Rutherford Discovery Fellowships Chosen

News release from the Royal Society of New Zealand

Wednesday 10 November 2010

(Being announced at the Research Honours event 10 November 2010)

Ten researchers chosen for new Rutherford Discovery Fellowships

Ten talented researchers have been chosen as the first recipients of a new Government funded scheme designed to support early to mid-career researchers.
The Rutherford Discovery Fellowships will provide financial support of up to $200,000 per year to the researchers over a five-year period. This funding goes towards both their salary and their programme of work.

The Rutherford Discovery Fellowships are an important scheme within New Zealand's research system, says Minister of Research, Science and Technology Wayne Mapp.

“High-quality research is the cornerstone of innovation. Science and innovation are at the heart of building our economic growth. The success of our science and innovation system is dependent on the quality of the people working within it.
“These Fellowships empower leading researchers who are at a critical juncture in their careers.

“The successful candidates are of a very high calibre. I look forward to their success and growth over the coming years,” he said.

The recipients were announced on Wednesday night at the annual Research Honours celebration event of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

The researchers are:

• Dr Donna Rose Addis, University of Auckland, Department of Psychology
• Dr Noam Greenberg, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science
• Dr Jason Tylianakis, University of Canterbury, School of Biological Sciences
• Dr Ashton Bradley, University of Otago, Department of Physics
• Dr Paul Gardner, University of Canterbury
• Dr Murray Cox, Massey University, Institute of Molecular BioSciences
• Associate Professor Alexei Drummond, University of Auckland, Department of Computer Science
• Associate Professor Jennifer Hay, University of Canterbury, School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
• Dr John Reynolds, University of Otago, Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology
• Dr Eric Le Ru, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Chemical and Physical Sciences

The new fellowships, administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand, have been set up to fill a gap in support for researchers in the three to 10 year period after they complete a doctorate degree.

It has been found that this is the time when many researchers can find it difficult to progress their careers, especially in areas with heavy competition for funding.

The funding will enable researchers to investigate a particular research topic, and help them establish their career in New Zealand.

The chairperson of the selection panel, Professor Margaret Brimble, said it was a difficult decision for the panel to only choose ten people to receive the fellowships.

“We received a large number of exceptional applications in this first year and those chosen are very worthy recipients. They are not only excellent researchers, but also potential future leaders for research in New Zealand.”

The Government is making a substantial investment in this new scheme. Each year there will be 10 Fellowships awarded. In the first four years the Government will invest more than $24 million. When the scheme is fully operational in 2015/16, more than $9 million a year will fund about 50 fellows at any one time.

List of recipients with details of their research programme:

Dr Donna Rose Addis
(University of Auckland, Department of Psychology)
“Building our Autobiographies: How the Brain Constructs Past and Future Autobiographical Events”
The various details of memories are stored as fragments in different brain areas and memories are then reconstructed when we remember. Storing memories in fragments does have advantages: these details can be used to imagine novel future events. With this programme of research Dr Addis aims to advance our understanding of how a region of the brain, the hippocampus, is involved in the constructive memory processes.

Dr Noam Greenberg
(Victoria University of Wellington, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science)
“Effective randomness, lowness notions and higher computability”
In much the same way as biologists aim to understand life, and particle physicists aim to understand the nature of matter and energy, computability theorists try to understand the essence of computation. Dr Greenberg intends to study objects which are not quite computable, but very close to being so, along with randomness using the tools of logic and mathematics.

Dr Jason Tylianakis
(University of Canterbury, School of Biological Sciences)
“Reweaving the web of life: the interplay of species traits and resource constraints during the assembly and disassembly of ecological networks in changing environments”
Global environmental changes threaten biodiversity, but their effects on the networks of interactions connecting all living organisms are largely unknown. Using analyses of global datasets, combined with a field study in the unique Franz Josef chronosequence - where networks of different time periods are revealed as the glacier retreats - Dr Tylianakis will study these network structures in detail and relate this to the function of ecosystems.

Dr Ashton Bradley
(University of Otago, Department of Physics)
“The Birth, Life, and Death of a Quantum Vortex Dipole”
At ultra-low temperatures atoms can undergo a phase transition, coalescing into a quantum droplet exhibiting the remarkable property of frictionless flow, known as superfluidity. When a superfluid rotates, it does so by creating a quantized vortex resembling a tiny fluid whirlpool or tornado. Dr Bradley has developed a new theory of ultra-cold atomic superfluids and will investigate the fundamental nature of quantum turbulence.

Dr Paul Gardner
(University of Canterbury)
“Bioinformatic approaches to functionally characterise RNAs”
Together with proteins, fats, sugars and DNA, RNA is a member of the selected group of molecules that play a major role in life's chemical machinery. Recent scientific advances have shown that RNAs are important for turning genes on and off in response to different signals. Dr Gardner, who will return to New Zealand from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, will perform computational analyses of RNAs to inform us of RNA's further diverse functions.

Dr Murray Cox
(Massey University, Institute of Molecular BioSciences)
“Computational reconstruction of genomic evolution”
The ability to integrate new technologies for studying the whole genome with sophisticated computational analysis remains a key bottleneck in advancing the biological sciences. The interdisciplinary field of computational genomics is increasingly linking these diverse subject areas. Using novel computational approaches Dr Cox will investigate human prehistory in the Indo-Pacific region, and the way genes are regulated in an inter-species fungal hybrid which arose from two highly divergent parent species.

Associate Professor Alexei Drummond
(University of Auckland, Department of Computer Science)
“Computational analysis for molecular ecology and evolutionary biology”
Questions such as how species evolve in the face of infectious disease and climate change still demand satisfactory answers. To understand the origins and maintenance of biodiversity requires a statistical framework that can synthesize molecular data with ecology and climate. Associate Professor Drummond will lead an international collaborative project to develop novel computational models to shed light on the processes of speciation, diversification and extinction.

Associate Professor Jennifer Hay
(University of Canterbury, School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics)
“Episodic word memory”
Individuals know many hundreds of thousands of words. Recent results indicate that what we know about each word is shaped in a dynamic ongoing way with our own experience with that word. Associate Professor Hay's research program explores episodic word memory - asking what the range of environments (social, physical, contextual) in which we encounter a word does to the way we hear, use and pronounce that word.

Dr John Reynolds
(University of Otago, Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology)
“Improving brain function: a balancing act”
Disruption of normal communication between brain areas is a feature of a number of common brain disorders such as stroke and epilepsy. In the proposed research Dr Reynolds will use experimental approaches to alter the normal balance between excitation and inhibition in the brain and in doing so attempt to improve function in these brain disorders.

Dr Eric Le Ru
(Victoria University of Wellington, School of Chemical and Physical Sciences)
“Surface-enhanced spectroscopy: from fundamentals to applications”
The remarkable optical properties of nanostructures are increasingly used in a variety of emerging optical methods aiming at dramatically improving the sensitivity of devices for molecule detection and identification, ultimately down to a single-molecule. Dr Le Ru will study both theoretical and experimental aspects of electromagnetism at the nano-scale and in particular nano-plasmonics with the goal of dramatically improving our fundamental understanding of single molecules on surfaces and the applicability and transfer of these advanced techniques to real-world problems.

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