Search Marsden awards 2008–2017
Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Servants of God, Slaves of the Church: Rhetoric and Realities of Service in Early Medieval Europe
Recipient(s): Dr LK Bailey | PI | University of Auckland
Public Summary: In the early middle ages, kings, queens, and other high status Christians used the language of slavery to describe their relationship with God and performed acts of service as demonstrations of humility. They did so, however, surrounded by servants and slaves who kept them fed, kept churches clean, and kept religious institutions running. These servants and slaves were thus also servants of God, and the people of early medieval Europe understood the labour they performed for the sake of religion as special and elevated. This project explores the powerful connection between these different ways of serving God in western Europe between the end of the Roman empire and the beginnings of the medieval kingdoms (c. 400 – 900 CE). It examines how the realities of service shaped the rhetoric of serving God, while the symbolic service which honoured God also ennobled the service performed by low-status people in churches and religious households.
Total Awarded: $625,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr LK Bailey
Panel: HUM
Project ID: 17-UOA-105
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2009
Title: Sex steroids: new regulators of brain SOCS
Recipient(s): Dr GM Anderson | PI | University of Otago
Dr SJ Bunn | AI | University of Otago
Public Summary: The actions of cytokines, which act on cells to regulate a wide variety of immunological, developmental and endocrine functions, are maintained at safe homeostatic levels by suppressors of cytokine signalling (SOCS). We have shown that estrogen is a very potent inducer of SOCS in the brain. In this research we will characterize how and where sex steroids regulate SOCS in the brain, and the significance of this in regulating cytokine actions, using various transgenic mouse and neuronal cell culture models.
Total Awarded: $653,333
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Dr GM Anderson
Panel: BMS
Project ID: 09-UOO-063
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Shaken not stirred: What triggers slip in shallow subduction zones?
Recipient(s): Dr JM Carey | PI | GNS Science
Dr Y Kaneko | AI | GNS Science
Professor DN Petley | AI | University of Sheffield
Professor DM Saffer | AI | Penn State University
Dr LM Wallace | AI | GNS Science
Public Summary: Tectonic plate movements at subduction zones drive a range of hazards and landform changing processes. Recent advances in geodetic monitoring reveal episodic slow slip events in shallow subduction zones where faults slide gently over seconds to years without releasing seismic energy at damaging amplitudes. The poorly understood slow slip phenomenon could trigger damaging earthquakes by stressing nearby fault zones.
Although analogous behaviour is observed in some landslides, and novel laboratory experiments show how both slow and rapid landslide movement can occur in response to changes in material characteristics and pore pressure during seismic shaking, this knowledge has never been applied to subduction zones.
We will undertake similar experiments on subduction zone sediments from the Hikurangi Margin, New Zealand and Nankai Trough, Japan, using a Dynamic Back Pressured Shear Box to discover how passing seismic energy from distant earthquakes can trigger slow slip in a shallow subduction zone. We will combine these new experimental data with movement records from two of the most rigorously investigated subduction zones, both subject to slow slip and can generate large earthquakes and tsunamis, to better constrain how regional earthquake shaking can trigger slow slip in a subduction zone and how these events affect the likelihood of future earthquakes.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: GNS Science
Contact Person: Dr JM Carey
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 17-GNS-030
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2012
Title: Shakespeare's Theatre Games
Recipient(s): Prof TG Bishop | PI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: This project examines both the application of theories of play to drama and drama's practical
deployment and analysis of play. The central subject of study is the role in late medieval and early modern English drama, especially Shakespeare, of contemporary ideas and practices of play. Working from accounts of play in philosophy and other disciplines, from records of play, games and playing across the period 1450-1600, and from practical exploration of play in surviving scripts, the project analyses how attention to play as a form of human behaviour organizes works of dramatic art, and how those works in turn reflect on play.
Total Awarded: $465,217
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Prof TG Bishop
Panel: HUM
Project ID: 12-UOA-021
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2015
Title: Shaking magma to trigger volcanic eruptions
Recipient(s): Dr BM Kennedy | PI | University of Canterbury
Associate Professor BA Bradley | AI | University of Canterbury
Associate Professor TR Walter | AI | GeoForschungs Zentrum, Potsdam
Dr MJ Heap | AI | University of Strasbourg (incl. Louis Pasteur Univ)
Professor JM Castro | AI | Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz
Public Summary: Statistical analysis shows that volcanoes erupt more frequently following tectonic earthquakes, which translate to increases in short-term hazard. However, the hazard increase is poorly constrained due to a lack of laboratory data. Based on our preliminary experiments we propose the first high temperature laboratory experiments and a texturally-focused field study to investigate the critical conditions for seismically-triggered volcanic eruptions. In particular, we focus on the mechanisms of (1) bubble formation, growth, and outgassing, and (2) magma shattering. While theoretical studies have proposed conditions for triggering, we will test each mechanism in the laboratory and parameterise the triggering conditions using high resolution synchrotron microanalysis of textures before and after experiments. These seismically-triggered microtextures will be ground truthed at two contrasting field sites that have both erupted following large earthquakes: (1) Mt Merapi Indonesia, where andesitic eruptive activity significantly increased immediately following ground motions associated with a 4.2-6.3 (Mw) earthquakes in 2010 and 2006, and (2) Cordon Caulle volcano, Chile, which had a rhyolite eruption 38 h after the Great MW 9.5 Chilean earthquake in 1960. Our data will constrain the conditions where volcanic hazard increases following earthquakes informing risk for volcanoes in New Zealand and the rest of the world.
Total Awarded: $650,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Canterbury
Contact Person: Dr BM Kennedy
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 15-UOC-049
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2011
Title: Shape-controlled magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical applications
Recipient(s): Dr C Meledandri | PI | University of Otago
Dr DF Brougham | AI | Dublin City University
Public Summary: Inorganic nanoparticles with diameters < 100 nm have attracted much recent attention because of the fact that their size, shape and composition can dramatically affect their physical and chemical properties. The possibility of tuning the properties of nanoparticles by simply changing their size and shape is of great importance for technological applications; thus, shape-dependent studies to tune the optical, electronic and catalytic properties of nanoparticles have been an important research focus. Magnetic nanoparticles form an important class of inorganic nanoparticles, and their unique magnetic properties are also size- and shape-dependent. This allows them to be useful in applications beyond technological applications. In particular, they have significant potential for biomedical applications, particularly as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents. To realise their full potential for this application, however, it is necessary to first understand the effect of shape on the magnetic resonance properties of magnetic nanoparticle dispersions, an understanding which does not currently exist within the scientific community. This project aims to prepare magnetic nanoparticles with well-defined shapes (e.g. cubes, rods, spheres), and use specialised techniques to investigate their magnetic resonance properties in suspension. Our results will aid in the development of new and improved magnetic materials for use in biomedicine.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Dr C Meledandri
Panel: PCB
Project ID: 11-UOO-232
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2013
Title: Shaping cooperation: identifying how genes, experience, and socio-cognitive ability influence the development of cooperation in early childhood
Recipient(s): Dr AME Henderson | PI | The University of Auckland
Associate Professor DR Love | AI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: Cooperation is critical to human survival; yet humans vary in their cooperative inclinations. Indeed, we know very little about how cooperation develops. This research will address this gap by using a longitudinal mixed-method design to track the development of cooperation by assessing infants’ cooperative understanding, ability, and motivation at multiple time points across the first three years of life. Using a mixture of established and innovative age-appropriate tasks, this study will be the first to disambiguate the relationship between the development of infants’ cooperation understanding, ability, and motivation. By collecting DNA samples, engaging some infants in cooperative training activities, and testing infants’ socio-cognitive abilities, this research will also test the extent to which genetic variability, cooperative experience, and socio-cognitive understanding shape the development of cooperation thereby shedding novel insights on the factors that influence our cooperative predispositions. The results will advance science by enhancing theories of human cooperation, social-cognitive understanding, and pro-social development, and contribute to the creation of tools to promote cooperative aptitude in early childhood. Thought and behaviour patterns established in infancy have profound consequences throughout life. Thus, isolating the factors that foster a solid cooperation foundation early in life is key to ensuring cooperative competence throughout development.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr AME Henderson
Panel: EHB
Project ID: 13-UOA-015
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Shaping Public Policy: Mixed Methods Study of Alcohol, Tobacco, Gambling and Food Industry Points of Influence with Policy Makers
Recipient(s): Professor PJ Adams | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor K Kypri | PI | University of Otago
Professor J Collin | AI | University of Edinburgh
Professor JO McCambridge | AI | University of York
Professor BA Swinburn | AI | University of Auckland
Public Summary: Government policies that aim to reduce harm from tobacco, alcohol, gambling and unhealthy food have consistently favoured less effective strategies such as education and awareness campaigns. This is not accidental. Industries associated with these products invest resources in influencing policy makers. One strategy, one which has received little research attention, involves gaining influence by gradually building relationships of mutual obligation between industry actors and political actors. This study seeks to understand these relationship-building activities by investigating what goes on in the spaces in which these connections are achieved. These connecting spaces can take a wide variety of forms such as overlapping committee memberships, invitations to sports or arts events and special occasions in industry locations. We will develop detailed understanding of the functions of these connecting spaces and how industry influence on public policy is achieved. It will consist of two phases: data collection then interpretation and synthesis. The first phase will have three interlinked research streams using different methods: one focused on collecting detailed information on these spaces, the second developing a time line of policy events and the third involving in-depth interviews with those who have directly or indirectly participated in them.
Total Awarded: $825,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Professor PJ Adams
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 17-UOA-323
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2015
Title: Shear force dependent regulation of epithelial Na+ channel (ENaC) and its relevance for blood pressure regulation
Recipient(s): Dr M Fronius | PI | University of Otago
Associate Professor D Alvarez de la Rosa | AI | University of La Laguna, Spain
Dr RG Katare | AI | University of Otago
Public Summary: The ability to detect mechanical forces and to translate them into biochemical signals is a ubiquitous feature of cells. Epithelial Na+ channels (ENaCs) are regulated by shear force and their localisation in blood vessels implies a function in blood pressure regulation. We will explore the unknown mechanism of how ENaC senses shear force, and discover its role in blood pressure regulation. ENaC activity in response to shear force will be measured in cells (electrophysiology) and isolated blood vessels (pressure myography). These results will reveal a new mechanism that explains how mechanical shear force is converted into the cellular signals that underpin blood pressure regulation.
Total Awarded: $755,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Dr M Fronius
Panel: CMP
Project ID: 15-UOO-030
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2010
Title: Shedding light on a fundamental geochemical process: Synchrotron investigation of geomicrobiological controls on metal and metalloid ion immobilisation
Recipient(s): Dr CJ Daughney | PI | GNS Science
Dr SL Harmer | AI | University of South Australia
Dr B Johannessen | AI | Australian Synchrotron
Dr CG Weisener | AI | University of Windsor
Public Summary: The behaviour of metal and metalloid ions in near-surface water-rock systems is of fundamental
interest in the earth sciences due to its importance in mineral formation, weathering, and the
transport of metal(loid) contaminants. Most current understanding of dissolved metal(loid)
interactions with minerals or microorganisms derives from macroscopic-scale experiments on
single-sorbent systems. This project will use high-intensity light produced at the Australian
Synchrotron to unravel the molecular-scale reaction mechanisms affecting dissolved metal(loid)s
during progressive oxidation, hydrolysis and precipitation of common iron oxide minerals in the
presence of bacterial cells. This may alter current paradigms related to metal(loid) behaviour in
natural environments.
Total Awarded: $621,739
Duration: 3
Host: GNS Science
Contact Person: Dr CJ Daughney
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 10-GNS-023