POSTGRADUATE NEWS November 2006
CONGRATULATIONS
Tadhg O'Loingsigh who had an article about his research in the Australian Geographic Oct-Dec 2006 (available in the tearoom).
Jeremy Ash received a Top up grant from the faculty.
Shaun Berg received an Arts Faculty Publication Grant.
Sharron Pfueller , on her success in obtaining a grant through the Sustainable Tourism CRC for a project on the development of effective partnerships for facilitating sustainable tourism in and around protected areas. The grant is shared with Betty Weiler in Bus/Eco, and with external researchers from Murdoch and UTas. The grant is worth $165K in total.
Congratulations to Jason Beringer, Amanda Lynch and Nigel Tapper for their success in securing Discovery Project and Linkage Project grants!
Jason Beringer and others
for "Patterns and Processes of Carbon and Water Budgets across
Northern Australian Landscapes: From Point to Region", $668,000
over three years.
Jason is also a CI on a grant through
Charles Darwin University with Dr LB Hutley; Dr SK Arndt; Dr S Livesley;
Dr GD Cook; and Dr K Butterbach-Bahl (with industry partners Environmental
Protection Agency, Department of Natural Resources, Environment and
The Arts, and the Australian Greenhouse Office), for "Integrative
assessment of disturbance and land-use change on total greenhouse
gas balance and nutrient cycling in savanna ecosystems", $190,000
over three years. He is also a CI on a grant through Macquarie University
with Prof AJ Pitman; Prof W Steffen; Dr G Richards; and Dr Y Wang
(with industry partner the Australian Greenhouse Office) for "Reengineering
a dynamic vegetation model to explore the stability of Australian
terrestrial carbon", $192K over three years.
Amanda Lynch and others, for "Interactions between Small Scale Cyclones and Sea Ice and their role in the Southern Ocean Climate System", $190,000 over three years.
Nigel Tapper and Patrick DeDeckker (ANU) for "Composition and Transport of Australian Airborne Dust", $745,000 over three years.
CONFERENCE
"LANDSCAPES OF MEANING" CONFERENCE"
Usman Shah
From Wednesday 18th to Friday 20th October Trans/forming Cultures, based at University of Technology Sydney (UTS), hosted the "Landscapes of Meaning" conference. Trans/forming Cultures (TfC), is a Key University Research Centre in Communication and Culture, supporting project-based research on narratives of the local and cultural interaction in Australia, and in the regions of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The conference drew researchers in social inquiry, cultural studies, history and environmental research, committed to working with cultural communities to understand the effects of globalisation in our region.
The Landscapes of Meaning conference was devoted to researching South Asia-Australia connections, with a key theme of environment and people. The first day consisted of a workshop for postgraduates and early career researchers. The papers presented covered a wide array of areas, including comparative studies of environmental politics in India and Australia, narrating oral histories of tribal communities, exploring global sustainability initiatives with regard to Fair Trade coffee and its impact on Indian coffee growers, and co-management of national parks by Indigenous communities in Australia. From the School of Geography and Environmental Science, Kiran Shinde presented his research into the notion of sacred landscape with regard to pilgrimage in India, Peter Cabena presented his paper exploring how the belief systems of the Bishnoi community of Western India have engendered sustainable local natural resource management systems, and I presented my research into the creation of landscapes of vulnerability in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The theme for the second day's symposium was Environment and Social Justice. Haripriya Rangan presented her views on doing comparative research between Australia and South Asia. She talked about her work with Dr. Marcus Lane on comparing indigenous involvement in forest management in Australia and India, and explained how this experience of collaboration and comparative analysis contributed to her research in South Africa, and the current research that she and Christian Kull are undertaking, which explores past and present exchanges of acacia species between Australia, South Africa, Madagascar, and India.
Overall, the conference was a great forum for the exchange of ideas and perspectives across a wide array of disciplines. Particularly for the students, it was a good opportunity to present research and receive constructive feedback by experts and senior academics from both South Asian and Australian universities.
PLC ENRICHMENT PROGRAM
Sarah Burns
In
Term 3 of this year seven Year 10 students from Presbyterian Ladies
College (PLC) took part in an Enrichment Program with Monash University.
Under the guidance of Nigel and myself the students designed and
conducted a project on the impact of urbanisation on local climates
in Melbourne. The enrichment program was created with a number of
aims including: to establish real life relevance to geography studies,
to increase awareness of opportunities for intellectual challenge
and career development in geography and to develop links between
PLC and Monash University.
The program was conducted
over six weeks with a final presentation at a later date. Each Monday
we gathered in the Mal Logan room between 3 pm - 5 pm with various
elements of the project planned for each week.
Week one we spent time getting to know each other and Nigel presented
a seminar on the background of the urban heat island. Following this
we gave the students a brief tour of the Monash Clayton Campus to
discuss different land surfaces and how these may affect the atmospheric
boundary layer.
Week two we drove the Monash land cruiser
across Melbourne to measure temperatures and other variables in various
urban environments. The vehicle was fitted with a data logger which
recorded GPS points, temperature and relative humidity. The recordings
were taken from the Central Business District to the Dandenongs.
The students recorded land use types (residential, industry, parks,
etc.) every 2 km.
Students also used the KESTRAL Pocket weather trackers at every 2
km to record
the temperature, relative humidity and altitude. From those activities
the students began discussing how they could apply this method to
the urban climate of Monash.
Week three was spent planning out the project. Firstly we went through results from the previous week and discussed how the various land surfaces affected the temperature and other variables across Melbourne. We discussed the temporal temperature change and how we might account for this in our project. This was resolved with a plan to use the Monash Weather Station to correct off. The students discussed other aspects of the project such as: what are the research questions, what methods to use and what variables to collect. After planning out the project, the students investigated the route they would follow to take their recordings.
Week four the students came to Monash
for six hours (3pm - 9pm) to perform the fieldwork which included
taking recordings in the day and then the night. A quick discussion
was held before going to our four positions across the university
in groups of two or three. We left at 3:30 pm from one end of the
university and each group followed their route and recorded details
at each of the 15 points; this was then repeated on the way back.
The data collected included: dry bulb temperature, dew point, relative
humidity, wind speed, wind chill, barometric pressure and altitude.
The students also described the surface and surrounds of each point.
Following this we all gathered in the Mal Logan room and looked at
some of the current weather charts and the data from the Monash weather
station. At 6:45pm we began the night time transects. We each had
a radio and a torch and a couple of extra guides helped out (thanks
Susan and Musa). We followed the same routes back and forth making
the same recordings for each position.
Week five the
students combined all of their results and then began data analysis.
They adjusted the temperature for time progression and then averaged
the data for each point. They then began manually creating contour
maps of Monash campus with: temperature, specific humidity and wind
speed and then they completed the contouring during the week. During
the week I created contour maps in GIS of all the data.
Week six was our final week with the students to assist in data analysis. Nigel and I summarised and combined all the data and Nigel presented this to the students and we discussed some of the results. We then discussed how they would create their presentation.
A final presentation was performed at the Presbyterian Ladies College in front of the Geography department, Nigel and myself. The students used the data collected throughout the project and as a group presented introduction, methods, results and discussion. Some useful results were discussed regarding the temperature, specific humidity and wind across the campus and the day and night differences. The presentation was excellent and it was a privilege to have worked with the students. Overall the project was a huge success and will hopefully continue to run for many years.
SEMINARS
FRIDAY 12 noon in
S119
17 November - PhD Confirmation
of Candidature
Susan Van de Meene
WEDNESDAY 1pm in SGO4
22 November - PhD Confirmation of Candidature
Lisa Alexander
FRIDAY
10-1pm in SGO3
24 November - Masters
Review of Candidature
Michelle Aitken, Anna Egan, Milton
Obamba, Usman Shah, and Alyse Weyman
Details of other research seminars in related disciplinary areas can be found at:
SCIENCE FACULTY
http://www.sci.monash.edu.au/postgrad/seminar.html
ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE
http://www.maths.monash.edu.au/research/seminars/
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
http://www.biolsci.monash.edu.au/research/seminars/index.html