5 July, 2011

Sir Robin Irvine Scholarship to study human impact on the ice

Waikato University PhD student Stephen Archer has been awarded this year’s Sir Robin Irvine Antarctica New Zealand doctoral scholarship. He was presented with the scholarship last night at this year’s annual Antarctica conference being held at the University of Waikato.

Archer is studying the Bratina Island ponds in Antarctica and his scholarship will cover the costs of two trips to the ice and $20,000 research related costs each year for two years.

“I’m thrilled to receive this,” he said. “It will provide valuable research funding and supplement the doctoral scholarship I already have from Waikato University.”

Archer has travelled to Antarctica before. He spent a month there two summers ago, studying planktonic communities in meltwater ponds for his masters degree.

“My PhD research builds on my masters. I’ll be looking at the ponds in greater detail, designing manipulation studies to determine human contamination and global warming impacts on these systems. I will also be doing a human bioindicator study on the surrounding area to investigate the impacts humans are having on the ponds systems. The information means we’ll be able to measure that impact, which is important in preserving the earth’s last untouched environment.”

He says the weather was surprisingly mild for his first trip to the frozen continent, but he’ll be prepared for whatever the southern climate throws at him when he heads down there again in January.

“I have a sampling rig that I built. It’s got a special heating element to stop the water freezing during sampling, and I also have a micro manipulator I designed, which is like a really accurate winch, accurate to a quarter of a millimetre.”

He’ll collect samples from ponds of different sizes and depths, with names such as Egg, Orange, Salt and P70, and bring them back to Waikato University for analysis.

Last year Waikato University received $50,000 from Antarctica New Zealand in seed funding for the new International Centre for Terrestrial Antarctic Research (ICTAR) to establish the Antarctic Research Endowment Fund. Waikato microbial biologist Professor Craig Cary who’s director of ICTAR, says hosting the conference was timely for the University as it signalled the start of a fundraising campaign to build on that seed money.

ICTAR is an international partnership between Waikato University, Gateway Antarctica at the University of Canterbury and representatives from nine foreign countries all with dedicated terrestrial Antarctic research programmes. The endowment is to support continued growth and development of research expertise in Antarctica. Waikato University has also put in $50,000.

ends

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