Issue 4 – Monday 18th March 2019
Contents
HeadSUP
As salaam-alaikum, peace be upon you. This beautiful islamic greeting will have been offered and answered many times as people arrived last Friday for prayer at the Al Noor and Linwood Mosques. The callous slaughter that ensued is heart-wrenching and affecting on many levels. My thoughts are with those who were there, those who have lost their loved ones, and to the many who became involved.
This atrocity is an afront to everyone and was designed to instil fear amongst our Muslim communities.
To all our Muslim whanau, we stand with you in grief and dismay. As you are brave in going about your daily lives, we all must be brave in speaking out as bystanders when we bear witness to disrespectful or bigoted behaviour, no matter who is targeted.
We value diversity, inclusivity and equity for all.
Ngā mihi – JR
How to support your students
- Take time to acknowledge what has happened
- Reassure students that whatever they are feeling – shock, fear, anger, anxiety, sadness – are completely normal reactions after a traumatic event such as this
- Slow things down, go gently
- Remind them that connection is important – look out for each other
- Affirm that they have our support, and that the University is committed to keeping them safe
- Direct them to the Student Health and Counselling Service – (09) 923 7681 or email generalmanagerUHCS@auckland.ac.nz – if they feel they want/need a deeper conversation about the incident (most staff are not qualified to help at that level, but our trained counsellors are)
- Remind them they can also contact the 1737 number (Need to Talk) if they want to talk to a trained counsellor
Staff needing support can contact the Employee Assistance Programme team on 0800 327 669, emailauckland@eapservices.co.nz or online at https://www.eapservices.co.nz/contact/
The Maclaurin Chapel will be open for everyone (regardless of religion or beliefs) from 9.00am to 5.00pm during this week. The Chapel is a place of quiet reflection and korero, where students and staff can take time out for themselves
Vale: Ron Keam
Ron Keam, a friend and colleague to many of us, died on 6 February. For many years Ron was a fixture in the Physics Department, sometimes it seemed literally. He taught geophysics and persuaded some of us in the geology stream that the maths actually was possible and did mean something. But more importantly, Ron had a great passion…the 1886 Tarawera volcanic eruption. His book on the subject is wonderful (http://www.tarawera.com) and his recent paper (Keam, R., 2016.
The Tarawera eruption, Lake Rotomahana, and the origin of the Pink and White Terraces, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 314, 10-38) is geopoetry – a good read for everyone. But, of all Ron’s research outputs, a favourite has to be his bathymetric map of Frying Pan Lake, Waimangu, which famously includes the statement ‘not for navigational purposes’. Ron will be missed.
Fundraising morning tea Wednesday 20th March, 10:30-11:30am
All proceeds to the Christchurch Shooting Victims’ Fund
The horrific white supremacist terrorist attack in Christchurch last Friday which left 50 dead and many more injured has saddened and appalled us all.
The School of Environment is holding a fundraising morning tea this Wednesday 20th March at 1030-1130am in the Level 6 breakout space of Building 302. Please bring a cash donation, all proceeds to Victim Support: Christchurch Shooting Victims’ Fund.
If you are able can you please “bring a plate” of food to share with everyone at the morning tea. Bringing a plate is about whanaungatanga and manaakitanga, a tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand of coming together as a community. To celebrate our diverse origins in the School, it would be great if you could bring food you associate with home.
Any leftovers will be taken to a table in the 302 foyer to be sold by our student associations to raise further funds for Christchurch Victim Support.
Please direct any questions to Mel Wall (m.wall@auckland.ac.nz)
HoS Weekly Open Door Sessions
JR will be having her Open Door Sessions in her office on every Wednesday, 11:30am – 12:30pm, starting from 20 March. Staff and students are all welcome to walk in without making an appointment and quickly talk to JR about any issues. However, for any other issue which requires formal discussion, please book a meeting with JR through Samantha (Samantha.huang@auckland.ac.nz).
ENV Committees and documents
Many of the School of Environment’s Committees will in future be storing documents and resources on Google Team Drives. Members of each committee will be given access and in each case these will be accessible only by those members. In effect, these will replace other storage sites such as the School’s network drives or the Sharepoint. In addition, it should reduce the need to email attachments and to provide easier access to archived documents and to the sharing of resources.
A whole-School Team Drive will be created for all members of the School to access. This will have folders for the Minutes of the various committees, as well as other documents of a general interest.
A word of your Gmail account
While this will be old news for many of you it is worth reminding you that every member of staff has a University Gmail account. This will be your username followed by @aucklanduni.ac.nz. With this you get a Google drive account with unlimited file storage.
Your Google drive offers both:
- a personal My drive – where you can store your own files; and you may share these with others, if you wish; and
- a Team Drives – which are shared by specific groups. ENV committees will have their own Team Drive.
Please note that you should use your UoA Gmail account when accessing Team Drives and files shared with you. Most of you will have a personal Gmail account and it can cause confusion if you use that one instead.
The EARTHSCI 703
Understanding Hydrothermal Systems – class jumped straight into the field at the start of the semester to investigate surface manifestations of geothermal systems between Rotorua and Taupo, as lead by Kathy Campbell and Earth Science PhD students Irene Wallis and Ayrton Hamilton.
The lively group of students tested and applied conceptual models of how different fluid compositions come about when hot water interacts with the surrounding country rock to produce a wide variety of other-worldly land surface features which bring flocks of tourists and earth scientists to our shores every year from around the world. Ubiquitous signs of dynamic volcanism, active faulting and extremophile microbes living in the hot water added to the mix and created a buzz amongst the students as they traced, photographed and mapped the products of the inner workings of the Earth’s heat and tectonic engines under the shadow of brooding Mt Tarawera, colourful Rainbow Mountain, and deceptively calm Lake Taupo, site of NZ’s own currently resting supervolcano.
Research highlights
New Paper: Brown SI, Dickson ME, Kench PS, Bergillos R.J., 2019.
Modelling gravel barrier response to storms and sudden relative sea-level change using XBeach-G, Marine Geology, 410, 164-170.
This paper arose from the Masters research of Sophia Brown as a part of the physical science work of Mark and Paul on the Living at the
Edge project.
We used a numerical model to investigate gravel beach barrier response to a dramatic change in relative sea level forced by the 1931 Napier earthquake.
This natural experiment lifted one part of the coast up about 1.5 m and dropped another bit of the coast down by about 0.8 m.
Model results imply long-term barrier stability on the uplifted profile, but the crest height of the subsided barrier increased
while the barrier narrowed.
These results are empirically consistent with historical beach profile observations that show chronic narrowing of the subsided barrier through time.
We ran further simulations using the modern barrier form on the subsided profile and draw attention attention to the possibility that this barrier may
be on a trajectory toward catastrophic breakdown under extreme conditions. We need to investigate these results further,
and are currently engaging in further work to try to reveal the mechanisms that drive barrier response to sudden sea level rise.
International journal of disaster risk reduction
Ton, K. T., Gaillard, J. C., Adamson, C. E., Akgungor, C., & Ho, H. T. (2019) Expanding the capabilities of people with disabilities in disaster risk reduction.
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 34, 11–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.11.002
This article examines disaster risk facing people with disabilities through the lens of the capability approach.
It is argued that, to reduce disaster risk for them, their capabilities to cope with disasters need to be expanded.
This can be achieved by fostering meaningful participation of people with disabilities in decision-making processes impacting on their well-being, not only in times of disasters, but also in everyday life. Though this paper focuses on people with disabilities, it has also raised possibilities of applying
this capability approach for understanding disaster risk facing other groups of people in society.
International journal of climatology
Dr Ana Rueda (University of Cantabria, Spain) is visiting us and currently working on the prediction of coastal flooding using machine learning techniques.
The collaboration with Dr. Rueda has already resulted in a recent article on marine climate variability in Aotearoa NZ (Rueda et al., 2018, Int. J. of Climatology).
The work presents a general methodology to relate atmospheric conditions to the drivers of coastal change.
New Earth Science Paper
A former Master’s student, Julius Dimabayao, has recently had his MSc work published in Geothermics (Stable isotope systematics of fluids
and epidote in the Bacon-Manito Geothermal Field, Philippines: Indicators of fluid origin and evolution, v. 80, p. 31-43; ).
Julius was an international 2yr MSc student, funded to come to Auckland for his MSc.
Julius handed in his MSc in late 2016 and has been employed in the geothermal industry by the Energy Development Corporation (EDC) in the Philippines since leaving Auckland. The direct link to the article can be found here
Postgraduates Matter
A couple of reminders from the Postgraduate Committee.
- Remember to submit your Doctoral Annual Review (or more importantly for 1st year PhD students the Doctoral Provisional Year Review) forms on time.
Despite all the presentations, interviews, and proposals, unless the DPYR is completed the provisional year is not signed off by the Graduate School. - This is a reminder that, based on decisions of discipline groups, this year all postgraduate research students are required to give an oral presentation of
their work (Honours and Masters). For students starting their Masters in S1 presentations are in November (early) and Honours in week 7-8 of S2.
Exact dates will be announced closer to the time.
Changes to the Technical Team
I regret to inform you that both Colin and Louise will be leaving us in April.
Colin has been with the University since 1981 and Louise since 1988. They have both been integral parts of the Technical team and the School, and will be missed.
I would like to thank them both for the hard work, dedication and support they have provided to staff and students over the years.
Please join us in wishing them both the best for the future; wherever it takes them.
PACRIM
PACRIM Minerals systems of the Pacific Rim Congress, Auckland 3-5 April
This conference assembles some of the world’s experts on mineral genesis and exploration. If you are interested check out this page
The organisers are looking for student helpers – if you can spare a day or more and would like to volunteer, please email Kate Haralam: KHaralam@ausimm.com
Marine Geosciences group meetings
Tuesady, 19 March, 1-2 pm, 303-G13
Monday, 8 April, 1-2 pm, room TBD
Tuesday, 14 May, 1-2 pm, 303-G13
Stats NZ Jacoby Prize
Submissions are now open for the 2019 Stats NZ Jacoby Prize.
The Stats NZ Jacoby Prize is awarded by the Population Association of New Zealand for the best paper on a New Zealand-related population topic written
during a course of university study.
The competition is open to all current or immediate past tertiary students throughout New Zealand.
Click here for more information
Scopus communications and rankings
Have you updated your Scopus profile?
As you are probably aware the UoA has dipped in the recently released QS rankings. One of the metrics they use comes from Scopus data.
The rankings will be coming out soon and they also use Scopus data.
The Planning and Quality Office are coordinating a campaign to encourage key researchers to make sure their Scopus Author
IDs are up to date and accurate.
Sometimes people don’t have a Scopus ID or they have two or more or their institutional affiliation is incorrect. All of which can skew the data.
Libraries and Learning Services have set up this page HERE to help. If Scopus IDs are updated by the end of March this could
potentially improve UoA rankings.
Info on new teams in Libraries & Learning Services
Research Services
Service Description
We provide advice on resources and tools to help shape your research projects by enabling discovery, use, sharing, and management of information.
Finding and managing information
Learn how to use advanced techniques to find key literature on a topic and manage the information that you find.
Publishing and sharing your research
Explore publishing options to assess journals and publishers for suitability and quality, and retain your rights to share and distribute your work.
Promoting your research and understanding scholarly attention
Improve the visibility of your research to maximise citations and future impact. Build your profile for networking and collaboration opportunities.
Contact us to request a consultation with a Research Services adviser.
Doctoral Skills Programme
The School of Graduate Studies and Libraries and Learning Services in partnership offer the Doctoral Skills Programme.
The programme includes the half-day Doctoral Induction and workshops covering digital scholarship, academic writing and professional development.
You can find more information on the “service delivery model” here
Global partnership seedcorn fund
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) invites proposals to its Global Partnerships Seedcorn Fund (GPSF) 2019 call.
Click here to read more information
Award board
Applications are invited for a Goldstone Travelling Award for 2019 from Senior Tutors and Professional Teaching Fellows.
The Goldstone Travelling Award was established in 2016 to recognise Margaret Goldstone’s 30 years of service and contribution
to the faculty and University. The award aims to provide formal opportunities for senior tutors and
professional teaching fellows to extend their range of experience and enhance their teaching practice by visiting tertiary institutions with strong teaching programmes. The award is up to $5000.
The application form and further details about the award is accessible via the Goldstone Travelling Award webpage, and applications are due by 18 April.
If you have any questions about eligibility or anything else to do with the award, please feel to contact Duncan McGillivray
(Associate Dean Academic).
Classified Ads
Sabbatical Accommodation
Three bedroom furnished house in Mt Albert available for 3-12 month period from mid-June 2019. Family-friendly large yard, fenced with trees and gardens.
Modern kitchen, two bathrooms. Easy (20-30min) travel to city campus by train and/or bus. Close to primary and secondary schools, parks, and shopping.
Further information, contact: Robin Kearns r.kearns@auckland.ac.nz
Computer package for sale
DELL Optiplex 7040
2x DELL Ultrasharp 24″
Epson stylus photo printer R3000
Epson 4870 photo scanner
Enquiries to JR