl | AI | The University of Texas at Austin
Public Summary: We will use the Hercules spectrograph at Mt John Observatory to study extrasolar planets in binary star systems using the Doppler effect. Planets can be detected by the reflex motion that they impart to the star. We will search for Earth-like planets in alpha Centauri, our nearest star. Our simulations show that Earth-mass planets in their habitable zones (where water is liquid) should be detectable in alpha Centauri after 2 to 3 years of observations using an iodine cell for zero-point calibration. We note that no Earth-mass habitable planets have yet been found beyond our solar system. We will study further nu Octantis, a bright southern binary where we have recently found a probable Jupiter-like planet, in an orbit that challenges current theory on orbital stability in binaries. This planet appears to be locked into a 5:2 resonance with the binary star orbit. Further precise observations of Doppler shift using an iodine cell should confirm the planet hypothesis and possibly allow us to measure the time evolution of the orbital parameters. Both these binary stars can be observed all year from Mt John, which is a critical advantage for observing from New Zealand.
Total Awarded: $652,174
Duration: 3
Host: University of Canterbury
Contact Person: Prof JB Hearnshaw
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 10-UOC-012
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2014
Title: Extremes in two-dimensional Brownian geometry
Recipient(s): Dr JA Goodman | PI | Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Dr O Louidor | AI | Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Professor WThF den Hollander | AI | Leiden University
Public Summary: Observe a Brownian motion - a random particle that moves in a random direction at every moment - on a sphere for a long time. The path traced by this particle cuts the sphere into small pieces. What shapes will the largest of these pieces have? This question, though simple to pose, is subtle to answer and reveals an intriguing interplay between probability, partial differential equations, and complex geometry.
Fully answering this question means identifying the typical sizes of the largest pieces; describing the random spatial distribution of these pieces across the sphere; and understanding the microscopic geometries of the pieces themselves. We ultimately aim to characterise the full extremal process that simultaneously encodes all of these properties, and to elucidate the relationship between random effects on the microscopic and macroscopic scales.
A central challenge is to overcome the intricate correlations between the numbers of visits (if any) to nearby locations. Building on recent advances in multiscale analysis, we base our work around a robust and general argument applicable in the general context of logarithmically correlated systems with an approximate branching structure.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr JA Goodman
Panel: MIS
Project ID: 14-UOA-225
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2012
Title: Face, screen, interface: rendering the face in screen-based media from early cinema to digital special effects
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.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr AD Cameron
Panel: HUM
Project ID: 12-UOA-114
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2014
Title: Fast-forward fish: resilience of exploited marine populations to a changing ocean
Recipient(s): Dr P Neubauer | PI | Dragonfly Science
Dr JR Wiedenmann | AI | Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Dr OP Jensen | AI | Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Professor KH Andersen | AI | Techincal University of Denmark
Dr ML Pinsky | AI | Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Public Summary: What does the future hold for exploited marine populations under climate change and continued high fishing impacts? Human impacts from climate change and intensive fishing are affecting even the most remote ecosystems. In a rapidly changing ocean, fishing induced changes in marine ecosystems may substantially impact the resilience of many marine populations, altering their response to intensifying stressors related to climate change. I propose to use data on population abundance and dynamics from regional and global databases together with novel size-based models to quantify the impact of fishing on populations and ecosystems subjected to changing ocean conditions. As a first step, idealised size-based models will allow me to explore the cumulative and interactive effects of changing ocean conditions and fishing induced impacts. I will then connect size based models to data from global fisheries databases to make predictions about the future of exploited marine ecosystems under climate change and quantify the resulting impacts on global food security. My research will thus provide substantial a contribution to our knowledge and awareness about long-term human impacts on marine ecosystems and biodiversity. Implications for global food security will inform future national and international marine resources policies.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: Dragonfly Data Science
Contact Person: Dr P Neubauer
Panel: EEB
Project ID: 14-DGF-001