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Issue 36-Monday 6th July 2020

July 6, 2020 • fshe556

HeadSup

Michael and Henry Vincent Martin

Kia ora koutou

This week we farewell two people who have contributed in unique ways to the School for a number of years and welcome one wee newcomer. I’m delighted to announce the birth of Henry Vincent Martin – congratulations Michael and Lynne! Riki Taylor concludes his work with Tuākana and the Tertiary Foundation Course at the end of this week, and Kate Kenedi’s Research Fellowship is at end. Kate has worked closely with the Earth Sciences team, taking the initiative with numerous outreach and teaching activities during her time with us. We will have a catered morning tea 10.30am this Wednesday, 8 July, to acknowledge Riki and Kate’s service to the school and wish them well for the future, and sign Henry’s birthday book. If you have yet to make the move back to the university, this would be a great time to come in and catch up.

It’s always inspiring to read the activities listed in p-cubed. I’d like to encourage you to send in details of new publications or other forms of knowledge mobilisation for noting in the Rangahau section. Not many people take advantage of this but it’s great to see the breadth of work being undertaken in the school so don’t be shy!

Much is underway to kick off the University’s 10 year strategic plan including set-up of various working groups (research, education, culture and people, engagement, future University campus) that will develop discussion papers for consideration. It will be important to get engaged with this work as opportunities allow and I encourage everyone to stay on top of developments in this space. For those who have yet to read the VC’s framing document, you can find it here. Our ENV 3-year strategic plan also is underway and I expect to have a draft out for comment in the next edition of p-cubed.

Thank you to those who have put their hat in the ring for the Rangahau service and leadership role. I expect to make an announcement on this position soon.

The response to the call for a Director, Comms and Marketing, has been very disappointing. I would like to emphasise the importance of this role to the future of the School and the opportunity it provides for making a difference that would contribute nicely to a leadership narrative for promotion applications. I would also like to emphasise that the role calls for a ‘Director’, someone who can identify opportunity, develop a plan, and see that the plan is implemented through leadership. The School will resource this role via casual contract support and OPEX. I would like to extend the deadline for expressions of interest to close of day Wednesday. If you are interested but would like to know more about the scope, please get in touch.

Lastly, I would like to extend a very appreciative vote of thanks to Farnaz, who has been doing a great job building p-cubed for us every fortnight. Farnaz has been promoted to a new role (Facilities Coordinator, Psychology and Chemistry) and this is her last p-cubed. Thanks Farnaz!

Whakawhanaungatanga – communities

Congratulations!

The New Zealand Geographical Society’s President’s Award for Best Doctoral Thesis has been made to Dr. Linda Madden of our School for her thesis: ‘Pet Names: A Critical Geography of Non-human Identity Construction in Auckland City’ (supervisors Robin Kearns & Ward Friesen). Linda is currently writing papers from her thesis while teaching Geography and Social Studies at Taylors College.

Notice

This is just a gentle reminder that doctoral students need to send through all DOC 3 (Nomination for the Appointment of Examiners for a Doctoral Degree), DOC 6 (Change to Doctoral Candidate Registration), Doctoral Annual Report and Doctoral Provisional Review forms to env-pgadmin@auckland.ac.nz for HoD approval. Thank you.

ENV Welcome Back Function

Staff and PG Research students are cordially invited to School of Environment welcome back function from 4-6pm, Thursday 30 July in the Level 6 Breakout Space. Please RSVP here by Monday 20 July for catering purpose. See you there soon!

Health and Safety online reporting system is now live

Please use this portal to report any work related Health and Safety Injury, Incident (non injury) or Observation (safe/unsafe) involving staff, students, contractors and/or visitors. Any queries please contact Health Safety and Wellbeing on x84896. If you have any questions as Blair b.sowman@auckland.ac.nz

Injury

Any injury occurring in the course of work-related activities.

To report an injury to an employee, student, contractor or visitor during the course of work activity click here.

Incidents – No Injury

Any unplanned event or occurrence having a potential for injury or ill-health.

To report an unplanned event that under slightly different circumstances could have caused harm, injury or damage click here.

Observation

An observed safe (positive) or unsafe (hazardous) act or condition.

To report an observation, click here.

Students should report incidents, injuries and observations to the Student Contact Centre or via their academic supervisor. To assist with identification of the person involved, please also include their Staff/Student ID number and a contact phone number (if known) in the “What Happened” section.

ENV MPI Transitional/Quarantine Facility – Annual Refresher

If you are a new user or you wish to continue using the Schools MPI Transitional Facility for uncleared risks goods, then please make sure you complete the required inductions in Canvas.

New users will need to complete the induction and pass the TF Quiz.
Those who have already passed the test will need to complete the annual refresher; which is due annually.

Remember that if you wish to import materials the first thing you need to do is talk to Blair. There is an application form you need to complete which includes information such as the size, weight, reasons and length of time you wish to keep the items.

ALL imported shipments of rock, soil, sediment, peat, coral, wood, ash or water must be inspected by MPI and be accompanied by a Biosecurity Authorisation/Clearance Certificate (BACC). Natural materials which fall outside of the allowed materials of the ENV permit cannot be stored in the Transitional Facility and must be transferred to an appropriate holding facility or risk being destroyed. If we receive any unexpected deliveries without the correct paperwork these will be sent back to MPI for destruction.

Maps and Geospatial Collections Review

Libraries and Learning Services | Te Tumu Herenga is currently reviewing its map and geospatial collections, both print and digital, to ensure that we deliver a high-quality service aligned with learning, teaching and research needs at the University of Auckland. The map and geospatial collections include print maps and charts, atlases, aerial photographs, indices, gazetteers, catalogues; and digital maps and charts, aerial and satellite imagery and geospatial datasets. This is part of the overall collections work LLS is continually doing.

Satellite image of Mt Taranaki

To help with the review, LLS is consulting University of Auckland stakeholders about their use of these collections and the extent to which the collections are meeting their needs, now and into the future. The findings from the online survey, distributed this week and available until Friday, 24 July, will be used to determine the future state of the collections.

There is a lot at stake with this review, so please consider making yourself available and provide feedback.

I am available to answer any questions you might have relating to this news item, the survey and the map and geospatial collections review.

Thank you

Igor Drecki
Research Services Adviser, Geospatial Portfolio
Libraries and Learning Services | Te Tumu Herenga
E: i.drecki@auckland.ac.nz
P: 09 923 6506 or ext 86506

Lessons learned from lockdown.

A big thank you to those of you who responded to the online survey, hastily set up by Joe (for the Sustainability Network), on lockdown lessons. Here is a brief overview. While closer scrutiny would be required to improve the accuracy of the percentages, the general sentiment is clear.

Vacant office

With the departure of Ward and Lyndsay there are currently two vacant offices in 302. If you are currently located in 301 and would like to relocate please let JR know.

Meeting, seminars and events

Title: How tectonic and surface processes interact to shape the landscape

6.30pm for 6.45pm 18th August-Auckland Museum Auditorium

For further information please click here.

Title: The Southern Alps of New Zealand- an integrated picture of an evolving plate boundary

1pm 17th August- The University of Auckland- Room 303-B05

For further information please click here.

Title: Just how on earth do we know what mars is made of?

Friday 31st July. Two ‘showings’

3.30pm The University of Auckland- Room 303-G16 OR

7.30pm Epsom Community Centre, 200 Gillies Ave

For further information please click here.

Geoscience Society of New Zealand’s photography competition

We are extending the submission deadline of this year’s Geoscience Society of New Zealand’s photography competition to Monday July 13. Don’t miss the chance to be immortalized on canvas and have bragging rights with all your geo-friends!

What: First annual GSNZ photo competition commemorating Milutin Milankovic’s astronomical theory

When: Submit photos by Monday July 13, 2020

Where: Send photos, along with a brief caption and photo details to geosocietynz@gmail.com

Who: Open to GSNZ members

Why: To have your image featured in the GSNZ Newsletter and on the website, and win a canvas print collage of the top photos from each of the three categories:

Geological Cyclicity
Macro- and micro-scale geoscience
New Zealand geoscience.

We look forward to receiving your entries.

Terms and Conditions attached

Earth Sciences Bickie Briefings

When & Where?

Every week from 10.30-11.00 am starting Thursday 16 July onwards, Level 6 common space unless otherwise advised.

Who?

Everyone – all post-graduate students and staff are welcome, please come.

Why?

Find out what’s happening and what’s coming up in the next week, eat bickies, hear about our success, and help build our Earth Sciences Community.

Ako – Teaching and Learning

The University of Auckland Teaching Excellence Awards 2020

Dear all

Applications are being called for The University of Auckland Teaching Excellence Awards. There are five Teaching Excellence Awards available, in the following categories:

Sustained Excellence in Teaching (two awards)
Early Career Excellence in Teaching (two awards)
Leadership in Teaching and Learning (one award)
In the 2020 round, applications are invited for ‘informal’ leadership in teaching and learning*

In a particular year, if an award is not made in one or more of the categories, an award may be re-assigned to another category if the next best ranked application in that category is of sufficient merit. The Awards are contestable across the University and carry with them a medal and a monetary prize of $6,000.

Selected recipients of University of Auckland Teaching Excellence Awards will usually be considered for nomination by the University for the national awards. The University, however, reserves the right to approach other staff to nominate for the national awards.

The Information to applicants and application forms are available on the University’s Learning and Teaching website at:

http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/excellence-innovation/

For guidance and advice on preparing a teaching portfolio, potential applicants can:

– view the portfolios of the University’s national Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award winners as an example of best practice

– contact a previous Teaching Excellence Award winner from their faculty

The closing date for applications is Friday 4 September 2020 with the Teaching Excellence Awards Secretary, Susan McDowell-Watts, s.mcdowell-watts@auckland.ac.nz

For any enquiries – contact Claire Walters, Academic Reviews Manager, Office of the Vice-Chancellor, c.walters@auckland.ac.nz

Meeting, seminars and events

Title:Using peer-to-peer interaction to enhance student learning: Ako Innovation Committee Workshop

Presenters: Sonia Fonua & Marie McEntee
Date and time: Friday 10th July, 10am
Zoom: https://auckland.zoom.us/j/92737798996

For further information please click here.

Rangahau – Research

People

Franca Scherman (Peverelle) has joined the team as a Research Programme Coordinator supporting researchers in the School of Environment manage their project grant funding. She was previously supporting researchers in the School of Biological Sciences and is looking forward to working with you all. Please continue to email Kathryn (Kathryn.howard@auckland.ac.nz) or Kelly (Kelly.kilpin@auckland.ac.nz) or Franca (Franca.peverelle@auckland.ac.nz) for any research project assistance.

Three Minute Thesis competition

The Three Minute Thesis competition is going ahead this year, with the Science heat at 3pm on July 14th. Please encourage confirmed doctoral and research Masters students to enter the competition. Registration for the heat closes on July 7th and the link for registration is

https://www.forms.auckland.ac.nz/en/student/science/three-minute-thesis-2020.html

The Science heat is in-person only. If you have students that would prefer to do an online presentation, they could join the open heat on July 23rd. See details at

https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/academic-information/postgraduate-students/3-minute-thesis-competition/3mt.html

The University final will be on August 6th and is an in-person event. More information about how the completion works is at

https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/academic-information/postgraduate-students/3-minute-thesis-competition/rules-terms-and-conditions.html

Application for retreats

The Rangahau Committee is keen to receive applications for “retreats”. While in the past “retreats” were usually organized by the Disciplinary groups, we would like to encourage retreats by teams keen to develop research ideas into proposals. We could also cover for participation (not travel) of researchers outside the School that play a key role in the research.

Please contact Giovanni g.coco@auckland.ac.nz for more details.

Meeting, seminars and events

Title: Characterisation of deep-marine ichnostructures and their relevance as environmental proxies

Date: Thursday, July 9th at 1PM

Zoom Meeting ID: https://auckland.zoom.us/j/95902706616

Climate Science Rendezvous

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeGl_yDDk-z3JUH_Kw-6bQBBmoZkvD9s0c61YqGwRkof6yeww/viewform

Impact through Culture Change’ Webinar series

The University of Auckland’s Office of Research Strategy and Integrity would like to invite you to the first event of our new research impact webinar series: ‘Impact through Culture Change’.

A Treaty-based approach to creating impact: aligning the expectations of individual researchers and their organisations to achieve collective impact

To our first event of the series we have invited Dr Andrea Byrom, Co-Director, Biological Heritage National Science Challenge and Melanie Mark-Shadbolt, Director Māori, Biological Heritage National Science Challenge to share their experiences and the challenges they have faced whilst leading impact within their organisations.

Date: Monday 6 July

Time: 12:30pm – 1.30pm

Digital research skills workshops for all UoA researchers, July – Sept, 2020, from thc Centre for eResearch

Managing Research Data workshop, online or in-person
An introduction to research data management, best practices and services available at the University. We take a research data lifecycle approach – data management planning for funding and ethics applications, organization, storage, sharing, and archiving and publishing.
Research group sessions available on request.
For more information and booking – https://research-hub.auckland.ac.nz/#/content/44

Tools tips & tricks, part of the Hacky Hour programme
A series on digital research tools, fortnightly 1 hour online sessions are a mix of presentation and discussion for and by researchers or the team at the Centre for eResearch.

All welcome, no booking required.

9^th July | Social media data scraping and wrangling – tips & tricks

23 July | Generating publication-ready figures – tips & tricks

Future topics include NVIVO, Machine learning, Qualtrics (survey tool), etc.
For more information and Zoom link – https://uoa-eresearch.github.io/HackyHour/tips-tricks-sessions/

Introduction to Nectar Virtual Machines workshop
Is your desktop/laptop struggling to perform research analysis?
Join us for this online step-by-step 1 hour introduction to getting a Nectar virtual machine allocation and setting-up a Windows virtual machine.

For more information and booking – http://tiny.cc/nectar-intro-workshop

Research and Funding Opportunities

CBB Māori Student Summer Scholarships

Kia ora koutou,

We are pleased to let you know that the Centre for Biodiversity and Biosecurity (CBB) will offer 4 CBB Māori Student Summer Scholarships (2 funded by the CBB and 2 by Manaaki Whenua LCR) for this summer (2020/2021). The purpose of the scholarships is to:

1) Encourage Māori students to study ecology through exposure/participation in research in this field of study and

2) Improve support and engagement of CBB staff with Māori students.

We are targeting Stage 1 students as we think engaging early will encourage them to pursue studies in ecology. As with other UOA summer scholarships, the CBB scholarships will be for 10 weeks and students will receive a stipend of $6000 each.

Based on feedback from last year’s scholarship students, we would like to package the scholarships differently from the standard UoA studentships. Instead of a student working on one project with one supervisor, students will have the opportunity to work on a combination of projects with different supervisors to enhance their exposure to different areas of research in ecology and to help them build their networks.

We are now writing to seek your support with the supervision of the students. Any CBB staff members are eligible to supervise (if you’d like to join the CBB then please use the attached form). If you are interested, please email us a brief description of potential project(s) including experience & skills to be gained, the number of students you could supervise and the preferred length of time and dates you would like the students involvement (e.g. 7 days lab work for 2 students between 20 Jan and 5 Feb). We will combine projects to give students a range of experience, but will come back to you to negotiate details, depending on other requests. We will be uploading the types of research students can expect to be involved with on the CBB website. Please note that as the scholarship awardees are Stage 1 students, they will likely require more support than Stage 3 counterparts (the usual beneficiaries of UOA Summer Research Scholarship Programme).

We look forward to hearing back from you. Please email your responses to Souad Boudjelas s.boudjelas@auckland.ac.nz by Friday 10 July.

Unlocking the potential of Tamaki Makaurau’s women and girls: Women’s Fund grants for 2020

The Women’s Fund seeks to positively impact the lives of women in Auckland, and unlock potential across generations.

Grants of up to $5,000 are available to support organisations and initiatives that amplify the voices of women, such as promoting leadership; invest in women, through education and training, or building resilience; and accelerate growth and development opportunities, including mentoring.

This year, we also have an additional $20,000 to grant to programmes that specifically lift and empower girls and young women.

Details The full criteria and how to apply can be found on the funders website.

FRDF Strategic round for Early Career Researchers

Hi All

The Faculty of Science is calling for research proposals from Early Career Researchers as part of a strategic use of FRDF funds. The Research Committee felt that a special opportunity for Early Career Researchers at this time would be a strategic use of a portion of FRDF funds at this time.

Central has asked Faculties to hold off their main funding rounds although we envisage we will be about to put out a call for a main round later in July.

Guidelines and FRDF Application form for this strategic round are attached and note that applications are due by Wednesday 29^th July 2020.

Please do not hesitate to contact Wendy if you have any questions.

COVID-19 and future infectious disease threats: new funding round focused on equity, resilience and recovery coming soon

Some information about an upcoming funding call from HRC at the following link:
https://mailchi.mp/hrc/new-covid-19-round-coming-soon-equity-resilience-and-recovery?e=554a8b4562

New publications

Jefferson T, Costello 2020. Hotspots of marine biodiversity. In: Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes Volume 4, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Elsevier, 586-596. ISBN 9780124095489. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.11952-9
Morris TC, Costello 2020. The biology, ecology and societal importance of marine parasites. In: Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes Volume 4, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Elsevier, 556-566. ISBN 9780124095489. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.11802-0
Costello MJ, Zhao Q, Jayathilake, DRM. 2020. Defining marine spatial units: realms, biomes, ecosystems, seascapes, habitats, biotopes, communities and guilds. In: Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes Volume 4, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Elsevier, 547-555. ISBN 9780124095489. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.12515-1
Asaad I, Lundquist CJ, Erdmann MV, Costello 2020. The Coral Triangle: the most species rich marine region on earth. In: Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes Volume 4, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Elsevier, 539-546. ISBN 9780124095489. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.11801-9
Arfianti T, Costello J. 2020. The biological, ecological, and ecosystem roles of marine Amphipoda. In: Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes Volume 4, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Elsevier, 518-526. ISBN 9780124095489. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.11800-7
Zhao Q, Costello 2020. Marine ecosystems of the world. In: Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes Volume 4, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Elsevier, 514-517. ISBN 9780124095489. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.11688-4
Jayathilake DR, Costello 2020. The kelp biome. In: Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes Volume 4, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Elsevier, 509-513. ISBN 9780124095489. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.11768-3
Jayathilake DR, Costello 2020. Seagrass biome. In: Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes Volume 4, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Elsevier, 504-508. ISBN 9780124095489. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.11748-8.
Pagés-Escolà M, CostelloJ. 2020. The biology, ecology and societal importance of marine Bryozoa. In: Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes Volume 4, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Elsevier, 499-503. ISBN 9780124095489. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.12138-4
Saeedi, H, Costello 2020. The biology, ecology, and societal importance of razor clams. In: Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes Volume 4, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Elsevier, 494-498. ISBN 9780124095489, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.11681-1.
Basher Z, Costello MJ, 2020. World Maps of Ocean Environment Variables. In: Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes Volume 4, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Elsevier, 479-493. ISBN 9780124095489. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.12076-7

Categories: Uncategorised

Comments (1)

Issue 35-Monday 22nd June 2020

June 22, 2020 • fshe556

HeadSup

Kia ora koutou

I’d like to extend a big thank you to all the facilitators who helped run our remote ENV staff retreat last week and all participants for contributing to the various sessions on offer. We had an excellent turn-out! I would be very pleased to receive feedback on the day and suggestions for additional workshops that we could timetable through the semester as upskill options. You can find a largely unedited summary of contributions to ‘Framing the 2021-23 ENV Strategic Plan’ here. If you have further thoughts that you would like to contribute to this topic please email me before the end of this week. PG Students: I will invite comment from you on the school plan in due course.

I would like to invite expressions of interest for the service/leadership roles of Chair, Rangahau (currently held by Giovanni Coco) and Director, Comms & Marketing (a new role). Both roles provide opportunity for strategic development and school-wide leadership and thus are particularly opportune for those who may be building leadership portfolios. The Comms & Marketing role will be supported via a casual contract subject to Faculty approval. If you feel energised at the thought of positively impacting the School through either of these roles please get in touch with me directly.

Congratulations are in order for Tom Baker (VC Early Career Research Excellence Award) and Michael Rowe (newly appointed FOS Research Theme Leader, Our World and Universe). Well done to you both!

We are in the final stages of confirming our revised budget following a ~$200k reduction in spend. All committees and platforms now should have reconfirmed budgets and can recommence spending. If you are running a subcommittee and are not sure of your budget, please get in touch with your platform leader (Karen, Robin or Giovanni). All staff eligible for professional development funding are now able to start spending and it would be appreciated if you could make an effort to spend at least some of your entitlement before the end of 2020.

May I remind all PG research students and supervisors to send any documents requiring my signature to env-pgadmin@auckland.ac.nz. Do not send documents to me directly (they will be lost under a 1000 emails never to be seen again).

Many of us took our desktop computers and other equipment home in the 2-day run up to lock-down. On the assumption that we will remain at Alert Level 1, please start returning them to the School. I would like all items returned before the start of Semester 2 please. And of course, we need to make the adjustment to life back on campus. Guidelines for blended-working arrangements are under development for professional staff and the FOS HODs are discussing guidelines for academic staff. A presence on campus will remain integral to our expression of community.

It’s time for a gathering! I would like to invite all PG Research students and Staff to a ‘welcome back’ function from 4-6 pm, Thursday 30th July in the Level 6 common room. Samantha will be seeking RSVPs presently. It will be great to see you all there.

Ngā mihi

Whakawhanaungatanga – communities

Who’s who in ENV: committees and service roles

The current list of committees, committee members and service/leadership roles can be found here. We will keep this list up-to-date and post it in the top bar of p-cubed from the next edition. If you spot errors or omissions please let JR know. If there are committees that you would like to join in the future please advise JR.

New hire: X-ray Technologist

The technical team is happy to welcome Tania Rico Malacara who will be joining us later this year (if the country is open!).

After an extensive 6-month search we have appointed Tania to look after our x-ray facilities alongside David Adams (Microprobe) and Andres (ESP). Tania will be making the move from Mexico City, where she studied at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, undertaking a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and a Master’s degree in Earth Science with an Environmental Geochemistry specialization. Tania will bring some much needed expertise to our XRF facilities and will be able to get our equipment running beautifully.

You can also find her LinkedIn profile here https://www.linkedin.com/in/tania-rico-malacara-798226161/

Leave Plus

Applications for cashing up 1 week of leave are closing 26 June

The Leave Plus scheme on the staff intranet now has updated information about the process for applying for ‘cashing up’ one week of annual leave. The information about the process can be found here.

You can only apply to purchase leave once per year, within the first three weeks before the 1^st pay period in July. For 2020, the applications for Leave Plus will be from 4 June 2020 to 26 June 2020 and then every subsequent 12 months. The Leave Plus balance will be applied to your leave balances in Employee Self-Service after the first pay of July. Applications can be submitted by checking the eligibility criteria below and by completing the Leave Plus Purchase Form.

Please note, in line with the Vice Chancellor’s communication to all staff, you are encouraged to reduce your annual leave and time off in lieu (TOIL) balances to a maximum of 2 weeks by the end of January 2021. Hence, you are encouraged to incorporate the purchase of an additional week of leave (if eligible and approved) in this leave plan. Leave Plus balances won’t be carried into the next Leave Plus purchase period. If a Leave Plus balance hasn’t been used by the first pay of July 2021 the balance will be cashed up and paid back in the next pay period at the same rate it was purchased at. You will be able to purchase a new week for the following Leave Plus period.

EAP Flyer

Please find the latest EAP e-Flyer. Click here to view.

Topics in this edition include;

Men’s Health Week – 15^th June -21^st June
Why do I feel angry?
Mood boosting tips
How we can prevent bullying in Aotearoa

Academic Promotions 2020

Please take the time to review the information on the Academic Standards and Promotion policy to ensure that you are familiar with what is required as this is a step that many applicants overlook. Information on eligibility and changes made to the Academic Career Portfolio are provided below:

Eligibility

It is important to note that to be eligible to apply for promotion, if your case for promotion rests in part on teaching, you must have been employed and your performance evaluated for at least four teaching sessions (semesters, summer school, quarters) at the University of Auckland. This specification relates to the range and duration of teaching activities necessary to demonstrate sustained performance, not to the duration of employment. For research only staff, you must have been employed for at least 12 months before being eligible for consideration for promotion.

If you are unsure about eligibility please talk to your academic head in the first instance.

Academic Career Portfolio (ACP) changes

Changes were made several years ago to the teaching section of the ACP so it is important to ensure that all appropriate sections of the application are completed and as per Appendix 1, evidence to support statements made about teaching in the ACP are provided.

For more information and documentation please refer to Academic Promotions

Professorial applications – please note:

‘Electronic copies of your five nominated publications must be sent in a separate file along with your application’.
Where a publication is large, as in a book or an extensive report, applicants are requested to supply a ‘link’ to the electronic version of the specific publication where that is available, but in the absence of a ‘link’ an electronic version must be provided in a manageable zipped file in an appropriate format.
These must be in a file that a potential overseas referee, who may not have a University server available, can access. They can be PDF’d together but must be separate to the HR9 & 94.
Books in hard copy will not be accepted.

Promotions Seminar – 24^th June 2020

If you would like to understand more about the promotions process and what to include in your application, Professor Doug Elliffe, Deputy Dean and Chair of the Faculty Staffing Committee will facilitate a Promotions seminar.

The seminar will be held on in Room 303-G15, Wednesday 24^th June from 10-11am.

COVID-19 – Impact on Academic Promotion applications 2020

Academic Promotions process will go ahead in 2020 with the following amendments for all promotion points including Professor:

Staff whose promotion applications are successful will be awarded new academic titles effective 1 February 2021 and will be able to use their new titles from this date
The salary increment for 2020 promotions will be delayed until at least 1 July 2021 and increases will not be backdated
If staff do not feel that they are in a position to agree to these terms, then they will be requested to defer their application to 2021.

Other things to note:

If you are considering applying for promotion, discuss your intention to apply with your Academic Head before submitting. An early discussion can help determine whether your application is timely and what you may wish to include or consider. It is too late to do this on or after the deadline.

If you have a co-appointment with another department, you will need to provide your application to both Academic Heads.

You can expect to receive a letter with the outcome of your application via email to your official University email

address on 8th December 2020.

ENV First aid training

The School is looking to run some first aid training sessions in the near future (once we can organise a facilitator and confirm dates).

If you are interested please send an email to b.sowman@auckland.co.nz nothing which course you need to attend; a full course or a revalidation (you have 6 months after your cert expires).

First Aid Certificate (comprehensive) $150pp
First Aid Refresher (revalidation) $90pp
Minimum numbers are 10 per class.

If you can charge this to an external research project then please let Blair know the appropriate charge codes.

Students; this will be charged to your school account.

Orbit Travel Refund Process

If you have booked travel through Orbit which has subsequently been cancelled due to Covid-19 you may be due a refund – however to get the refund you need to initiate it with Orbit!

Please email Orbit at travel.uoa@orbit.co.nz using the following subject line “Booking Reference COXXXXXX – Cancellation Required” to claim your refund.

Note: Every booking should have a CO+6 digit number

Any questions about this, please contact the STC through the portal using the “Purchase-related Queries” option or Orbit via travel.uoa@orbit.co.nz.

News from the IT Committee:

Semester 2 computer lab. images and FlexIT:

images will be rolled over. If you require any changes please log a request through the staff service centre.
You may also be able to use FlexIT for computer-lab. assignments. Be aware that due to license restrictions, the software is not identical to the what is offered in the images and that students may have access to different software than staff. It is possible to request specific software to be accessible via FlexIT for specific classes. Please contact log a request through the staff service centre.

Centre for eResearch: CER had a brainstorming session on Tuesday regarding future research needs. CER are already providing an impressive range of computer related services, including:

Virtual machines. Ideal if you would like to do work that requires a bit more crunch-power than a desktop
Nectar research cloud: An Australian-led research computing cloud that we have joined in 2017. More powerful than individual VMs, ideal for external collaboration.
NeSI access: New Zealand’s supercomputer(s) for heavy-duty number crunching.
You can also request data storage capacity.

These services are generally free for us. Check it out: https://www.eresearch.auckland.ac.nz/

Future of Geoscience Virtual Summit

The Geological Society (of London) recently hosted the above online summit (via Zoom), attended by over 3000 delegates globally. This was in response to record low numbers of students choosing to study geological or Earth sciences at A-level and university in the UK, possibly due to perception, awareness, diversity and accessibility issues. Arguably, Geoscience is integral to achieving the 17 UN SDGs (2015-), the targets of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030), and the targets of the Paris Climate Agreement (2015-), among other challenges we face as a planet. Geoscience is quite literally our past, present and future. The link to the 3 hour Summit is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-PbVAOyADc&t=8091s

Prof. Iain Stewart’s contribution on Geology 2.0 from 2:05:00 is particularly pertinent to our School.

High School Outreach via Wonder Project

Staff may wish to get involved with Wonder Project. In a previous incarnation it was Future in Tech, run by Callaghan Innovation

https://wonderproject.nz/

Its aimed at school years 9-10 to try and get the students to continue taking science subjects. Its also an excellent outreach opportunity for our School.

You can become an ambassador, where you go into schools and talk about your uni studies/career and career opportunities in your subject area (i.e. probably best not to focus on recommending an academic pathway; rather, roles such as an enviro, planner, geographer, geologist etc etc – career pathways that are achievable for many). It might suit particularly those staff who have spent time working professionally outside of the University system.

The other roles they are looking for are mentors in the Rocket Challenge – you spend a 1 hour/week for 6-8 weeks with a school. All details are on the above website.”

Call for Applications: 2020 Science Medals (NZ Association of Scientists)

The closing date for all applications is Friday 31 July 2020.

Full guidelines are available at: https://scientists.org.nz/2020-awards-applications.

How to apply

Interested applicants should apply directly, rather than seek a nomination.
Please email application to: awards@scientists.org.nz and to buchananp@LandcareResearch.co.nz by 31 July, 2020.
An applicant can be considered for only one NZAS Medal each year, but may also be a member of a team for a second Medal application.
Applications submitted in previous years will remain valid for five years from the original submission date (except for Hill Tinsley Medal applicants if the 15 year post-PhD limit is exceeded), but a previously submitted application should be updated annually using the current format.

Meeting, seminars and events

Impact through Culture Change’ webinar series

About this Event
A Treaty-based approach to creating impact: aligning the expectations of individual researchers and their organisations to achieve collective impact.

The ‘Impact through Culture Change’ webinar series will focus on the achievement of impact from the perspective of organisational change and the important role senior leaders can have in effecting this change. To our first event of the series we have invited Dr Andrea Byrom, Co-Director, Biological Heritage National Science Challenge and Melanie Mark-Shadbolt, Director Māori, Biological Heritage National Science Challenge to share their experiences and the challenges they have faced whilst leading impact within their organisations.

Time: 12.30pm – 1:30pm
Date: Monday 6 July

For further reading please click here.

Introductory R Workshop information: July 9th & 10th

The first Introductory R Workshop for 2020 is being run on Thursday 9th and Friday 10th July. This will be led by Daniel Barnett and Avinesh Pillai, from the Statistical Consulting Centre, in the Department of Statistics. As per our previous Introductory R workshops, the cost is $300 for UoA students and staff. You can pay using your PRESS account, research grant, or other UoA account. You can also opt to use a debit/credit card (however we will have to also add GST for this type of payment). The payment authorisation form for UoA participants paying from a UoA account is attached. The cost for non-UoA attendees is $500 + GST, and if you contact me I will let you know re payment options. Card payment is preferred, however if an invoice is required this can be done if your institution is able to provide a PO number and is registered in the Faculty of Science finance system (e.g. all DHBs are set up within this system). We will be sending out a pre-workshop information email the week prior to the course, however here are some of the details:

Location

We will be in room 302.190. Building 302 is on the corner of Symonds St and Wellesley St. The room we will be using is on level 1, room 190.

Time and schedule

The approximate schedule for both days is attached (since this is the schedule from our previous course, it may yet be altered very slightly). We will start at 9am and finish at 5pm. Morning and afternoon tea will be provided and there are cafes handy nearby for lunch.

Computers

We will be using a Faculty of Science computer lab. You are also welcome to use your own laptop, however please make sure that you have downloaded R and RStudio onto your machine before the workshop (they are free to download). We will also include some instructions re how to do this in our pre-workshop information email.

Access to computers and internet

We will arrange access to the lab computers for all non-UoA participants. We will also have a guest wireless password for non-UoA participants who are bringing their own laptops. UoA staff and students will be able to access the FoS computers using their normal UoA upi and password.

For more information please contact Joei Mudaliar <j.mudaliar@auckland.ac.nz>.

Photography Competition June 2020

All members of the Geoscience Society of New Zealand are invited to show off their photographic talent!

THE CATEGORIES
1. Milankovich: Geological Cyclicity
2. Macro- and micro-scale geoscience
3. New Zealand Geoscience

SUBMISSION
To enter, please send the following to geosocietynz@gmail.com by Friday 3 July:
Contact details (full name, email address)
Image details (category, title, location, year)
Image caption (maximum 50 words)
Your image (minimum 72 dpi, 3 MB)

For further reading please click here.

Ako – Teaching and Learning

Faculty Teaching Development Fund

As mentioned in the Faculty meeting on Wed 10 June, the Faculty of Science has established a new Faculty Teaching Development Fund which offers two distinct pathways for funding projects related to teaching: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Grants, and Teaching Development Grants.

Important dates:

* Application Deadline: June 30 2020

* Notification of success: July 14 2020

Note that grants awarded in this round must be used in the 2020 calendar year. We are aware that this is a tight deadline, both for project planning and delivery. A call for applications for 2021 projects is expected later this year and might be more suitable for projects that required longer lead time.

The webpage and form for online submission of the grant application should be available next week on the Teaching and Learning section of the Science staff intranet:

https://www.sciencestaff.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/teaching-and-learning.html

If you have any further questions that are not addressed in the document attached, then please send them directly to me: a.luxton-reilly@auckland.ac.nz

Meeting, seminars and events

Title: Using Virtual Landscapes for Remote Teaching

Date: Wed, Jul 1, 2020 5:00 AM – 6:00 AM NZST

Register: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/6837257389718161163

Pandemic, pedagogy and education 3: Teaching and learning remotely

Monday 29^th June 2-3pm

https://auckland.zoom.us/j/98483634365

The COVID-19 lockdown has posed considerable challenges and opportunities for educators. This zoom is designed showcase pedagogies, innovations and tools to assist and enrich remote learning within the Faculty of Science at the University of Auckland. We will begin with three short presentations (approx. 10 minutes) followed by the opportunity for audience participation. Ideally this will spark a collective conversation that is ongoing, the second in an online series with future opportunities for staff to showcase pedagogical insights and innovations. The presentations are as follows:

Title: Level one, job done…..? COVID-19 reflections from a departmental Tuākana programme; Presenters: Brendon Dunphy, Sarah Davis

Title: Supporting student wellbeing on enhance learning*; Presenter: Kerry Gibson

Title: Student feedback on their experience of remote learning during Semester 1 2020* ; Presenters: Murray Ford and Mel Wall

*Please note these are interim titles

Ako Innovation Workshop: Field Trips to the Digital Realm

Date and time: Wednesday 1^st July, 11am

Zoom: https://auckland.zoom.us/j/92574224546

Presenters: Michael Martin, Lorna Strachan, Jon Tunnicliffe

This workshop is designed to showcase online teaching innovations within the School. The presenters will share their teaching developments which emphasis the potential to enhance student learning through fieldtrips in the virtual space.

Tools to enhance the blended learning experience: Ako Innovation Committee Workshop

Presenters: Joe Fagan, Karen Fisher, JC Gaillard
Date and time: Friday 26th June, 10am
Zoom: https://auckland.zoom.us/j/93490337343
Short description:
Teaching remotely during the Covid‐19 lockdown has seen staff seeking ways to
enhance student engagement. Online learning research emphasises the
importance of peer‐to‐peer collaboration, instant responses and rapid feedback to
improve student learning. This workshop seeks to showcase the following tools
which can assist with both online and on‐campus learning including Kialo, Mural,
Socrative, Kahoot and Menti.

Rangahau – Research

Expressions of Interest for the Ngā Rākau Taketake – Risk Assessment & Ecosystem Impacts Research Team

Tēnā koe,

We are reaching out on behalf of the Ngā Rākau Taketake – Risk Assessment and Ecosystem Impacts theme of the Biological Heritage National Science Challenge seeking Expressions of Interest (EOIs) to participate in our work planning and research team.

Ngā Rākau Taketake is the programme within the Challenge to address myrtle rust and kauri dieback. Building on work from the Ngā Rākau Taketake scoping group and the kauri dieback and myrtle rust science strategies, we have been developing a draft three-year research plan (2020/21 – 2022/23) to understand the impacts of the diseases and perform risk assessments to support management and research priorities. Now we are refining the work plan and forming the team to achieve our goals.

For further reading please click here.

Meeting, seminars and events

Coastal Group Meeting/Seminar

The next Coastal Group meeting/seminar will be held on Wednesday June 24^th at 12:00 to 1:00 pm in the Coastal Lab (or Zoom option)

News will be shared and short talks include:

Who Cares? Future Sea Level Rise and House Prices – The Case of Kāpiti Coast (Olga Filippova from the Department of Property)
Building resilience to climate change through modelling managed retreat in a coastal setting (Ashton Eaves) – 3 min speed talk
Current coastal research in the Resilience to Nature’s Challenges National Science Challenge (Emma Ryan) – 3 min speed talk

All welcome to attend – please email Emma Ryan at e.ryan@auckland.ac.nz if you wish to attend and don’t have the calendar invite already.

GSA/NAGT Digital Field Tools for Teaching Webinar Series

Title: Using Gigapan for Remote Teaching

Date: Wed, Jun 24, 2020 5:00 AM – 6:00 AM NZST

Register: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/3427553084728968459

Research and Funding Opportunities

Te Tahua Taiao Ngā Taonga – Lottery Environment and Heritage grants

Lottery Environment and Heritage grants are available for projects that will help protect, conserve or care for our natural, cultural and physical heritage, or allow us to better understand and access these resources. Grants are for plans, reports and one-off projects that will protect, conserve and promote New Zealand’s natural, cultural and physical heritage.

Grant Value

Small projects, where the grant requested is for less than $250,000.
Large projects, where the grant requested is for $250,000 or more.
A one-off project may be – a discrete stage of a larger, ongoing project; or – a single, stand-alone project.

Internal Deadline: Monday 3 August 2020, 5pm.

Further information can be found on the website

Rutherford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (Royal Society Te Apārangi)

The Rutherford Foundation provides early career support for NZ researchers to build capability in science, technology, engineering and mathematics

Eligibility: Must have PhD conferred on or after 01 January 2016, applicants from all fields of research, science and technology, including social sciences and the humanities, are eligible to apply, NZ Citizen or NZ resident visa and have continuously resided in NZ for at least two years.

Grant Value: $75,000 salary support + $10,000 (GST incl, direct and indirect research costs) per year (up to 2 years total)

Internal Deadline: 5pm Tuesday 28 July 2020.

Guidelines are available on the funders website

Please contact Kathryn or Kelly if you are interested in applying, or have been approached by a candidate who would like to apply

Cambridge-Rutherford Memorial PhD Scholarship

The Cambridge-Rutherford Memorial PhD Scholarship is a Jointly funded by Rutherford Foundation Trust and Cambridge Commonwealth, European and International Trust (CCEIT) to support completion of a PhD at the University of Cambridge.

Eligibility: Must have completed undergraduate study in NZ, disciplines of science and technology (includes pure or applied science in the social sciences), NZ Citizen or NZ resident visa and have continuously resided in NZ for at least two years, applicants who hold a New Zealand resident visa are also required to have completed their undergraduate study in New Zealand, must be able to enter the United Kingdom and comply with the regulations for matriculation at the University of Cambridge

Grant Value: Scholarship (including course and college fees) for max three (3) years, Living allowance (maintenance) of approx. £14,777* per annum, Eligible for one (1) non-transferrable, return airfare NZ-UK per annum.(*Indicative only – set by CCEIT annually)

Internal Deadline: 5pm Tuesday 28 July 2020.

Guidelines are available on the funders website

New publications

Bulmer R.H., Stephenson F., Jones H. F. E., Townsend M., Hillman J.R., Schwendenmann L., Lundquist C.J. (2020). Blue Carbon Stocks and Cross-Habitat Subsidies. Frontiers in Marine Science 7, 380. DOI=10.3389/fmars.2020.00380
Jones, R., Baker, T., Huet, k., Murphy, L., Lewis, N. (2020). Treating ecological deficit with debt: The practical and political concerns with green bonds. Geoforum, 114. pp. 49-58.
Peralta, G., Vázquez, D.P., Chacoff, N.P., (…), Perry, G.L.W., Tylianakis, J.M. (2020). Trait matching and phenological overlap increase the spatio-temporal stability and functionality of plant-pollinator interactions. Ecology Letters, 23(7), pp. 1107-1116.
Fryxell, D.C., Hoover, A.N., Alvarez, D.A., (…), Simon, K.S., Palkovacs, E.P. (2020). Recent warming reduces the reproductive advantage of large size and contributes to evolutionary downsizing in nature. Proceedings. Biological Sciences, 287(1928), p. 20200608.

Copy deadline for next edition of P-cubed: Friday 3rd July to Farnaz: f.sheikh@auckland.ac.nz

Categories: Uncategorised

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Issue 34-Monday 8th June 2020

June 8, 2020 • fshe556

HeadSup

Kia ora koutou

I’m delighted to announce that Mel Wall has become a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. This UK-led international accreditation requires demonstration of a thorough understanding of effective approaches to teaching and learning support as a key contribution to high quality student learning. On the funding front, cross-disciplinary projects focused on environmental science and health have got the nod: Sam Trowsdale’s MBIE sewage tracing proposal ($1.7M over 18 months) was successful and his HRC explorer project came up trumps as well; and Martin Brook and Jenny Salmond got ‘Erionite-causing cancer in New Zealand’ across the line, winning seed funding from the Royal Society Catalyst fund. James Muirhead’s work on the contribution of ancient and deep CO2 to the world’s carbon budget has just been published in Nature (story below). Congratulations to you all!

On the financial front the news is not so encouraging. We have been instructed to save $130,000 from our School discretionary budget. In reality, we need to save rather a lot more because our School budget is constructed based on income from FOS (set at the end of 2019) plus forecast income from new fully-costed external research contracts (that arrive during 2020) and from our ShaRE facility (the kit in the basement). It’s a perfect storm – we have fewer contracts starting in 2020 than expected, plus we anticipate the ShaRE facility will run at a loss due to equipment down time. So cinch in those belts, we will be running on next to nothing and it’s looking tight for 2021 and 2022. All committee and platform budgets remain on hold until the budget has been reconfigured, and sadly the professional development fund is off limits for the remainder of this year. Note that every $ spent on hospitality and travel using the 4140 cost centre is under intense scrutiny by the UOA financial centre.

I want to acknowledge the enormous contribution our Ako and Ako Innovation teams have made, and continue to make, on our behalf. We are a very lucky school to have such capable and generous colleagues smoothing the way for us as we navigate the challenges of remote teaching and learning. Thank you Robin, David, Mel, Murray, Sonia, Marie, JC and Joe – your contribution is greatly appreciated.

As we move forward to a more typical teaching context, we need to remember there will be zero tolerance for coming to University when sick. This means we need to maintain capability for delivering remotely so that unwell students are not disadvantaged. We also need to be ready to switch to remote delivery if we ourselves are unwell. If we end up with a cluster at UOA, we could be straight back into a 2 week lock-down so it’s important that we make wise choices when designing our courses for Semester 2.

Thanks everyone for a superb Semester 1 effort, I’m looking forward to our BYO end-of-year function already…I guess the drinks will be on me!

Whakawhanaungatanga – communities

Preparations for the Staff Retreat

To all ENV staff: This is a call for your best 1-2 photos of a positive thing you did /experience you had in lockdown, and what you did to celebrate Level 2. Include captions if you wish, of up to 5 words per image.

These will be compiled into a ‘Licking Lockdown’ slide show for the School of Environment retreat on 16 June.l

Deadline for submission to Kathy Campbell (ka.campbell@auckland.ac.nz)l Monday 8 June.

IMPORTANT NOTICE ACCESS REQUESTS

Dear all,

All-access requests forms must be emailed to fos.accessrequest@auckland.ac.nz with the Department name in the subject line.

This is for both campus card requests and key requests.

No forms will be accepted at level 6 reception.

Facilities team

Faculty of Science

New Orbit Online Travel Booking Platform – NOW LIVE

You may have seen the notice on the intranet with regards to the Orbit Online Booking Tool upgrade which happened over Queen’s Birthday Weekend. To view the article and key information on how to access Orbit Online click here

The new Orbit Online product has a number of key features and benefits:

Build the complete itinerary on one page
Airline imagery, amenities and fare inclusion details have the same look and feel as individual airline websites. If seat availability on Air NZ domestic flights is very low (1 or 2 seats left), this will be highlighted
Additional accommodation options, ability to book Expedia, Booking.com and Wotif
Feature to add reviews on accommodation suppliers which are only visible to the University and UniServices
Flight, accommodation and rental car search criteria is inputted all at once
Artificial Intelligence will learn traveller’s unique behaviour

- - e.g. destinations travelled to regularly will be presented up front automatically
Feature to request a complex international trip and send to the Orbit consultant.
Te Reo Maori Language setting
Mobile booking app for travellers to book air and accommodation from their phone.

To view the Orbit Online Booking Tool FAQs click here

At present only domestic travel can be booked via Orbit Online as per the New Zealand Government Level 2 Restrictions.

That said, you can still view international itineraries and pricing via Orbit Online, however you will not have the ability to finalise the booking.

There are significant time efficiencies (3-4 minutes to complete a booking and receive documentation required to raise a purchase order) and cost savings (domestic booking fee reduces by 83%) by utilising Orbit Online, therefore I encourage staff who are required to travel for business to consider adopting Orbit Online as their preferred booking method for simple, straight forward itineraries.

Congratulations!

Mirja Heinrich defended her PhD at 3-5 am German time on 2nd June – her thesis focused on the physical and chemical relationships of a major period of tectonic rifting – related volcanism at ~10,000 years ago at Mt Tongariro. She did a fantastic job with only minor emendations requested. Her second paper on the PhD also made it to proof stages this week In the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research and the examiners suggested that at least two more papers could result. Mirja’s two-month old boy Lasse only woke up a few times during the exam! Well done Mirja!

Also this week Ben Simons who defended his PhD thesis only two weeks ago had his second and third papers accepted- both in Bulletin of Volcanology.

Lockdown gave us an experience of Mason Durie’s Te Pae Māhutonga

Professor Robin Kearns, School of Environment
University of Auckland

Opinion: Professor Robin Kearns from the University of Auckland’s School of Environment reminisces about our enforced slowdown through lockdown.

Little Palm Beach on Waiheke Island. Arvid Olson/Pixabay

Places, like people, never stay the same. Places are always in a state of becoming. How did the places familiar to us change over the time we came to know as ‘lockdown’?

On Waiheke Island where I live, ‘quieter,’ ‘friendlier’ and ‘cleaner’ were three common responses. With all but essential vehicles off the roads, pedestrians turned back the clock. We walked the way people did before the hegemony of cars. When a vehicle did pass, we waved. But we noticed the odour of exhaust emissions more acutely than when immersed in the miasma of Auckland’s rush-hour. For further reading click here.

Leave Plus scheme now fully live

In response to requests for more flexible working benefits, late last year the University announced the introduction of a pilot scheme providing staff with the option of either buying or cashing up one week of leave, to be implemented in 2020.

The first part of the Leave Plus scheme, launched in February, enabled staff to cash up one week of annual leave, subject to eligibility criteria, by completing the Leave Cash Up Form.

Processing these requests paused during the Covid-19 lockdown, however processing has now recommenced. The final part of the pilot scheme – buying an additional week of leave – is now live, and staff can apply by completing the Leave Plus application form by 26 June 2020. This scheme is subject to staff eligibility criteria.

Note that in line with the Vice-Chancellor’s recent communication to all staff, you are encouraged to reduce your annual leave and time off in lieu (TOIL) to a maximum of two weeks by the end of January 2021. Those purchasing an additional week of leave will need to allow for this when working out their 2020 leave plan (due at the end of June 2020).

More details including eligibility criteria and FAQs are available on the Leave Plus intranet page. You can also contact the Staff Service Centre and the appropriate team will get in touch with you.

The World in 2030: UNESCO Global Online Survey

With profound upheavals happening in the contexts of the COVID-19 pandemic and calls to rethink many areas of society, UNESCO is launching a global public survey called “The World in 2030”. The survey, which would take about six-minutes to complete, will help UNESCO gain insights into diverse views on the major global challenges of the coming years, and the solutions needed to address them. The results will help them to set an agenda to guide their work on peace, freedom, creativity and development in the next decade.

PLEASE TAKE THE SURVEY!
https://en.unesco.org/worldin2030

Launched in the context of the UNESCO Strategic Transformation, the survey is open to everyone. It is available in the 6 official UN languages, as well as a selection of additional languages (with more to come soon). The survey is completely anonymous.

Snowman in Arctic Norway

Photos of some friends were made last month in Arctic Norway by Professor Mark Costello.

The Geography Auckland (NZGS Auckland) newsletter

The Auckland branch of NZGS promotes the activities of geographers and the development of the discipline in the Auckland region. It has proven an effective platform for hosting and sponsoring public seminars and workshops, and talks by prominent local and international geographers; running competitions for schools; providing opportunities for young geographers to attend conferences; and for bringing geographers together to discuss issues of public and disciplinary concern.

The NZ Geographical Society’s newsletter can be found on http://www.nzgs.co.nz

What’s on?

When: Tuesday 23rd June – 4.00pm to 5.00pm via Zoom (an invitation will be sent in the week before)

Who: Chris McDowall

What: We Are Here: An Atlas of Aotearoa

This award-winning atlas has been described as ‘an extraordinary visual data book like no other’.

Contact Mary June Logie <j.logie@auckland.ac.nz> for Zoom invitation.

Click here for further reading.

Tools, tips & tricks – a new series for Hacky Hour!

Hacky Hour Tools, tips & tricks starts next week! See this website for more information: https://uoa-eresearch.github.io/HackyHour/tips-tricks-sessions/ Hosted by the Centre of eResearch.

	Time
Argggh, my data! An overview of using OpenRefine to tidy up data	11 June 2020, 3 – 4pm
Python – tips and tricks	25 June 2020, 3 – 4pm
Social media data scrapping and wrangling – tips and tricks	9 July 2020, 3 – 4pm

Rangahau – Research

Meeting, seminars and events

Title: Impacts of myrtle rust on plant, soil and ecosystem functions

Presented by Hoa Nguyen

Date: Wednesday, 17 June
Time: 1 PM

Zoom seminar: https://auckland.zoom.us/j/98668379325

Enquiries: Chris Struthers, c.struthers@auckland.ac.nz

ioGAS pluggedIN on-line geochemistry(-structure) training course (week of July 20, 2020)

We have this software and it is awesome for dealing with large geochemical datasets. ioGAS is the industry standard, it dovetails with Leapfrog. Once your start working in ioGAS you will not want to use your bespoke excel spreadsheets anymore. If you want to learn how to use it put up some $$ and enrol in this course (students: twist your supervisors arms): read here.

Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE) New Zealand Symposium

AINSE would like to warmly welcome you to attend our regional Symposium for New Zealand members (UoA is a member).

Date: Thursday 11th June 2020

Time: 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm New Zealand Standard Time (NZST)

The Webinar will open from 11:30 am. Please join by 11:50 am for a prompt 12:00 pm start

Registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rcDWueJeQkmqeeF6ME6ZmA

If you’re a student or researcher in a STEM discipline, this is an excellent opportunity to connect with established ANSTO researchers and AINSE scholarship holders from New Zealand member universities to learn:

how nuclear science and technology can be applied to your work
about ANSTO’s research infrastructure capabilities
about research by New Zealand students conducted at ANSTO
how AINSE can support you with schools, awards and scholarships

To attend this free 2 hour Symposium, please register your attendance using the link above.

For further information, please contact AINSE on ainse@ainse.edu.au.

Ancient CO2 mystery solved at East Africa

Around 90 percent of the earth’s carbon is locked deep beneath the surface but a team of scientists has provided new understanding of how this ancient CO2 can find its way from hundreds of kilometres beneath the surface to be released into the atmosphere.

Dr James Muirhead (far left) and colleagues

Carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, has helped regulate the earth’s atmosphere and climate for billions of years but it is also a greenhouse gas generated by human activity that traps heat and contributes to global warming.

While the deep CO2 is hundreds of times less than that produced humans, just how it gets released and how much of it there is, is poorly understood but forms a critical part of accurately calculating the Earth’s overall carbon budget. For further reading please click here.

Research and Funding Opportunities

Despite the crazy times, you might be in the process of planning future research proposals. Keep in mind that there is the possibility of writing support for Marsden 2021 and for MBIE Research programmes. If you are thinking of preparing a proposal, please contact Kelly (kelly.kilpin@auckland.ac.nz) or Kathryn (kathryn.howard@auckland.ac.nz) for details.

Opportunities for Collaboration with Germany + MBIE German Research Links Survey

Germany is a key Research & Innovation partner for New Zealand. In response to the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic, the German government has announced over €1 billion new funding to support development of a vaccine and new medication, and for the establishment of a national network of clinical research facilities. Importantly, German research facilities and large-scale equipment may be available for international collaborators.
Here is an MBIE-created guide to funding opportunities for researchers wishing to collaborate with German partners.
The New Zealand-Germany Science and Innovation Coordinator is also available to assist in the development of institutional and individual researchers’ collaborations with Germany; you are welcome to contact Dr Regina Eisert at germany.coordinator@mbie.govt.nz.
Additionally, MBIE wishes to view any research linkages to Germany and has created the attached survey. If you have any research connection to a German institution, please complete and return the attached survey to h.read@auckland.ac.nz by Monday June 15th.

Our Land and Water NSC – Rural Professionals Fund

The fund is intended to create benefit for New Zealand’s farming communities by matching individuals, businesses, and scientists to test exciting and innovative ideas that could lead to significant improvements in farming systems.

The project team is to include a rural professional who is a member of the NZIPIM, a rural entrepreneur (farmer), and a researcher from one of Our Land and Water’s partner organisations, such as the University of Auckland.

Our Land and Water is looking for ideas that will:

build evidence for innovative ideas and practices
speed up the testing and implementation of exciting and innovative ideas
develop links and collaboration between rural professionals, farmers and researchers
extend what is learned to the wider rural profession and farming community

Projects must align with the three challenge research themes: Future Landscapes, Incentives for Change, Capacity for Transition

Value: Up to $50,000 per project

Duration: 6 months

Internal deadline: Wednesday, 8 July 2020, 5pm.

More information and Guidelines: Our Land and Water website

New publications

Yasuhara M, Wei C-L, Kucera M, Costello MJ., Tittensor D, Kiessling W, Bonebrake TC, Tabor C, Feng R, Baselga A, Kretschmer K, Kusumoto B, Kubota Y. 2020. Past and future decline of tropical pelagic biodiversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1916923117
Poeppl, R. E., Fryirs, K. A., Tunnicliffe, J., & Brierley, G. J. (2020). Managing sediment (dis) connectivity in fluvial systems. Science of The Total Environment, 139627.
KEARNS, R.A , NEUWELT, P.M., & EGGLETON, K. (2020). Permeable boundaries? Patient perspectives on space and time in general practice waiting rooms Health & Place (Published online May). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2020.102347
WITTEN, K. KEARNS, R., OPIT, S., & FERGUSSON, E. (2020). Facebook as soft infrastructure: Producing and performing community in a mixed tenure housing development. Housing Studies (Published online 25 May). https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2020.1769035
Muirhead, J.D., Fischer, T.P., Laizer, A., Oliva, S.J.C., Judd, E.J., Lee, H., Kazimoto, E., Ebinger, C.J., Sano, Y., Takahata, N., Tiberi, C., van Wijk, J., Dufek, J., Foley, S.F., Currie, C.A., Reiss, M.C., 2020, Displaced cratonic mantle concentrates deep carbon during continental rifting: Nature, doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2328-3.
Wright, L. J., Muirhead, J. D., & Scholz, C. A., 2020, Spatiotemporal Variations in Upper Crustal Extension Across the Different Basement Terranes of the Lake Tanganyika Rift, East Africa: Tectonics, 39(3), e2019TC006019.

Copy deadline for next edition of P-cubed: Friday 19th June to Farnaz: f.sheikh@auckland.ac.nz

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Issue 33-Monday 25th May 2020

May 25, 2020 • fshe556

HeadSup

Tālofa lava!

It’s Samoan Language Week and the theme is: Tapena sou ōso mo lau malaga – prepare yourself for the gift of travels. What a great theme for Alert Level 2. Offices are opening up again (see the info below) and getting back to on-campus teaching in Semester 2 is increasingly likely, with a few caveats. Once the formal guidelines come through from John Morrow’s office we will send info out to all teaching staff via Ako Online. Currently things are promising but we need to be able to turn on a dime and provide a quality learning experience to those who will not be able to front up in person: in other words, we need to maintain remote learning capacity. I’m mindful of the workload involved and so are our Associate Deans and Dean, who are working to get a little more flexibility and clarity out of the DVC Academic. More on this soon.

Great news on the staffing front: Dr Georgia Piggot has accepted a lectureship in Environmental Management and will be joining us from mid-2021. Georgia currently is with the Stockholm Environment Institute, Seattle. She brings a wealth of experience in environmental social science and is at the forefront of shaping international climate policy.

The Alumni Relations and Development team have got a great project going: the 40 under 40 project. We have till the end of the week to get nominations in and it would be fantastic if we could do this. Please let me know if you have someone in mind.

If you are a staff member, please note that the date of the School Retreat has shifted to June 16 (9am – 4 pm, online, lots of breaks). This will be an opportunity to feed ideas into our annual planning round and to upskill in a couple of areas of your choice. The agenda is being finalised this week. I’m looking forward to seeing you all there.

Lastly, a reminder: If ever there’s a need to take all your leave entitlement it’s this year. Please find time to use it all up: your well-being depends on time away from the job and, if you go on holiday, you will be doing your bit to help others earn a buck. I’d like to remind all PIs on grants that your fixed-term staff accrue annual leave and this needs to be taken before contract-end. Any leave owed will come off the grant and if that is exhausted it will come of your RDA and RE accounts as available.

Manuia le aso

Whakawhanaungatanga – communities

Samoan Language Week

Check out this link and try adding some new language to Zoom this week:

Tālofa lava: Hello (formal)

Mālō le soifua: Hello/Good health

‘O ā mai ‘oe? How are you? (to one person only)

Manuia fa‘afetai: Good, thank you

Manuia le aso: Have a great day

Tōfā soifua: Good bye (formal)

ENV Staff Retreat Day 2020

The Staff Retreat Day will be held virtually on Tuesday 16 June. If you are unable to attend, please send your apology to Samantha (Samantha.huang@auckland.ac.nz ).

Preparations for the Staff Retreat

These will be compiled into a ‘Licking Lockdown’ slide show for the School of Environment retreat on 16 June.

Deadline for submission to Kathy Campbell (ka.campbell@auckland.ac.nz) Monday 8 June.

Staff and Research Students – Return to Campus

Staff

Academic staff from the School of Environment have been approved (by JR) to return to their offices from the 28^th May. If you require earlier access please email our Group Services Manager Michael Groom (m.groom@auckland.ac.nz )

Research Students

With the approval of your supervisor, you will be able to start returning to campus from the 2^nd of June . Managers will need some time to ensure physical distancing and hygiene practices can be maintained in these office spaces, before allowing people to return. Because of this, it is preferred for students to wait until after the Queen’s Birthday weekend to come on campus.

Congratulations!

Catriona Thompson and co-authors have just been awarded the 2020 Michael Kirkby Award for best paper published in Earth Surface Processes and Landforms in 2019: Thompson, CF, Young, AP and Dickson, ME 2019 ‘Wave impacts on coastal cliffs: Do bigger waves drive greater ground motion?’ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/esp.4712.

This is the first paper from Catriona’s PhD, which she successfully defended in early May. Catriona completed a BSc in Geography at Auckland and Mark then hung an Honours project in front of her involving measuring wave impacts against sea cliffs. It turned out it needed a PhD not an Honours to do that project, and it’s exciting to see Catriona’s persistence on the topic recognised with this award. The President of the British Society for Geomorphology wrote that “It gives me great pleasure to be able to personally congratulate you on the award which recognises the importance of your paper which is an exemplary demonstration of the power of new geophysical methods, notably environmental seismology, for monitoring geomorphic processes.” Catriona now gets to wake up in the middle of the night to present the work at the 2020 Annual General Meeting of the BSG!

Call for nominations: 2020 40 under 40 – Alumni Relations & Development

Here are details regarding the 2020 40 Under 40 project from our Alumni Relations and Development team below. Nominations are now open and close on 1 June 2020.

A comprehensive list of potential awardees over the past four years has already been amassed by ARD (see here, you can filter by Science) but if there is anyone else you or your teams would like to nominate please complete the form here.

The 40 Under 40 project aims to shine a light on alumni aged 40 and under who have been making significant contributions to their local as well as global communities. They are selected on three criteria – professional success, community involvement and University engagement.

Please keep in mind the following when making nominations:

We are particularly interested in those who are making contributions in two or more of the criteria areas – professional success, community involvement and University engagement
The six categories are: Humanitarians, Performers, Influencers, Disruptors and Innovators, Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs
We are looking for equitable representation across professions, interests, geographies, faculties, genders and ethnicities
Nominees must be alumni and must be aged 40 and under as of 30 June 2020
Nominees cannot be current UoA staff, current UoA students or current Members of Parliament

Future Voices Forum

There is an urgent need to plan Aotearoa New Zealand’s recovery post-COVID-19. New Zealand’s Government and Business Leaders are coming together to identify ways to put the recovery and our future on a more sustainable path. What needs to happen for New Zealand to be environmentally and economically successful?

We invite you to participate in the Future Voices Forum, a discussion on New Zealand’s future, opened by Her Excellency The Right Honourable Dame Patsy Reddy GNZM, QSO Governor-General of New Zealand.

The Future Voices Forum is an online event and discussion where you will learn about the system level challenges in creating New Zealand’s environmental and economic future and have the opportunity to ideate solutions and opportunities, assisted by a facilitator.

We will be reimagining and exploring New Zealand’s Food, Energy, and Transport systems. Imagine that there is to be $20 billion spent on solving problems in these areas. What solutions would you create?

This is a unique opportunity for you to help inform New Zealand Government and Business. They want the best and brightest to rip up orthodox ideas and challenge the establishment. They want your perspective on designing the future of New Zealand.

At this forum, you will get to:

Think big – stretch yourself to create solutions to critical issues and impact our nation’s future
Inform New Zealand Government and Business Leaders on what you want for New Zealand’s future. This is your chance to inform policy and strategy and influence CEOs including from Air New Zealand, Fonterra, and leaders from the Ministry of the Environment and more
Connect with like-minded students and staff

Date: Thursday 4 June, 4pm-6pm

We look forward to seeing you there.

Ngā mihi,

Darsel Keane
Associate Director, Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Meetings, seminars and events

Volcanology, Geochemistry, & Petrology Research Group

The volcanology, geochemistry, & petrology research group’s final meeting will be on 26 May 2020 at 9 am on Zoom. Lena will be giving a talk titled “Subsoil alteration and degassing in the Rotokawa Geothermal Field, New Zealand” about her masters! As always, everyone is welcome to attend our meetings. Please contact me (Sophia Tsang: s.tsang@auckland.ac.nz) for the link if you don’t have a calendar invite. If you would like to take over my role in VPG next semester, please reach out! For more information, please see our website: vgp.blogs.auckland.ac.nz See you soon!

Calling all Modellers!

The School of Environment has taken an initiative to create a common platform for all Modellers in the University. Join our Slack group via this link.

Coastal Group Webinar

The next Coastal Group meeting/webinar will be held on Wednesday May 27^th at 12:00 to 1:00 pm on zoom

News will be shared and short talks include:

Boron isotope records from Pacific corals: Porites lutea under ocean acidification (Oliver Knebel)
Coral calcification and the effects of the 20^th Century warming ocean in the Central Pacific (Carlos Carvajal)

All welcome to attend – please email Emma Ryan at e.ryan@auckland.ac.nz for the Zoom link if you don’t have a calendar invite already.

Ako – Teaching and Learning

Pandemic, pedagogy and education 2: Teaching and learning remotely

Thursday 28^th May 2-3pm

https://auckland.zoom.us/j/96123720863

We will begin with three short presentations (approx. 10 minutes) followed by the opportunity for audience participation. Ideally this will spark a collective conversation that is ongoing, the second in an online series with future opportunities for staff to showcase pedagogical insights and innovations.

The presentations are as follows:

Title: Strategies for transferring first-year Chemistry experiments to Canvas

Presenters: Ruth Cink & Malini Arewgoda

Description: At its heart, chemistry is an experimental science. Remote learning certainly disrupts our normal structure for introducing students to the practical component of chemistry. We discuss our methods to re-create this essential part of our courses on Canvas and will share the pros and cons of these strategies.

Title: Getting on board the H5P train: Interactive question sets for online learning and engagement in biology education.

Presenter: Kathryn Jones

Description: Formative module question sets made with H5P were set up this year in BIOSCI 201 Cell and Molecular Biology. This talk will cover how anyone in the Faculty of Science can add H5P to their teaching toolkit, and how you can use it to keep students on-track with their learning.

Title: Fostering interactivity and students’ active learning in Zoom sessions

Presenter: JC Gaillard, Tutor Co-Contributors: Anthony Gampell, Martin Joe

This brief presentation will explore opportunities to retain class interactivity in teaching live sessions in a virtual and remote environment. Interactivity entails collaboration amongst students as well as between the lecturers and the students so that the latter actively contribute to their learning.

If you are unable to attend but would like to watch the session at a time which suits, please contact Mel Wall (m.wall@auckland.ac.nz) for access to the recording.

Tip of the fortnight

One of our ENV teaching team got some great feedback from a stage 1 student the other day and it’s worth a read:

Hey there, I’m just an average student going through his first year in uni, and I would just like to thank you for making my life so much easier. I found it very difficult to cope with online lectures which usually have video, audio issues and mainly are hard to understand. But after watching your section …, my life became so much easier. Your explanations are very easy to understand and I very much appreciate the fact that you address the explanation of words and meanings in your recordings. This makes my life so much easier and I would like to thank you very much.

What’s the tip? Define the jargon and keep the terms consistent.

Rangahau – Research

Research and Funding Opportunities

AINSE 2020 Residential Student Scholarships (RSS) – expressions of interest now open (submissions close 31 May 2020)

Residential Student Scholarships (RSSs) are offered by AINSE Limited (the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering) for suitably-qualified persons wishing to undertake studies aligned with ANSTO’s research programmes for a higher degree at an AINSE-member university. Expressions of interest will be received up to 11:59 pm AEST 31st May 2020.

AINSE RSSs are in the form of “supplements” and are offered to scholars who are, or will be, in receipt of an Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) / Research Training Program (RTP) or equivalent award, and for as long as that Award is current subject to satisfactory progress.

The award provides a stipend of A$7,500 per annum, in addition to up to A$5,000 per annum travel and accommodation allowance (plus an additional accommodation allowance of up to A$5,200 for eligible students travelling from interstate or overseas), to enable students to spend a significant amount of time working at ANSTO facilities.

The RSS differs from a Postgraduate Research Award (PGRA) in that a RSS student must be onsite at an ANSTO facility (at Lucas Heights, Camperdown and/or Clayton) for an average of six months per year or more, which can be as a single block of time or as separate visitations.

Expressions of interest are now being sought from first-year PhD students whose research topics closely align with ANSTO’s research programmes: The Environment, Human Health, the Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Defence and Space Industries, and Fusion. In addition, opportunities may also exist for postgraduate students interested in contracted research and industrial engagement projects in the defence industry area, and for postgraduate students interested in fusion research that aligns with ANSTO and ITER activities.

Applicants are requested to email a one page (A4) only* abstract to ainse@ainse.edu.au outlining the details of their research project and the ANSTO staff member(s) they will be collaborating with. Selected applicants who are successful in the first round will be invited to submit a more detailed online application.

The Terms & Conditions and an ANSTO Capabilities & Facilities Guide can be found on the AINSE website: www.ainse.edu.au. For enquires and further information, please contact the friendly staff at AINSE on ainse@ainse.edu.au | +61 2 9717 3376.

Facebook Research – Explorations of Trust in AR, VR and Smart Devices

Facebook is seeking research proposals for exploring unique challenges, threats, attacks, mitigations, and other considerations in the burgeoning space of AR, VR and smart devices.

Trust and trustworthiness are terms for encompassing security, privacy, integrity and ethics in the products and platforms.

Projects will be funded that help accelerate research in these fields with the hope of helping to foster a world of trustworthy mixed-reality and smart device products.

A broad range of topics relating to applications like AR glasses, VR headsets, other AR or VR form-factors, smart home products and more will be considered by the funder.

Value: $75,000 USD (Max) – award is an unrestricted gift meaning there are no budget restrictions.

Duration: No specified duration but awards generally last for 12-18 months.

Internal Deadline: June 5, 5pm

Full Guidance and call specifications can be found on this webpage.

The Royal Society Te Apārangi is now calling for applications for the following awards and opportunities:

The Sir Hugh Kawharu Masters Scholarship for Innovation in Science

The Sir Hugh Kawharu Scholarship for Innovation in Science, administered by Royal Society Te Aparangi, is a $10,000 scholarship for study at masters level in the sciences. The Scholarship is applicable across a broad range of science disciplines including the physical, mathematical and computational, earth, environment, marine, social, health, biological, biomedical, human, and behavioural sciences. The Call for Applications is now open with a closing date of 31 August 2020. Information about how to apply is available on the Society’s website.

Raewyn Good Study Award for Māori and Pasifika Social Science Research

The Raewyn Good Study Award for Māori and Pasifika Social Science Research is an award of $6,000 for a Māori and Pasifika postgraduate student undertaking a Master’s which involves social sciences research. The study award, tenable at any New Zealand university/wānanga for one year is available to students, who at the time of application, are engaged/enrolled in or applying for a Master’s degree which involves undertaking social sciences research. The Call for Applications is now open with a closing date of 31 August 2020. Information about how to apply is available on the Society’s website.

RHT Bates Postgraduate Scholarship

The RHT Bates Postgraduate Scholarship is a study award of $6,000 for a PhD in the Physical Sciences and Engineering in a New Zealand university. Preference will be given to those whose research aims to apply information/image processing to studies in medicine, the physical sciences, astronomy or engineering. The Call for Applications is now open with a closing date of 31 August 2020. Information about how to apply is available on the Society’s website.

Research in the Pacific – UniServices are interested in any potential research projects based in the Pacific. Please get in touch with Kathryn or Kelly to discuss more.

Master of Science (MSc) research scholarship

A one-year MSc (Geology) scholarship funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund is available at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. The successful applicant will conduct multi-disciplinary field mapping, microstructural analysis, and geochemical or geophysical investigations to investigate the role fluids play in repairing and restrengthening greywacke fault zones damaged by earthquakes. The research will be supervised by project lead Dr Carolyn Boulton in collaboration with Dr Catriona Menzies, Durham University (UK) and Dr Ludmila Adam, University of Auckland (NZ).
The scholarship provides a 12-month stipend of NZ$17,000 and payment of domestic tuition fees. Students who are not citizens of New Zealand or Australia are encouraged to apply, but will be required to pay international tuition fees unless alternative funding is available (please see https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/international).
To apply, or for further information, please send an email to Dr Carolyn Boulton (carolyn.boulton@vuw.ac.nz).

For for further reading please see here.

New publications

COULSON, G. MOORES, J. WAA, A., KEARNS, R, WITTEN, K., BATSTONE, C., SOMERVELL, E., OLIVARES, G. and HOWDEN-CHAPMAN, P. (2020). Towards a framework for resilience assessments: working across cultures, disciplines and scales in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities 14 May 2020 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2020.00011
Costello, MJ. 2020. Taxonomy as the key to life. Megataxa 1, 105-113. https://doi.org/10.11646/megataxa.00.0.0 [this new journal was launched by Professor Zhi-Qiang Zhang of the School of Biological Sciences and Landcare]
Zhao Q, Stephenson F, Lundquist C, Kaschner K, Jayathilake DRM, Costello MJ. 2020. Where Marine Protected Areas would best represent 30% of ocean biodiversity. Biological Conservation 244, 108536. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108536
Arfianti T., Costello MJ. 2020. Global biogeography of marine amphipod crustaceans: latitude, regionalization, and beta diversity. Marine Ecology Progress Series 638: 83–94.
Chao A, Kubota Y, Zelený D, Chiu C-H, Li C-F, Kusumoto B, Yasuhara M, Thorn S, Wei C-L, Costello MJ, Colwell RK. 2020. Quantifying sample completeness and comparing diversities among assemblages. Ecological Research 35, 292–314.
Kusumoto B, Costello MJ, Kubota Y, Shiono T, Wei C-L, Yasuhara M, Chao A. 2020. Global distribution of coral diversity: biodiversity knowledge gradients related to spatial resolution. Ecological Research 35, 315–326. DOI: 10.1111/1440-1703.12096.
Pagès-Escolà M, Bock PE, Gordon DP, Wilson S, Linares C, Hereu B, Costello MJ (2020) Progress in the discovery of extant and fossil bryozoans. Marine Ecology Progress Series 635, 71-79.
Zhao, Q., Basher Z., Costello MJ. 2020. Mapping near surface global marine ecosystems through cluster analysis of environmental data. Ecological Research 35 (2), 327-342.
Thompson, CF, Young, AP and Dickson, ME 2019 ‘Wave impacts on coastal cliffs: Do bigger waves drive greater ground motion?’https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/esp.4712
Le Dé, L., Gaillard, J.C., Gampell, A.V., Loodin, N. & Cadag, J. (2020). Participatory mapping 2.0: new ways for children’s participation in disaster risk reduction. Australian Journal of Emergency Management, 35(2), 34-42.
Gampell, A. V., Gaillard, J.C., Parsons, M. & Le Dé, L. (2020). Fostering student participation in disaster risk reduction through disaster video games. Australian Journal of Emergency Management, 35(2), 43-50.
Gampell, A. V., Gaillard, J.C., Parsons, M. & Le Dé, L. (2020). Exploring the use of the Quake Safe House video game to foster disaster and disaster risk reduction awareness in museum visitors. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 49, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101670

Copy deadline for next edition of P-cubed: Friday 5th June to Farnaz: f.sheikh@auckland.ac.nz

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Issue 32-Monday 11th May 2020

May 11, 2020 • fshe556

HeadSup

Kia ora koutou

This time of year is usually marked by the wonderful Autumn graduation events, where families and friends come together to celebrate the success of our students. Toasting new graduates is one of my favourite jobs in the HOS role and I’m very hopeful that the Spring graduation will go ahead. Hearty congratulations to all who were planning on getting capped last week but were foiled by COVID-19. We are proud of you and your achievements!

The recent search for a Lecturer in Environmental Management / Environmental Geography resulted in a short-list of four outstanding applicants. I’m delighted to advise that Emma Sharp has accepted a lectureship and will take up the role in January 2021. In the meantime she will continue in her fixed-term capacity. Those of you who have worked with Emma will know that her appointment bodes well for our future. Congratulations Emma! Given the strategic opportunity afforded by another of the applicants, the Dean approved a second position in lieu of the failed search for a Professor in Environmental Management. An offer is in progress. If declined we will not appoint another candidate at this juncture.

Other staffing news, I’m very pleased to advise that Marie McEntee was successful in her request to change from Senior Tutor to Lecturer. Marie has been increasingly successful in attracting external research funding. This change to her conditions of service will afford opportunity to pursue her research interests. Congratulations Marie, well deserved!

There also is some movement in service and leadership roles. Michael Rowe is on leave in Semester two and is stepping down from his role as Chair of the Post-Graduate Research Committee. This is a major leadership role with a high service burden. During his tenure, Michael has streamlined processes and improved the strategic functionality of this sector of the school. Michael – thank you very much for a job well done. Michael has handed over to Luitgard Schwendenmann who is now in the role – thank you Luitgard! I’m very grateful to Anthony Fowler, who has been a steady hand in the PhD Advisor role. Anthony is stepping down so that he can take his RSL and Larry Murphy has kindly agreed to take up the role, effective Semester 2.

Lastly – thank you Joe! The cool games that have been going on during the lock-down are fantastic and it’s wonderful to see the images and notifications in p-cubed today. My only frustration is that for some reason unknown to me Mr Zuckerberg is refusing to let me re-join facebook! What did I do?

Ngā mihi
JR

Whakawhanaungatanga – communities

Flu vaccination reimbursement for staff

With most staff unable to receive the flu vaccination on campus this year, the University will instead reimburse the cost of obtaining the vaccine from your medical centre or local pharmacist. All permanent staff and all staff with a fixed term employment agreement are eligible for reimbursement.

Flu shots will be reimbursed through concur with the following codes 732 (Staff related Costs) 8606 (Cost centre).

There is a link below with more detail:

https://www.staff.auckland.ac.nz/en/news-events-and-notices/notices/notices-2020/january-june/flu-vaccination-reimbursement-for-staff.html

COVID-related research

We are creating a list of COVID-related research going on the in Faculty with the aim of using this as a basis to set up a cross-faculty activity (form as yet to be decided). Could you please send details of your research project to Caroline Roughneen (c.roughneen@auckland.ac.nz). Note – we have a pretty good idea of new funded projects – but have less awareness of unfunded research, or situations where existing projects have been modified to focus on COVID.

Congratulations!

Master of Engineering Geology student William Mansell has won a scholarship from the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) NZ branch for his thesis project at Maramarua coal mine. Congratulations William!

Congratulations!

Sophia Tsang successfully defended her PhD thesis “Modelling the Hazard Footprint and Consequences of Lava Flows in an Urban Environment” on 5 May 2020. The examiners commended Sophia for her impressive thesis and performance in the oral exam. Congratulations Sophia!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Ben Simons (Supervisors: Shane Cronin, Jen Eccles and Art Jolly (GNS Science)) for successfully defending his PhD thesis, “Drivers of Variation in the Eruptive and Magmatic Processes of a Persistently Active Volcano, Yasur, Vanuatu” on 29 April 2020.

Capping at the Robinson Fowler house

Alex, Anthony’s youngest, would have paraded this year, but instead had to make do with being capped (with Angus & Pooh) by dad. A nice short ceremony, with family dialling in, and very cheap regalia hire this year (raincoat, scarf, and weird hat). Alex’s brother Michael, also a Computer Science major, did feel a bit short changed having set aside the normal three hours.

The ENV Lockdown Street Art Challenge

The School of Environment clubs have had, and continue to have, lots of activities to keep boredom at bay throughout Semester One! Students and Staff welcome to join and compete for the JR shield between disciplines (Geography, Geoscience, Geology, Environment). Be in it to WIN it for your major!

Congratulations to Geography for winning the ENV Lockdown Street Art Challenge! This competition continued throughout the level 4 lockdown and promoted isolated exercise where participants were given an object to map out in their run. Super successful and major fun! Here are some of the awesome tracks people created!

SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENT QUIZ LINE

The ENV Quiz Line is continuing throughout Semester One! The quiz works like the “What Am I?” section of a pub quiz where a clue is posted each day until the round ends on the 4th day. If any students or staff would like to get involved or would like more information please visit the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/543925486258412/). For any further queries please email Gina Swanney (gswa730@aucklanduni.ac.nz).

The ENV Proverb Photo Challenge

The ENV Proverb Photo Challenge is a new competition in where the participant takes a photo (no plagiarism) to illustrate a well known proverb. Proverbs are provided every two days with voting taking place in the afternoon of the second day! If anyone would like to be involved please visit the facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/2305445616430070/). For more information please email Joe Fagan (j.fagan@auckland.ac.nz).

The Great ENV Lockdown Bake Off!

Dust your pans off and get creative! Every a couple of days a theme is set and your goal is to make the best creation! Share the photo/video and recipe to the Facebook group and voting will take place at the end of the 3rd day! If anyone would like to be involved please visit the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/228086901863054/). For more information please email Michaela Dobson (mdob102@aucklanduni.ac.nz).

Meetings, seminars and events

Coastal Group Webinar

The next Coastal Group meeting/webinar will be held on Wednesday May 13^th at 12:00 to 1:00 pm

News will be shared and short talks include:

Shoreline changes in coral reef islands of the Federated States of Micronesia since the mid-20th century (Meghna Sengupta)
On the use of directional wave spectra to identify swells approaching Majuro (Laura Cagigal)

All welcome to attend – please email Emma Ryan at e.ryan@auckland.ac.nz for the Zoom link if you don’t have a calendar invite already.

Volcanology, Geochemistry, & Petrology Research Group

The volcanology, geochemistry, & petrology research group (VGP) meets during the semester. Our final meeting of the semester will be on 26 May 2020 at 9 am on Zoom. Lena will be giving a talk titled “Subsoil alteration and degassing in the Rotokawa Geothermal Field, New Zealand” about her masters! As always, everyone is welcome to attend our meetings. Please contact me (Sophia Tsang: s.tsang@auckland.ac.nz) for the link if you don’t have a calendar invite. If you would like to take over my role in VPG next semester, please reach out! Additionally, if you have any updates (including new students or projects) you would like to see on the website or would like to contribute a blog post, please email David (dfar197@aucklanduni.ac.nz). For more information, please see our website: vgp.blogs.auckland.ac.nz See you soon!

Ako – Teaching and Learning

Pandemic, pedagogy and education: Teaching and learning remotely

Monday 11^th May 2-3pm

https://auckland.zoom.us/j/99906458825

We will begin with four short presentations (5-10 minutes) followed by the opportunity for audience participation. Ideally this will spark a collective conversation that is ongoing, the first in an online series with future opportunities for staff to showcase pedagogical insights and innovations.

Title: Using Canvas to facilitate student engagement

Speaker: Kaitlin Beare

Our remote learning reality has posed challenges to engage students in self-directed learning in large courses. I share insights into the successes and challenges in utilising Canvas to develop staff-student and student-student connections.

Title: Let’s fly to Muriwai – a virtual field trip.

Speaker: Nick Richards

Description: Field trips can be constrained because of a complex array of real world situations. A virtual field trip has been developed for a Stage 1 Earth Science course that integrates drone imagery, locality videos and other resources.

Title: Engaging with Oceanic ways during COVID-19

Speaker: Sonia Fonua

Embedding Tongan (and other Pacific) values in university teaching and learning spaces can benefit all students. I will share a model that employs a visual tool to enable explicit discussion and demonstration of values in any teaching and learning space.

Title: Engaging and motivating students via digital platforms for remote learning

Speaker: Rhys Jones

A range of engagement activities were created to engage and motivate students, before level-4 lockdown and were refocused and developed during lockdown. This session will include an overview of the activities developed, particularly the use of Google Sheets for students to answer video embedded quizzes, questions and games. They were also used to elicit ideas from students to help keep everyone engaged. Using student responses to direct and adapt activities and learning opportunities became integral, with the absence of in person teaching/live lectures.

From reactive to proactive: Virtual workshop on remote teaching and learning

ENV AKO Innovation Committee

Wednesday 13 May 2020 – 1-2 pm

Zoom: https://auckland.zoom.us/j/91922810088

The AKO Innovation Committee is inviting everyone to participate in a virtual workshop to identify and discuss key issues that staff and students have been facing in our experience of remote teaching and learning. We are hoping to gain insights from staff about how we can better support their practice. We will use these insights to set the groundwork for a subsequent series of more specific and topical webinars/workshops the committee is planning to organise to assist staff with their preparation for the remainder of the semester 1 and semester 2. The workshop will be recorded.

Rangahau – Research

Research and Funding Opportunities

Faculty of Science – Healthy People Healthy Communities Seed Funding

We invite applications from members of the Faculty of Science for seed funding to support research projects. Funding of up to $2000 per project is available, with a particular focus on supporting collaborations across disciplines, Schools and Departments. Further details are available in the attached application form.

Applications are due by 9am Monday 1 June 2020.

Click here to view the Theme’s recent Health Hui which showcases three previous seed funding awardees highlighting how they uses HPHC Theme seed funding to advance their research.

Spencer Foundation: Research Grants on Education: COVID19 Related

The COVID19 Related Research Grants support education research projects that will contribute to understanding the rapid shifts in education in this time of crisis and change.

There are two primary categories of projects of particular interest for this special grant:

supporting studies that aim to understand and disrupt the reproduction and deepening of educational inequality caused by the COVID19 crisis
• opportunities to remake or image new forms of equitable education opportunities when there is great disruption and change.

Grant Value: Maximum of £50,000 (approx NZD 75,900); awarded for 1-3 years.

Internal Deadline: June 2, 5pm

Further guidelines are available at the funders website

Royal Society Te Apārangi – Catalyst Fund update

As previously signalled, we received confirmation from MBIE that the April Catalyst: Seeding and Catalyst: Leaders call has been cancelled. We anticipate the next Catalyst Seeding and Catalyst Leaders call for applications to open on 30 July 2020. Funding from the cancelled April call will be made available for the next call. Further details for the July calls will be made available at the time of the call.

Cancelled: applications for the 2020 New Zealand – Germany Science & Technology Programme (under the April Catalyst: Seeding call)
Postponed: applications for Julius von Haast Fellowship (under the April Catalyst: Leaders call) will be accepted in the July Call

AINSE Early Career Researcher Grants (ECRG) – applications now open (applications close 31 July 2020).

The Early Career Researcher Grant (ECRG) is offered by AINSE Limited (the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering) to suitably-qualified persons holding a postdoctoral position at an AINSE Member Institution and/or Organisation (the University of Auckland is a member institution) and wishing to undertake work in collaboration with ANSTO. Applications will be received up to 11:59pm AEST 31^st July 2020.

Website: https://www.ainse.edu.au/ecrg/

ECRG Flyer: https://www.ainse.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ECRG-2020-Flyer.pdf

Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/AINSEltd/posts/2617565655192629

The AINSE ECRG is a one-time payment offered to scholars who are in the first five years of employment as an Early Career Researcher, with allowances made for career breaks of a reasonable time-frame. The recipient must be listed on an approved proposal to commence work at an ANSTO facility between 1st October 2020 and 31st December 2021.

The award provides a grant of A$10,000 excl. GST that can be spent on travel, accommodation and consumables relating to the recipient’s approved ANSTO proposal, and carer requirements, subject to AINSE discretion. The grant will be delivered to the host institution and placed into the recipient’s research account. Responsibility for establishing taxation liability lies with the grant recipient.

The Terms & Conditions, application form, and an ANSTO Capabilities & Facilities Guide can be

found on the AINSE website: www.ainse.edu.au/ecrg. For enquires and further information, please contact AINSE at ainse@ainse.edu.au | +61 2 9717 3376.

New publications

Suzanne Bull, Greg H. Browne, Malcolm J. Arnot and Lorna J. Strachan (2020) Influence of mass transport deposit (MTD) surface topography on deep-water deposition: an example from a predominantly fine-grained continental margin, New Zealand. In: Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 500; Subaqueous Mass Movements and their Consequences: Advances in Process Understanding, Monitoring and Hazard Assessments. https://doi.org/10.1144/SP500-2019-192
Le Heron, E., Le Heron, R., Logie, J., Greenaway, A., Allen, W., Blackett, P., Davies, K., Glavovic, B., and Hikaroa, D. (2020) Participatory Processes as Twenty-First Century Social Knowledge Technology: Metaphors and Narratives at Work. Chapter 11 in Sustaining Seas: Oceanic Space and the Politics of Care; Ed Probyn, E., Johnston, K., and Lee, N. Rowan & Littlefield International, London, New York.

Copy deadline for next edition of P-cubed: Friday 22nd May to Farnaz: f.sheikh@auckland.ac.nz

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Issue 31-Tuesday 28th April 2020

April 28, 2020 • fshe556

HeadSup

Kia ora koutou

Welcome to Alert Level 3! The UOA guidelines for our operation under this Alert Level can be found here. It’s not much different to Level 4 but it does allow for access to Labs and equipment for high priority work. Please see the notice below for details on gaining access. Blair and the ENV Technical Services advisory team (Shane, Kevin, Mark, me) will be finalising our internal processes over the next couple of days. If you are a student needing access, be sure to provide a rationale for your prioritisation when you fill out the form. I’m keeping all my digits crossed for a speedy transition to Alert Level 2. Let’s stay focused on maintaining physical distance and help Aotearoa – New Zealand eliminate COVID-19.

If this week’s p-cubed is anything to go by, we are picking up! Lots of activities are happening. Farnaz has made it simpler for us to get these into our calendars: take a look at the notices, then go to the ‘Events, meetings and seminars’ sidebar where you will be able to click and save the activities you want to attend into your calendar. If you have standing activities that you would like locked into the sidebar, please let Farnaz know.

Thanks to all who attended our ENV forum last Friday. It was great to catch up with everyone. If you have questions/comments feel free to send them through to me anytime or catch up with me at one of my open doors (PG students 11-12 noon, every Thursday; ENV staff 11-12 noon every Wednesday).

Those who attended our Kaupapa 2020 event will remember the QC (questions/comments) exercise. It seems a long time ago now but here is the summary of that exercise. I’m happy to discuss any of these points further. At this event I flagged that 2020 would be the year of the ENV 5-year Review. This review has been postponed to 2021.

Last but definitely not least, on behalf of the School I would like to extend a very warm note of thanks for many years of loyal and creative service to Ward and Lyndsay who are retiring at the end of this week. Thank you Ward, thank you Lyndsay – may you both enjoy a wonderful and long retirement! Although we cannot farewell Ward and Lyndsay in our usual way at this time, we will come together as soon as possible and do this in style. Meanwhile, if you would like to note your thanks and wishes for their happy retirement, here is our card.

Ngā mihi
JR

Whakawhanaungatanga – communities

Ward and Lyndsay are retiring!!!

Two farewells

We bid adieu to Lyndsay Blue and Ward Friesen who retire together at the end of this month. As a pair of human geographers who have a shared affinity with the Pacific they have made an immense contribution to the former Department of Geography and now the School of Environment. Both were appointed (quite independently!) in 1991 and both have been ‘team players’. Two words that handily rhyme sum up their respective contributions: care and flair.

Care pervades Lyndsay’s legacy. Throughout her career she has never been one to highlight her achievements. Reflecting, perhaps, her humility, there is no detail on her School web page apart from the standard auto-generated publications. She came to the School with rich experiences from across the South Pacific, having taught at the University of Papua New Guinea, James Cook University in Queensland, ANU, and having volunteered in Samoa. Alongside her practical depth and academic interests in development and socio-cultural geographies. Lyndsay’s academic interests lie in questions of society-environment relations, especially in the Pacific. She brought to the study of these relations an early recognition of the values of non-human actors and a deep concern for the human condition. Her greatest contribution to the academy has lain in teaching and in opening up the university to those who might not otherwise have had access to its privileges. Lyndsay is a long-serving stalwart of the University of Auckland’s Foundation Studies programme, for which she is a fierce advocate. She has supported her students through the programme into otherwise unlikely undergraduate, masters, and even PhD programmes, as well as through life crises and into senior roles in public and private sector organisations. She has carried this care far beyond her own courses and has worked tirelessly in the interests of equity within School and Faculty. She has been a colleague with a huge heart and someone who has had an immense influence on colleagues as well as students. Her influence is impossible to measure in ways commonly associated with academics. Her legacy is students who have felt supported, who have succeeded and who have felt sustained by the aroha and practical assistance Lyndsay has offered. She has always carried others with her in her roles. In 2012, for instance, Lyndsay was central to the School’s Tuakana team which were winners of a University Excellence in Equity Award. Some geographers write about care; Lyndsay has been the ultimate practitioner of care through being there – for both students and colleagues. We’ll miss her.

Ward has brought a flair to all he’s done. He completed his PhD on mobility in the Solomon Islands in the former Department of Geography (after earlier degrees in his homeland of Canada) and was appointed as Lecturer shortly afterwards. He has since worked across economic, population and urban geography as well as being a well-respected Pacific Studies scholar and a stalwart of Development Studies in the wider Pacific region. Over several decades as a population geographer and mobilities researcher, Ward has produced influential demographic analyses for the Solomon Islands as well as local governments in Auckland. He has brought flair to a field often considered by students to be ‘a bit dry’. In crafting connections between population change and Auckland’s observable landscape his scholarship has given population studies an immediacy for students. His teaching has always been a breath of fresh air aided by the most colourful shirts this School has known as well as wry sense of humour. Many of his shirts tell stories of forty years of research visits that bridged the eastern and western Pacific Islands and allowed Ward to maintain an important research network of Pacific-based and international scholars and government officials (including former students). Closer to home, he has had a sustained research interest in Auckland itself, having worked on suburban residential development and population implications as well as demographic, ethnic and socio-economic change. Many of Ward’s research and teaching interests have crystallised in his more recent theorisation of how migrant groups have shaped urban spaces and institutions, creating new ‘ethnoscapes’ and his study of migration, ethnicity and identity across New Zealand at large. While he’s stood out as an individual for his shirts, in other ways he’s been the ultimate team player. Whether on research projects, field-taught courses or his long-term contributions to Pacific Studies and Development Studies teaching programmes, Ward has carried the kaupapa. He’s had the flair and always been there. We’ll miss him.

Congratulations!

Robin Kearns has been appointed by Minister Eugenie Sage to a position on the New Zealand Geographic Board/ Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa (NZGB) which is the national place naming authority responsible for official place names in New Zealand.

Access under Alert Level 3

The COVID-19 Level 3: Campus Access and Priority Research Request Form is now live

Please read all the information and guidelines below before you submit an application for research or learning & teaching activity to begin on campus during Alert Level 3.

Research-specific Applications

The Moving to Alert Level 3 Plan details the approval requirements for priority research to begin campus and field activity during Alert Level 3. Please read this document.

Learning & Teaching Applications

All learning & teaching applications require a final approval from the DVC Academic. This final approval is part of the Faculty process.

The Campus Access and Priority Research Request Form is designed to be completed by:

Individual staff or research students (if permissible*) making a request; or
A staff requestor who is making the request for an activity/facility that includes up to 10 staff/research students/contractors/co-locators

*All research students who consider their research to fit the definition of ‘priority research activity’ should discuss this with their supervisor in the first instance. Any applications for on-campus research to be undertaken by research students should normally be submitted by the supervisor on behalf of the research student(s).

Applications for research meeting the definition of Essential Research (e.g. involving face-to-face engagement with the public or related to Covid-19) must continue to be completed through the Essential Research Activities Registration Form as they are reviewed and approved through the SRT Panel.

Approval will not be granted under Level 3 for access to the campus to collect belongings, chairs, etc

If researchers use the wrong form, they will need to re-apply using the correct form.

At the end of the online form there is an option for the requestor to be emailed a PDF copy of the application. It is advised that the requestor select this option.

Any staff members having difficulties accessing the form should contact the SSC, as it is likely related to the Microsoft identity of the requestor.

Once the online form has been submitted, the central BCP Group will distribute the requests and the approval process will begin.

School and Departmental panels will be set up to assess applications and Technical Managers/Technical Team Leads will be key contributors. The role of the Technical Services staff will be to assess the viability of prioritised research to be undertaken within the constraints of the Covid 19 Alert Level 3 guidelines.

Recommendations will then be sent to the Dean’s Authorisation Panel. The panel will endeavour to turn around applications quickly and applicants will be advised whether they have been approved or declined access as soon as possible.

If approved, an official permission letter to be on campus or complete field work at Alert Level 3, will be sent to the requestor. Individual access cards will not be activated until this official letter has been sent.

PBRF Funding

We have funding available and have identified some ways to hopefully stimulate applications:

– casual contracts are a great option. If a student has just finished, financial support from PBRF could help write a paper and support the student.

– we have always been reluctant to use PBRF to pay for publication charges. This year we will consider applications.

– if you needed to buy “data” to seed or start or complete a research project, this is probably the year when PBRF can help.

We have also decided to review proposals at the end of each month so we can speed up the approval process.

Please use the attached template to prepare your proposal and submit it to g.coco@auckland.ac.nz

ENV project assisting school students to learn Maths and Science on Education TV.

Marie McEntee and Joe Fagan were funded undertake a Curious Minds Project in 2017 with the school children of Aotea Great Barrier Island. The project called Sea Science saw Marie, Joe and three ENV students assist the children with their beach cleanups and to use the information to communicate their work and to then work with stakeholders to bring about environmental change. The children told their stories through art, writing, play and song. Together with a kaumatua, Marie and Joe facilitated engagement between the owners of the island’s mussel farms to reduce mussel lanyards landing on the beaches. The project was subsequently picked up by the Ministry of Education and showcased in the Ministry’s Connected Magazine which is distributed to primary schools around the country. Connected Magazine have just let Marie and Joe know that the project has been chosen among a few to be showcased as an example of science and maths on Education TV, the new Ministry’s initiative to educate children while at home.

Postgraduate Matters

Below are updates that have come through Faculty of Science, mostly regarding COVID-19 response.

Access at levels 3: Be prepared for much less “on campus” under level 3 than what you’re hoping for. You are still requested to stay at home and there is unlikely to be fieldwork. Supervisors- please manage expectations with your postgraduate students on this.
Supporting students: Some students are still feeling isolated- please try to facilitate some “group” meetings, even if it means being a little off topic, just to promote inclusivity.
Extensions/suspensions: Please follow the ever updating SGS page as this is the most up to date source for regulations. Please don’t be afraid to sit tight and wait out some of these shorter delays (particularly for stage 3). Suspensions can be retrospective for Masters and PhD students.
New enrolments: When considering new enrolments, particularly international, through the AFA system, make sure that your projects have a plan “B” and that there are contingencies in place for restrictions on travel. This may mean that a new student needs to work from home for the first few months of their enrolment, or maybe you facilitate access for them to work in a lab where they are located for 6-9 months until they are able to get into New Zealand. Be creative, but also realistic- what happens if the student is unable to get a visa? The University is arguing to be able to enrol students even without a visa but this is an ongoing discussion/debate and is not yet resolved.
Financial Matters:
1. The hardship grant is currently undersubscribed- this can help students struggling right now (although you need to be able to provide evidence). This can be if you or your partner have lost work, or for PhD’s if you are suspended (note the suspension rule here does not apply for Masters as they have a separate support grant).
2. Masters need to apply to the general University hardship fund but should consider it if appropriate.
3. Future scholarships- it is still unclear how COVID-19 will impact future scholarship offers- they hope is to maintain current levels but this is uncertain.
4. Continuing scholarships- there will be no “new” scholarship money for PhD- this is important to consider for extra extensions. Currently supporting the 36 months of support (through the UOA doctoral scholarship), 6 month extensions (for GPA >7), but beyond that only a 3 month fee waiver- no additional extensions of the scholarship funds.

2021 CapEx:

If you have any items on your CapEx Wishlist for 2021 (and beyond) please send these to Blair by the end of April.

At this stage all I need is a name and an approximate cost. There is the expectation that a full case will be completed at a later date.

If you have already spoken with one of the techs, they would have most likely already passed the info on to me.

Regards

Blair Sowman
Technical Manager | School of Environment

Te Tumu Herenga | Libraries and Learning Services

Although the Library is physically closed, we are still open for business, and you can send us your queries or set up a consultation appointment by Zoom using the AskUs link.

Our staff have been busy converting our resources and services to online, and

The Learning Online Toolkit has now been released to all students in Canvas.

It contains a range of online study support resources to help students with their academic development. It includes brief tips on:

How to learn online
Technology
Communicating online
Online tests
Working in online groups

It also links to Te Tumu Herenga l Libraries and Learning services, UoA student support services and specialist services provided by English Language Enrichment, Inclusive Learning and Te Fale Pouāwhina.

The toolkit has been added to the Canvas navigation menu along with an announcement on the Dashboard.

See The Learning Online Toolkit

Find our other Te Tumu Herenga | Libraries and Learning Services Covid-19 Support at the following links:

Meetings, seminars and events

The Geography Auckland (NZGS Auckland) newsletter

The Auckland Branch invites you to attend the next meeting via Zoom

Erionite and public health in Auckland: are our soils and rocks killing us?

Presented by Martin Brook

Tuesday 19th May

An invitation will be sent out during the previous week

Please click here to read the newsletter.

Seminar Series is back!

Save the date: ENV (Zoom) Seminar: 1^st of May Friday 16:00 – 16:40 + drinks 😊.

Join us on Friday the 1^st of May from 4 pm to learn about the fantastic research your colleagues do. All staff members and students from the School of Environment are warmly invited to attend this brilliant School of Environment Seminar. As you may be already aware we are running the seminars every three months and they have been incredibly fascinating so far.

In the upcoming ENV Seminar, we will have two presenters Danielle and Ryan and their talks will be followed by Friday virtual drinks.

Zoom location: https://auckland.zoom.us/j/441894919

PSC Cheese and Whine

Time: Apr 23, 2020 05:00 PM Auckland, Wellington

Every week on Thu, 9 occurrence(s)

Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system.

Weekly: https://auckland.zoom.us/meeting/tJEodeChpjIvHtdpe1Yi445yWcV_70o1paeP/ics?icsToken=98tyKuCtqzkjE9yctR2ERowMGYjoXfPxiFhYgrdZjBq0OikHNlbvAeF0DeUvH4nA

Join Zoom Meeting from here.

Volcanology, Geochemistry & Petrology Research Group

The volcanology, geochemistry, & petrology research group (VGP) meets during the semester. Our next meeting will be on 26 May 2020 at 9 am on Zoom. As always, everyone is welcome to attend our meetings. Please contact me (Sophia Tsang: s.tsang@auckland.ac.nz) for the link if you don’t have a calendar invite. If you would like to be added to this list or to volunteer to take on the organising role for VGP starting next semester, please email me (s.tsang@auckland.ac.nz). Additionally, if you have any updates (including new students or projects) you would like to see on the website or would like to contribute a blog post, please email David (dfar197@aucklanduni.ac.nz). For more information, please see our website: vgp.blogs.auckland.ac.nz See you soon!

Ako – Teaching and Learning

Thanks everyone for your great work keeping courses going and students engaged. Especially big thanks to all the TAs and GTAs who are doing a brilliant job. Let’s keep focused on maintaining engagement – we are remote learning until the end of the Semester and it’s a long way off. Students may start to flag as this drags on. Please prioritise:

engagement – stay in touch with students, stay in touch with TAs/GTAs, personalise feedback/interaction
Delivery methods – keep it simple, keep it accessible by all. I realise live streaming is happening around the university and it definitely is a good option for teaching and learning but not for all. There are genuine equity issues that cannot be addressed at the moment so please do not use live streaming for required work, especially not for assessments.

All the best for the next 7 weeks! – JR

Rangahau – Research

Meetings, seminars and events

Morphological modelling to understand Terrestrial Cosmogenic Nuclide concentrations in rocky coasts

Speaker: Lovleen Acharya Chowdhury (PhD Proposal)
Date: Thursday, April 30th
Time: 9:30 am
Zoom invite: https://auckland.zoom.us/j/7268a92178

Research and Funding Opportunities

NSCs SfTI and BioHeritage are calling for interest in a new SfTI Biosecurity Tech project

The Science for Technological Innovation (SfTI) and New Zealand’s Biological Heritage National Science Challenges (NSCs) are calling for a registration of interest to become part of a cross-disciplinary, multi-organisational research team to contribute to the next mission-led Spearhead project. This will be based around the Biosecurity Technology Mission on employing cutting-edge physical sciences and engineering to create new processes and tools that will better protect New Zealand from harmful biological elements such as non-indigenous flora, pathogens, insects and mammalian species.

Registration Deadline: Friday 1 May 2020 – Please register directly on the funder website

Value: Spearhead projects are typically funded for $1m p.a. over three years.

Deep South National Science Challenge

The Deep South Challenge invites you to submit a research outline which identifies a key climate process for New Zealand and how understanding of this process could be better understood through new observations. The Challenges objectives are: 1) to facilitate a research community consultation to identify the key climate processes for New Zealand; and 2) to fund research into the highest priority processes for New Zealand.

To achieve our first objective, we will be using the research outlines as input to an online workshop in June. Here invited participants will be able to work with the Challenge to identify and prioritise where studies using observations could lead to a better representation of climate processes in models. In August we will release a Request for Proposals with the aim of funding the highest priority studies.

Deadline: Research outline due 15 May 2020

Please get in touch with Kelly or Kathryn if you would like more information.

Our Land and Water National Science Challenge

The Our Land and Water National Science Challenge is looking for a Science Theme Leader (0.4FTE until 30 June 2024) for the Incentives for Change research theme. This theme seeks to identify the rewards, signals and approaches that motivate beneficial behaviours and reciprocal relationships in the agri-food and fibre system. The role and responsibilities of theme leaders are set out in the person specification. If interested, please email a letter outlining your background, experience and overall fit to Ourlandandwater@agresearch.co.nz by Friday 8 May.

Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change (SLMACC) – Freshwater Mitigation

To support field trials of existing farm technologies and practices which protect waterways and wetlands by reducing nutrient run-off and leaching. The programme aims to produce scientific data that can be incorporated into decision-support tools such as Overseer.

Internal Deadline: Wednesday 6 May, 3pm

Value: Between $200,000 and $2 million

Further Guidelines: See the funders website

International Network Funding Calls:

Two of our international networks have released funding calls for projects relating to the needs of universities as a result of the global pandemic:

U21 Global Education Enhancement Fund

Partnerships of two or more U21 member universities can apply for this fund, working together to design better solutions for online teaching, learning and assessment, which can be subsequently shared as resources within the U21 network.

Internal Deadline: 12 noon, 6 May 2020

Value: USD $5,000 per partner awarded.

WUN fund addressing research needs triggered by the pandemic

Proposals are invited for projects that address time-sensitive research problems arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and must include at least three WUN member universities across two or more countries.

Internal Deadline: 12noon, 11 May 2020

Value: GBP £10,000 per project awarded.

Proposals from Auckland researchers must be submitted for internal review prior to submission to the relevant funder.

Further information including application process and deadlines can be found on the intranet page here:https://www.staff.auckland.ac.nz/en/how-the-university-works/international-opportunities-and-linkages/international-networks/covid-19-related-funding-opportunities0.html

Some of our WUN partners are also seeking collaborators on projects, these will also be uploaded to the info page below. Currently four projects are listed.

2020 AINSE Residential Student Scholarships (RSS): expressions of interest now open

Residential Student Scholarships (RSSs) are offered by AINSE Limited (the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering) for suitably-qualified persons wishing to undertake studies aligned with ANSTO’s research programmes for a higher degree at an AINSE-member university (UoA is a member university). Expressions of interest will be received up to 11:59 pm AEST 31st May 2020.

Online link to RSS Flyer: https://www.ainse.edu.au/AINSE%20RSS%202020.pdf

New publications

Meiqin Han had the first paper from her PhD thesis published in the international journal Catena:Han, M., Brierley, G., Li, B., Li, Z., & Li, X. (2020). Impacts of flow regulation on geomorphic adjustment and riparian vegetation succession along an anabranching reach of the Upper Yellow River. Catena, 190, 104561.
Suyadi, Gao, J., Lundquist, C. J., & Schwendenmann, L. (2020). Aboveground Carbon Stocks in Rapidly Expanding Mangroves in New Zealand: Regional Assessment and Economic Valuation of Blue Carbon. Estuaries and Coasts. 10.1007/s12237-020-00736-xHamilton, D.J., Bulmer, R.H., Schwendenmann, L. , & Lundquist, C. J. (2020). Nitrogen enrichment increases greenhouse gas emissions from emerged intertidal sandflats. Scientific Reports 10, 6686 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-62215-4
Campbell, K.A., Nicholson, K., Lynne, B.Y., Browne, P.R.L., 2020. 3D anatomy of a 60-year-old hot spring deposit at Hipaua-Waihi-Tokaanu geothermal field, Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand. Sedimentary Geology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sedgeo.2020.105652
Ruff, S.W., Campbell, K.A., Van Kranendonk, M.J., Rice, M.S., Farmer, J.D., 2020. The case for ancient hot springs in Gusev crater, Mars. Astrobiology 20, 475-499.
Teece, B.L., George, S.C., DJOKIC, T., Campbell, K.A., Ruff, S.W., Van Kranendonk, M.J., 2020. Biomolecules from fossilized hot-spring sinters: implications for the search for life on Mars. Astrobiology 20, 537-551.
Opit, S., Kearns, R. and Witten, K (2020) Housing Preferences of Young Adults in light of Urban Intensification: Evidence from Auckland, New Zealand Housing Studies 35(1) 123-142.

Copy deadline for next edition of P-cubed: Friday 8th May to Farnaz: f.sheikh@auckland.ac.nz

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Issue 30-Wednesday 15th April 2020

April 15, 2020 • fshe556

HeadSup

Kia ora koutou

Happy Easter, I hope the existential bunny made it to your house. Certainly chocolate and baking seem to be must-have items to stave of third-week-itis. I consumed an entire afghan slice in the space of a day before realizing my bubble is too small for baking. And I’m over Netflix, but the dogs have never been so well-walked. We are getting there though, the curve is flattening. We just have to stay the distance.

I’d like to give a big shout-out to everyone for keeping our teaching and learning going strong. I don’t think a mid-semester break has ever been so welcome. Please take time to relax and blob about a bit.

I know many of us are preparing material for the next 7 weeks of teaching. Please limit the tasks expected of students and make them simple and easy to navigate. Remote tasks take a lot longer to complete than we think. Some students are starting to suffer under the weight of multiple activities. Everyone is stressed so let’s keep the expected workloads down.

If you are a research student or supervisor and have yet to do so, please make a flexible plan to prioritise different activities according to Alert Level. I hope to have more information on access protocols in the next week.

All the best for weeks three and four.

Ngā mihi
JR

Whakawhanaungatanga – communities

IT Committee

The IT-Committee has compiled a number of common IT-related issues and possible solutions. Please check the P-Cubed IT web-page.

https://p-cubed.blogs.auckland.ac.nz/env-it-committe

Meetings, seminars and events

Kāinga Wahine is going online!

Postgrads, and all School of Environment staff who identify as women – welcome to our shared space. As we discussed at our first catch up of the year, we’re hoping to meet monthly to bring us all together, recognise and know the diversity of our women in the School.

Please update your calendars with the dates for the rest of the semester (note we vary the times to try to accommodate different schedules:

14^th May 12-1pm

11^th June 1-2pm

Please also share the invite with your own School of Environment colleagues who may have been missed off of this list.

Join us in this zoom room: https://auckland.zoom.us/j/8913664680

In the absence of a shared plate, feel free to bring a recipe!

Looking forward to seeing you soon,

Emma

(on behalf of the School of Environment Equity Committee)

The Geography Auckland (NZGS Auckland) newsletter

Kia ora, Greetings everyone,

Here is the April newsletter from lockdown Auckland. We do hope everyone is finding WFH a new challenge and possibly with some element of novelty. You will notice a number of cancellations, but a schedule of Dialogues, some of which we hope will happen.

In the meantime here is something from a quotation I saw recently: “Sun is not cancelled. Relationships are not cancelled. Love is not cancelled. Imagination is not cancelled. Music is not cancelled. Kindness is not cancelled. Hope is not cancelled.”

Kia kaha! Noho ora mai. / Say strong, stay well and look after yourself

Please click here to read the newsletter.

Volcanology, Geochemistry & Petrology Research Group

The volcanology, geochemistry, & petrology research group (VGP) meets during the semester. Our next meeting will be on 28 April 2020 at 9 am on Zoom. Phil would like to tell us about some of his recent research! As always, everyone is welcome to attend our meetings. Please contact me (Sophia Tsang: s.tsang@auckland.ac.nz) for the link if you don’t have a calendar invite. If you would like to be added to this list, please email me (s.tsang@auckland.ac.nz). Additionally, if you have any updates (including new students or projects) you would like to see on the website or would like to contribute a blog post, please email David (dfar197@aucklanduni.ac.nz). For more information, please see our website: vgp.blogs.auckland.ac.nz See you soon!

Quiz

The School of Environment student clubs are putting on a quiz throughout the lock down for all students within the faculty.

This quiz acts like the “What Am I?” sections in pub quizzes where each round a clue is given to hint at what the object, place, historic event, technique or person is. This quiz is for all School of Environment students hence will cover Geology, Engineering geology, Geophysics, Geochemistry, Geomorphology, Coastal, Climate, Environment, Human geography, Physical geography, and many more sub categories.

Every “round” will start every 4 days with one clue each day and the What Am I being revealed at approx. 8pm on the 4th day and beginning the new round. We are currently in the 3rd round and is planned to go till the end of semester 1 lectures (approx. 12th June at this point) but the end date will be announced closer to the end of semester.

This is a cool way of getting undergrads and postgrads out of the lock down blues and promotes thinking about the other disciplines in a fun interactive way. If any staff member would like to notify their class of this they are welcome too. There is a facebook page where all the questions are posted and more information is available (https://www.facebook.com/groups/543925486258412/).

Although this is specifically for students (tailored particularly towards undergraduates), if any staff member would like to get involved and possibly come up with a few questions please email Gina Swanney (gswa730@aucklanduni.ac.nz) for more information.

Ako – Teaching and Learning

Enjoy the break!

Rangahau – Research

Help with digital research tools, skills and platforms

The Centre for eResearch (CeR) team is working remotely to provide services that support researchers, including postgraduate/doctoral researchers. These services are described and can be requested in the ResearchHub –research-hub.auckland.ac.nz

Workshops and drop-in sessions are also being offered to help researchers continue their work at home:

Enabling research at home – daily drop-in, 1-1:30pm – https://auckland.zoom.us/j/601455135
Introduction to CeR’s research data, compute and digital research skills services to support working at home (15mins), followed by group or individual question and answer with the CeR team.

Managing Research Data – weekly 1-hour workshops
Part 1: Introduction to planning, organising and storing your research data.
Part 2: Sharing, publishing and archiving your research data.
We will focus on best practices and University services.
Details – https://research-hub.auckland.ac.nz/#/content/44
Booking link – https://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/workshops/?p=view_workshop&id=2360&from-ref=hub

Data analysis at home – 1-hour workshop and practical session.
Ideal for those considering or starting to use Nectar Research Cloud for data analysis, this session will provide practical instruction on getting an allocation and setting up a Windows virtual machine.
Details – https://research-hub.auckland.ac.nz/#/content/70
Booking link – https://www.eventbrite.com/e/research-analysis-at-home-tickets-102118982626

Hacky Hour –Tuesday & Thursday, 3-4pm – https://auckland.zoom.ac.nz/hackyhour
Ask questions, offer solutions, share lockdown tips and chat to your peers.
Aimed at doctoral candidates but all University researchers are very welcome.
Message the Hacky Hour slack channel, sign-up https://uoa-eresearch.github.io/HackyHour/ using your University email.

Please contact researchdata@auckland.ac.nz if you have any suggestions or questions about these or potential sessions.

Coastal Group and Marine Geosciences Webinar

The next Coastal Group and Marine Geosciences Group meetings will be a joint webinar on Wednesday April 22nd at 12:00 to 1:00 pm

Short talks include:

1. Glacial-age coastal processes still influence our modern coast and its response to climate change (Dr Marta Ribó)

2. Seismic spectral signatures of individual wave impacts on coastal cliffs (Catriona Thompson)

All welcome to attend – please email Emma Ryan at e.ryan@auckland.ac.nz for the Zoom link if you don’t have a calendar invite already.

Thank you,

Emma

Research and Funding Opportunities

NSC – Sustainable Seas Innovation Fund

The Sustainable Seas Innovation Fund is open for applications for research projects that will contribute directly to building a ‘blue economy’ in Aotearoa. The maximum project value is $250,000. Detailed information and criteria are specified in the request for proposals (RFP) document. EoIs must be submitted via this online form by 18 May 2020.

MPI- Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change (SLMACC)

The purpose of these awards is to help the agriculture and forestry sectors with challenges arising from climate change.

SLMACC Adaption – Focuses on social impacts, policy research and the science around adaptation to climate change, with the aim to improve resilience to a changing climates; and help farmers move towards a low carbon future

Value: $100,000 – $400,000 (1-2 years)

SLMACC Extension – Focuses on communicating research findings to farmers, growers and other primary industry professionals, with the aim to directly influence engagement, encourage implementation and create lasting changes in behaviour.

Value: up to $300,000 (up to 1 year)

Internal deadline for both awards is Tuesday 21 April. Applications must be submitted by the Funds Advisory Team, please contact your RPC to register your interest

Further guidelines and resources: Funders website

New publications

Blue, B. and M. Tadaki (2020), ‘Getting the measure of nature: the inconspicuous geopolitics of environmental measurement’, in S. O’Lear (ed), A Research Agenda for Environmental Geopolitics, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. https://doi-org.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/10.4337/9781788971249.00008 Please email Brendon if you would like a copy of the chapter.
Brook MS, Hebblewhite B, Mitra R. (2020). Coal mine roof rating (CMRR), rock mass rating (RMR) and strata control: Carborough Downs Mine, Bowen Basin, Australia. International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 30: 225–234. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095268619304070

Copy deadline for next edition of P-cubed: Friday 24th April to Farnaz: f.sheikh@auckland.ac.nz

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Issue 29-Monday 30th March 2020

March 30, 2020 • fshe556

HeadSup

Kia ora koutou

We have a lighter edition of p-cubed this fortnight, reflecting the reprioritisation of effort as everyone gets on top of the switch to working from home. It’s been and will continue to be a huge effort – thank you everyone.

Currently we are offsite for 4 weeks but this could easily extend on, or swing, according to Alert Level. Clearly we should expect a very disrupted 2020. Staying connected is important. Once our urgency response has settled down, I hope to see some of our usual activities recast in new formats (I’m delighted to see the VGP group finding ways to carry on). But, for the moment, we need to take stock, focus on teaching and learning, and, most importantly, our health and wellbeing.

For all researchers: please consider what a rolling alert level over the next few months would mean for your research activities. What activity could be picked up at each level? If you are planning your research response for funded projects and /or thesis research, please consider what could be done at each level (Level 2, 3, 4) and develop a flexible plan.

You will have received an email from me alerting you to the fact that a member of ENV tested positive for COVID-19. I have fielded a number of enquiries related to this and I would like to emphasise that Auckland Regional Public Health Services have advised me that the risk posed through casual contact is very low. I would also ask that you respect the privacy of the person concerned and not enter into social media discussion of their identity. Note that any positive results for staff or students should be sent to: coronavirus@auckland.ac.nz (not ‘probables’, ‘think sos’ or ‘might haves’). Confidentiality will be respected.

All the best for the fortnight ahead. Be kind.

Ngā mihi
JR

Whakawhanaungatanga – communities

List of Mindfulness activities during lockdown:

Teach someone else a new skill	Contact a friend you haven’t seen a while	Do a favour without needing anything in return	Donate to a charity
Check in on an older family member	Facetime a friend for lunch	Prepare a meal for someone you are in isolation with	Recommend a friend a book or movie
Organise your home office area	Have a vegetarian or vegan meal	Text a compliment to three friends	Write a positive review online
Make a homemade gift to give to someone after lockdown	Share a fun isolation hobby with a friend	Switch off unnecessary lights and electricity	Make someone laugh

For more reading please click here

Thank you!

The ENV Equity Committee would like to thank all those who attended and donated to the School of Environment Shared Fundraising Morning Tea on March 16th.
We raised $556 for the Our People, Our City Fund which supports the families and Muslim communities impacted by the white supremacist terrorist attack of March 15 2019, now and into the future.

Meetings, seminars and events

Cancellation of the School of Environment Careers Expo 2020

The School of Environment Careers Expo 2020 has been cancelled. Details for the Careers Expo 2021 will be provided in due course.

Volcanology, Geochemistry & Petrology Research Group

The volcanology, geochemistry, & petrology research group (VGP) meets during the semester. Our next meeting will be on 7 April 2020 at 9 am on Zoom. We will have some guest talks about fluid dynamics modelling of volcanoes from the Faculty of Engineering! As always, everyone is welcome to attend our meetings. Please contact me (Sophia Tsang: s.tsang@auckland.ac.nz) for the link if you don’t have a calendar invite. If you would like to be added to this list, please email me (s.tsang@auckland.ac.nz). Additionally, if you have any updates (including new students or projects) you would like to see on the website or would like to contribute a blog post, please email David (dfar197@aucklanduni.ac.nz). For more information, please see our website: vgp.blogs.auckland.ac.nz See you soon!

Ako – Teaching and Learning

Teaching Remotely (online)

The University has a Remote Learning site with many useful links and resources for teaching staff.

In addition, ENV AKO has resources. All ENV academic staff have been invited to join this Canvas-based platform. Please contact Alex if you have been missed or wish to join.

Ako Committee _ Open meetings

These are being held on Mondays from 11-12 via Zoom. The meetings are an informal forum for ENV staff to share advice on remote teaching and dealing with the rapidly changing situation. Please check ENV AKO for meeting details or contact Ako Chair, Robin Kearns.

Ako key contacts_ a reminder

Ako Committee chair: Robin Kearns
Head of Academic Operations and ENV delegate to Faculty of Science: David Hayward
Chair, Ako Innovation: Mel Wall
ENV ‘Teaching Champion’ – Science group for remote learning: Murray Ford

Rangahau – Research

Farewell Ivana!

Ivana Mlinac, one of the Faculty’s Research Programme Coordinators supporting researchers in the School of Environment, is leaving the University after 10 years here – first as a student, then in the Research Office and latterly in the Faculty of Science. Her last day will be Tuesday 31 march. Researchers Ivana was supporting in the School, will now be supported by Kelly Kilpin or Kathryn Howard. If you’d like to clarify who your primary research support (FIRST) contact is, please email Kathryn at Kathryn.Howard@auckland.ac.nz or Kelly at Kelly.Kilpin@auckland.ac.nz. We are ready to assist you.

Research continuity for staff and students

The University has uploaded a research continuity support page, covering off some FAQs, for the research community, please follow the link below:

https://www.staff.auckland.ac.nz/en/human-resources/staff-support-services/covid-19-coronavirus-outbreak/researcher-support-and-information.html

Research contracts: Uniservices and ORSI are leading conversations with funders. If you are a PI, please do not contact funders or contractors individually. Our research programme coordinators will be in touch as operations continue.
Support for Research students: The School of Graduate Studies and other research-facing parts of the University are currently focused on putting in place a range of support measures for affected research students, including options for financial hardship support. The School of Graduate Studies will manage a Doctoral Hardship Fund with applications opening this week. Information will be posted on the University website. Sub-doctoral research students who find themselves in financial need can apply for support through the Student Emergency Fund.

A reminder that if anyone is working on an externally funded research project which needs to be invoiced by the end of the government financial year (30 June 2020) and doesn’t have a contract in place, to please contact Kathryn or Kelly so we can get the necessary paperwork underway.

Internally-funded research

The Associate Dean Research, Jan Lindsay, has advised:

Extensions for currently-funded research projects are likely.
FRDF will go ahead as planned.
There will be no SRIF for 2020.
There will not be extensions for PBRF – more on this soon
Distinguished visitors will be given 12 month extensions

Postponement of the Research Forum

In light of the lockdown, the School of Environment Research Forum scheduled on 31 March will be postponed till further notice.

Research and Funding Opportunities

James Cook Research Fellowships:

The James Cook Research Fellowships are awarded to researchers who have achieved national and international recognition in their area of scientific research. The fellowships allow them to concentrate on their chosen research for two years without the additional burden of administrative and teaching duties.

Grant value: Up to $110,000 per year, up to 2 years

Internal Deadline: Tuesday 28 April 2020

Guidelines can be found on the founders website

If you intend to apply for this fellowship, please contact either Kathryn Howard or Kelly Kilpin to discuss the registration and submission process.

New Horizons for Women Trust:

Hine Kahukura Research Award:

For women who are conducting research that benefits women and/or girls in New Zealand. The awards are a one-off grant to help with your research and/or living expenses. Preference will be given to applicants who have started their research project and whose work is at Masters, PhD or postdoctoral level.

Grant value: $5,000

Guidelines and further eligibility rules can be found here

Wāhine Ora Award

To support research that benefits Māori women, girls and/or whānau in Aotearoa New Zealand. This award is made annually and is a one-off grant to assist this research and/or living expenses while conducting the research.

Grant value: $10,000

Guidelines and further eligibility rules can be found here

Margaret L Bailey Science Award

Assists a successful mid-career woman (at post-doctoral level) with her scientific research expenses. Applicants must be currently engaged in scientific research, have a doctorate and an outstanding academic track record in her discipline.

Grant value: $5,000

Guidelines and further eligibility rules can be found here

Submission Deadlines: The deadline for University of Auckland QA check is Monday 6 April. The funder submission deadline is Wednesday 15 April. Although this is a self-submission process, please get in touch with either Kathryn Howard or Kelly Kilpin if you intend to apply.

Copy deadline for next edition of P-cubed: Friday 10th April to Farnaz: f.sheikh@auckland.ac.nz

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Issue 28-Tuesday 17th March 2020

March 17, 2020 • fshe556

HeadSup

Kia ora koutou

This is an extraordinary year. Today we commemorate the people who lost their lives to hatred in the Christchurch terrorist attack last year. We will share food crafted by our hands and stand together in remembrance and determination to eschew white supremacist ideology and other forms of bigotry and hatred. This University values diversity and is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment for all. This will be the last communal food sharing activity in ENV until further notice.

COVID-19 presents a real threat to our ability to maintain a safe environment and care for people if they get sick. We must flatten the curve and keep it flat or our health system will not be able to cope with those needing care – and people will need care. COVID-19 is coming at us at the same time as our usual flu season – a time when our hospitals are at full stretch. We must contain and stop the spread of COVID-19. We are in for a long period of disruption and it will have serious implications at an individual and collective level. You will be aware that the Vice-Chancellor has cancelled international travel for all UOA activities and has requested all UOA staff and PG research students to return home. We can anticipate further restrictions on activities as COVID-19 unfolds.

As a School we must act collectively to limit the impact of COVID-19 on our people and our communities. Social distancing is important and will become more so in the coming days and weeks, a point flagged by John Hosking, Dean of Science, in his email to staff this morning. We do not know how the management of social distancing will role out. Decisions at UOA Senior Leadership may come fast and we must be ready to limit the impact on our UG and PG students.

May I please ask all staff and students to:

Stay home if you are sick or suspect you are sick and contact Healthline if appropriate.
Increase social distancing:
- All meetings that can be held by zoom/skype should be held by zoom/skype (CBDBZ: could be done by zoom). This includes small group meetings, committee meetings, supervision meetings.
- Maintain physical space (1-2 m), and do not handshake, hug, hongi. Practice your East Coast waves.
- Stop holding ENV communal food/drinks events until further notice
- Move to webinar /zoom options where possible.
Create connection to maintain our communities (if you are an ENV PG student here’s a link to a new ENV PG community facebook page)
All supervisors and PGR students: make your plans now for management of your research over the next 3-6 months.
Prepare for remote teaching of ALL S1 courses (and think ahead to S2).
- Students are the core business of the University. We must prioritise maintenance of delivery of high quality courses.
- Work together in teaching teams to ensure you have a quality plan ready to go if we are instructed to teach remotely. This could happen fast – prepare now.
- Cancelling courses is not an option – if you cannot figure out how to make it work get in touch with me.

We are all in this together: be sure to let me know early if I have missed something, if you recognize an issue that needs to be resolved or if you need help. And, importantly, please be kind to each other.

Ngā mihi
JR

Whakawhanaungatanga – communities

Dear All,

The Rangahau Committee will host a Forum on “Research in the Pacific” on Tuesday 31 March from 12:00 – 13:00pm in Fale Pasifika, followed by lunch (13:00 – 14:00). All staff are welcome to join. Research active staff are expected to attend. Please RSVP here for catering purpose by Monday 23 March. Please advise Samantha (Samantha.huang@auckland.ac.nz) if you are an apology. We have a great list of speakers:

Ward Friesen, School of Environment, “Human Geography research centred on the Pacific”
Murray Ford, School of Environment, “Physical Geography and Earth Science research centred on the Pacific”
Melani Anae, Director Research, Centre for Pacific Studies, Faculty of Arts. Melani will discuss her research interests and the role of research in the Centre for Pacific Studies
Jeff Nikoia, Director Strategic Growth, UniServices. Jeff will outline some of the activities UniServices is involved with in the Pacific
Brenda Star, Trustee, Pacific Development and Conservation Trust. Brenda will outline the work of the Trust to support development and conservation in the Pacific

We look forward to seeing you at the Forum,

The Rangahau Committee

PhD enrolment extensions

Would supervisors please bear in mind that PhD students don’t need an enrolment extension until they have completed four years of FTE enrolment. We are getting a few unnecessary formal requests coming through (DOC-6 forms). In some cases it may be that there is confusion with scholarship extensions, but these are a separate matter (dealt with by the Scholarships Office).

Thanks, Anthony

(PhD Advisor)

Calling for volunteers for a fun day doing volcano and earthquake experiments with children!

Event: MOTAT Science STEM Fair

Where: MOTAT, Museum of Transport and Technology, Great North Road

Date: Sunday 5 April 2020 (as of 13 March it’s still on…)

Time: We need help between 9 am and 5 pm, for the whole time or an hour or two or anything in between

Who: Join the DEVORA (Determining Volcanic Risk in Auckland) and QuakeCORE outreach groups. No experience needed, just enthusiasm and joy: You’re helping children be excited about science!

https://www.motat.org.nz/experience/events/science-stem-fair/

Please contact Kate katelk@auckland.ac.nz or Michaela mdob102@aucklanduni.ac.nz

The Geography Auckland (NZGS Auckland) newsletter

What’s on?
2020 GEONIGHT (International Night of Geography)
Wednesday 1st April 2020
Geography Auckland is joining the World International Night of Geography
Science Centre
University of Auckland
Building 302 Room 140
4.00pm – Start
___________________________
Celebrate Geography,
Get excited
Karen Fisher (k.fisher@auckland.ac.nz)
June.logie@me.com (secretary)

Click here to read more.

Meetings, seminars and events

School of Environment Careers Expo 2020

7th April 12.00-2.00 pm, Room 302-140

School of Environment Shared Fundraising Morning Tea for the Victims of the Christchurch Terrorist Attack

If you missed the morning tea yesterday, it is still not too late to donate. Please contact Mel Wall (m.wall@auckland.ac.nz). Thanks

All proceeds to Our People, Our City Fund which supports the families and Muslim communities impacted by the white supremacist terrorist attack on March 15, 2019 (https://christchurchfoundation.org.nz/giving/our-people-our-city-fund/donate)

Earth Sciences Bickie briefing

Earth Sciences Bickie briefing is every Thursday morning at 10.30am in the Level 6 break out space. It’s a chance to share announcements, get updates on academic and research events and deadlines, and share highlights from the past week. All postgrads and staff welcome.

Volcanology, Geochemistry, & Petrology Research Group

The volcanology, geochemistry, & petrology research group (VGP) meets during the semester. Our next meeting will be on 17 March 2020 at 9 am in 303-G16. Nathan Collins will be giving a talk about his work entitled “Geochemical insights into shallow magmatic processes and transitioning eruption styles, Ambae, Vanuatu”! As always, everyone is welcome to attend our meetings. After this meeting, for the foreseeable future, we will be moving to holding VGP meetings as Zoom meetings. This includes next week’s meeting in which David Farsky will be practicing his proposal talk titled “Source, loss, and content of the deep magmatic volatiles (CO2, He) of the Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand.” After setting up the Zoom meetings, I will send out details on how to join to everyone invited to the calendar invite. If you would like to be added to this list, please email me (s.tsang@auckland.ac.nz). Thank you for being flexible on this front. Additionally, if you have any updates (including new students or projects) you would like to see on the website or would like to contribute a blog post, please email David (dfar197@aucklanduni.ac.nz). For more information, please see our website: vgp.blogs.auckland.ac.nz See you soon!

Ako – Teaching and Learning

Three members of the Waterways team at Auckland Council will make a special presentation on stream management issues in the Auckland region in the GEOG 331 class on Friday 20th March, from 10am-12noon. Any staff/student is welcome to attend this special session. It is in the Clock Tower, G10.

The following week, Ed Baynes, a Post Doc in Engineering, will make a one hour presentation from 10-11 in the same room, outlining his field and experimental work on sediment pulses in river systems. Same room – again, anyone welcome to attend (Friday 27th March, 10-11 am, Clock Tower, G10).

And finally, there will be a rivers symposium at UoA on Tuesday April 28th, from 1-5pm. B303, room G16. See the flyer below.

Get it Write – Academic Article Writing Workshop

Hosted by FMHS (open to all Faculties) and geared towards postgraduate students and early career academics:

Rangahau – Research

Meetings, seminars and events

Master Research Seminars

25 and/or 26 May 2020.
Mini-seminars by masters thesis students who are completing mid-year. All are invited. Supervisors should be there to support their students. Detailed programme still to be arranged.
Phil Shane
(Masters advisor)

Title: Flux, Origin and Pathway of Greenhouse Gas Emission from the Taupo Volcanic Zone
Presented by Tsung-Han Jimmy Yang

Date: Monday, 16 March
Time: 12 noon
Venue: 302-551

Title: Automating seismic data analysis and interpretation- CANCELLED due to COVID-19 concerns

(Please remove this seminar from your calendar)

Presented by Sergey Fomel, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA

Date: Monday, 30 March
Time: 12 PM
Venue: 303 – G16

Title: Dispersion and Morphodynamics in Estuarine and Nearshore Waters
Presented by Gaoyang Li (PhD Proposal)

Date: Wednesday, 18 March
Time: 2pm
Venue: 302-551

Research and Funding Opportunities

Sustainable Seas Ko ngā moana whakauka National Science Challenge

Innovation Fund

The purpose of the $2M Innovation Fund is to fund two-year research projects that will contribute directly to building a ‘blue economy’ in Aotearoa. The expected value of projects is from $50K to $250K max. There is a two stage application process with Expression of Interests to be completed via the EoI online submission form – by 12 noon, Monday 18 May 2020. The Request for proposals (RFP) document contains further details including the application and assessment process, timeline, project values, scope, and criteria. Please let Kelly or Kathryn know if you are going to apply so we can assist with the indicative budget and faculty approvals prior to EOI submission.

Research funding

The Faculty is calling for applications for two internal funds by Monday 30 March:

The Nearmiss Fund provides funding ($10K max.) for up to 6 PIs who successfully progressed to the second stage of a major funding round, but missed out at the final stage.
The PhD publications Fund is a strategic initiative being trialled through FRDF funding. This funding ($4K max.) is to support 5-8 students as research assistants to write up thesis results for publications (One application per PI).

Details and application form will be online here soon (or email Kelly or Kathryn and we will send you the guidelines and application form).

Please email your completed applications to Wendy Rhodes (w.rhodes@auckland.ac.nz) by 30 March.

Rutherford Discovery Fellowships

The Rutherford Discovery Fellowships (RDF) supports the development of future research leaders, and assist with the retention of New Zealand’s talented early to mid-career researchers.

Eligibility: Applicants must be a NZ citizen or hold a NZ resident visa and continuously resided in NZ for at least three (3) months prior to application; and have had their PhD conferred between 1 January 2012 and 31 December 2017.

Value: Ten (10) Fellowships, up to $160,000 p.a. each for five (5) years in length will be awarded in 2020.

The Fellowships consist of:

− $70,000 per year contribution towards researcher’s salary

− $60,000 per year contribution towards research related expenses

− $30,000 per year host contribution to support Fellow’s research programme.

Deadline: 9 am, Monday 6 April 2020

Further details: See the Rutherford Discovery Fellowships website

If you are interested in applying, please have a chat to JR. More information can be obtained from your RPC (Kathryn Howard or Kelly Kilpin).

Fulbright New Zealand – Fulbright Specialist Awards

Fulbright Specialist Awards are for New Zealand institutions to host US academics, artists or professionals for lectures, seminars, workshops, conferences or symposiums. Up to five awards are granted each year, towards two to six-week programmes of activities.

Eligibility: The period of award is 2-6 weeks (the exchange must start at least 6 weeks after the Fulbright closing date and within 12 months of application

Value: The awards are valued at up to US $11,700 and cover the Specialist’s flights between the US and NZ, and a daily honorarium. Up to six awards will be made. The host needs to provide accommodation, meals and transport within NZ. No money is awarded to the host institution

Internal Deadline: Monday 23 March 2020

Further details: See the funders website

Teaching & Learning Research Initiative – Expression of Interest

In 2020 there are two pathways to funding:

1. Open pathway: open to proposals from all contexts and settings that meet the criteria

2. Whatua tū aka: for projects that meet the criteria for a kaupapa Māori project

Eligibility: To be eligible for the fund, proposals need to come from partnerships involving teachers and researchers. In the context of the TLRI, teachers are defined as education and training practitioners. The category of education and training practitioners may include, but is not limited to: teachers in kindergartens, early childhood centres, kōhanga reo and Pasifika language nests; teachers in kura, primary, intermediate, and secondary schools; and lecturers, tutors, and trainers working in post-school settings such as universities, wānanga, polytechnics, private training establishments (PTEs), industry training organisations (ITOs) and workplace settings

Value: Funding provided for Projects for 1, 2, or 3 years duration with a maximum of $150,000 per year appropriate for scale and scope of proposed project.

There is a maximum of $450,000 across the life of the project

Internal Deadline: Thursday 23 April 2020

Further details: See the funders website

New publications

Schuurman, N., Martin, M. E., Crooks, V. A., & Randall, E. (2020). Where to enhance rural palliative care? Developing a spatial model to identify suitable communities most in need of service enhancement. BMC Health Services Research, 20(1), 168. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-5024-y
Martin, M. E., & Schuurman, N. (2020). Social Media Big Data Acquisition and Analysis for Qualitative GIScience: Challenges and Opportunities. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2019.1696664

Classifieds

Job opening – Stallard Scientific Editing

Stallard Scientific Editing is seeking part-time (freelance) and full-time scientific editors, working from home, in the following specialist fields: seismology, tectonics, structural geology, regional geology, economic geology, igneous and metamorphic geology, atmospheric science, meteorology, and climatology.

The work involves editing scientific manuscripts (written by non-native speakers) for consistency, correct grammar, correct use of English, and readability, without altering the scientific content or changing the author’s meaning.

It has been clarified that recent graduates or even PhD candidates submitted but awaiting defence are welcome to apply. To apply, please contact Aaron Stallard at office@stallardediting.com.

Graduate Programme 21: awesome opportunity

Parks services unit, Auckland Council. See this link.

Copy deadline for next edition of P-cubed: Friday 27th March, 1pm to Farnaz: f.sheikh@auckland.ac.nz

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Issue 27- Monday 2nd March 2020

March 2, 2020 • fshe556

HeadSup

Kia ora koutou

Welcome to Semester 1! Once again the corridors and access ways are buzzing with new and returning students. Please keep an eye out for the lost ones and take time to help them out.

It’s a challenging start to the year with COVID-19 hitting home (see staff guide here). The Faculty has been working hard to ensure students caught up in the travel ban can participate in courses remotely. This requires a high commitment from all teaching teams – thank you to all who are making remote learning possible. Planning forward, I think it would be useful for all Semester 1 teaching teams to consider how courses could be transferred to remote learning if necessary. Likewise, it would be sensible for all PG research students and staff to start thinking about a ‘working from home’ plan on the off-chance we shut the doors. I’ll be looking into this over the next few days and will provide more guidance once I’ve got my head around the UOA pandemic plan.

If you have international travel planned or are about to embark on RSL, you may be rethinking itineraries. Please pay careful attention to the insurance info and the MFAT Safe Travel site. The School picks up the tab for any travel cancellations – in practice this means you need to be able to cover the costs via slush funds/research accounts or if this is not possible you will need to have a conversation with me noting that 2020 is a tight year. For those on RSL, the Faculty appreciates that you may need to make major changes to your itineraries. This will require some paperwork but there shouldn’t be any issues. As best I understand the situation, you still need to be overseas for 6 weeks to get the GIA.

Thanks to all who participated in the ENV Kaupapa 2020 event. The RSL reports were fantastic! I’m working my way through the questions and comments and will bring them back to the School in the next edition of p-cubed. The Kaupapa for 2020 is impact and excellence and we are kicking off three projects: Pacific Engagement (Sonia), Work and Wellbeing (David), and Knowledge Mobilisation (Marie).

And, to finish on a high note, I am delighted to advise that Mel Wall received the 2019 Dean’s Award for Teaching (Sustained Excellence). Well done Mel, thoroughly well deserved!

Ngā mihi

Whakawhanaungatanga – communities

School of Environment upcoming events for your diary (courtesy of the Student Experience Committee)

Thursday 5th March 12-2 pm Welcome to ENV bbq for stage 1 and 2 students (outside building 301)
Thursday 12th March 12-2 pm Welcome to ENV bbq for stage 3 and PG students (outside building 301)
Thursday 2nd April 12-2 pm Sports event 1 Volleyball (+bbq)
Tuesday April 7th Careers expo (time and room to be confirmed)
Wednesday 13th May 6 pm Quiz night
Thursday 21st May 4-5 pm Sports event 2 NavEvent (orienteering)
Monday 13th July Matariki celebration
Wednesday 19th August 12-2 pm Sports event 3 Nostalgia games (+bbq)
Friday 25th September Entries due for ENV Film Competition
Wednesday 30th September 4-6 pm Sports event 4 Soccer (+bbq)
Saturday 3rd October 3 ENV Ball
October 5th-9th October Mental Health Awareness week

Code of Conduct

The code of conduct for the university and associated guidelines are now on the web. The purpose of this Code is to develop and maintain a standard of behaviour that supports and enables the University’s commitment to being a safe, inclusive, equitable and respectful community. The Code of Conduct applies to all members of the University community – staff and students. Please feel free to post the code in offices and on CANVAS.

Spending ENV $$ and Cost Codes

If you are claiming expenses or arranging POs you need to use the correct cost codes. There are codes for ‘cost centres’: ENV is 4140; RDA is 8774; HOD is 8674; RE is 4200. Full list here. If you are claiming anything against the ENV cost centre, you must use the correct Project and Product codes.

Academics please note, the only $$ you can spend without prior approval are your Professional Development funds, if you are eligible. Use Project # 15408 and your personal product code.

For other expenditure and codes, contact:

Rangahau: research support (opportunities); PBRF; Hay, Bartrum, Cumberland lecture support (Giovanni)
Ako Innovation: teaching grants, new initiatives (Mel)
Ako: Academic programmes, courses, field trips, GTA/TA support, driving assessments (David)
Ako: Curriculum development (Robin)
Whakawhanaungatanga: Student experience (Joe); Outreach (JR); Equity (Sonia); General (Karen)
IT: software, hardware (Ingo)
Technical support, repairs, maintenance (Blair)

Technical Support for Semester 1

Please send your technical support requirements for semester one to Blair.
Email dates that you require technician support, how many technicians you need and what they are needed for.
This includes both teaching and research support.

Notice:

Microscopy Lab – Te Taiwhanga Ngsaruiti is now open in 302-489. The lab has two new True Chrome Tucsen cameras to increase the capacity of the micro-imaging suit, general purpose microscopes (for micro-palaeontology, picking/viewing samples, microphotography) and additional petrographic microscopes.

First aid training

The School is looking to run a few first aid training sessions for staff and students.

For staff the cost of this will be covered by the School; students will be charged against their account. Dates are TBA once we have numbers confirmed.

Full (comprehensive) courses take 2 full days. Revalidation takes 1 day.

Please send Blair an email if you are interested in attending.

Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Awards

Nominations for the Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Awards opened on February 1st and below is information regarding the categories, how to apply and links to further information.

The key difference for nominations this year is that all nominations are to be initiated using the online nomination form. Once completed, a copy must be sent to Faculty Office for initial assessment. Please send your completed nomination form to Margot Spraggon by no later than 6^th March.

Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Awards

There are three main categories:

Professional Staff (containing 5 awards),
Health, Safety & Wellbeing
Environmental Sustainability.

Professional staff may be nominated for all categories while academic staff and students may be nominated for the Health, Safety & Wellbeing and Environmental Sustainability categories.

These awards recognise and reward excellence in a wide variety of activities that contribute to the University’s teaching, research and community service endeavours. These awards complement the existing Research Excellence Awards and Teaching Excellence Awards.

Nominations are assessed firstly by the faculty/service division leadership team with final nominations signed off by the Dean/Director. Each faculty/service division will set their own deadline for the submission of nominations for the initial review, before the final nominations are sent through to POD by the faculty/service division leadership teams for consideration.

Important Information

Nominations without endorsement from Dean/Director will not be deemed as valid and will not be presented to the selection committee.
The maximum individual/team amount to be awarded per category will be $2000.
The awards will be presented by the Vice-Chancellor at a function held for the occasion on Tuesday 12 May.

Further information about these awards can be found on the staff intranet

Meetings, seminars and events

The IT Committee has met on Tue., 25 Feb

A few notes:

Computers in teaching laboratories: Please be prepared for potential teething problems in the first week of the semester. The recent switch to Windows 10 may cause some older computers to slow down. Please also inform your TAs. Please let me know if you are having any serious problems – I’ll pass this on.
FlexIT: IT encourages us to use FlexIT for teaching labs. and more generally. Essentially, FlexIT provides a virtual desktop with the software from the lab. images (and more) installed. Please check the following information: https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/my-tools/flex-it.html
Databases: Several people are considering mirroring national or international databases (e.g., in my case, NZP&M’s petroleum exploration data). Please let me know if you are having similar thoughts. This effort could be hugely beneficial for research and teaching and would best be coordinated. Ingo (i.pecher@auckland.ac.nz)

School of Environment Shared morning tea

Monday 16th March, 10.30- 11.30am, 302-6th floor

If possible, please bring a plate of food to share which reminds you of home.

Also, if you are able and willing, can you please bring cash for a donation. All proceeds to Our People, Our City Fund (administered by the Registered Charity The Christchurch Foundation). The fund supports the families and Muslim communities impacted by the white supremacist terrorist attack on March 15, 2019 (https://christchurchfoundation.org.nz/giving/our-people-our-city-fund/donate)

Any questions, please contact Mel Wall (m.wall@auckland.ac.nz)

Can You Feel It? On the Complex Role of Emotions and Affects in Policy Making

Seminar: Professor Michael Orsini
Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies | School of Political Studies (University of Ottawa)
Friday 6 March — 12.30-2.30pm
Pat Hanan Room (207-501)
This presentation focuses on some of the contentious policy narratives that circulate around fatness and ‘obesity’, and explores how these are structured by intersections of race, class, disability, and gender. Drawing on interviews with researchers, policy makers and people living with ‘obesity’ or who self-identify as fat, I am interested in how different orderings of emotions – or “feeling rules” — help us to think about the ways in which emotions and affects are discursively managed in complex (and emotionally charged) policy environments. Moving beyond conventional approaches to policy analysis that privilege rationalist forms of inquiry, I ask how processes of meaning-making are influenced by the ways in which certain emotions are deployed in contexts where the policy interventions themselves involve stigmatized populations about whom particular emotions might be attached.
Read more

Staff training to work with Māori and Pacific peoples

Enabling cultural capability: building confidence, awareness and understanding for those working with Māori and Pacific peoples

This project will build the cultural capacity of the School of Environment staff to understand and work with Māori and Pacific knowledges and peoples. Policies within the University and external organisations require staff to acknowledge the unique cultural attributes of Māori and Pacific peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand; however, staff often feel they lack the ability to do so. This project will provide staff with opportunities to redress this. In a series of meetings and workshops (facilitated by external cultural experts) throughout 2020, staff will be supported to transform their teaching and/or research practices.

This project will be relevant to those staff who are working with Māori and Pacific students, applying for external grants within Aotearoa New Zealand, engaged in fieldwork that is of relevance to Māori and Pacific communities, and those considering promotion/continuation, among others.

This project is funded by a University of Auckland Learning Enhancement Grant. Anyone who is keen to participate in this staff training is warmly welcome to. Please email Sonia (s.fonua@auckland.ac.nz) to indicate your interest.

Kāinga Wāhine shared lunch

The School of Environment Equity Committee invites all ENV postgraduate students and staff who identify as women to join us for the first Kāinga Wāhine shared lunch of the year, on 12^th March 1-2pm in the Ontology Lab, Rm 302.551. No RSVP required – please bring a plate to share!

We will circulate future dates in advance – look out for posters around the School, and a calendar invite. Contact Emma Sharp with any queries.

This first meeting also marks the week of International Women’s Day (8th March). The Faculty of Science Women in Science network is putting on an International Women’s Day morning tea on Monday March 9th, 10:30-11:30, in the 6th floor common area of building 302, to celebrate the occasion.

Earth Sciences Bickie briefing

Volcanology, Geochemistry, & Petrology Research Group

The volcanology, geochemistry, & petrology research group (VGP) meets during the semester. Our meetings for the first semester of 2020 will be on 10 March 2020 at 9 am in 303-G16. We will be conducting practice talks for the upcoming Chapman Conference on distributed volcanism! As always, everyone is welcome to attend our meetings. If you have any updates (including new students or projects) you would like to see on the website or would like to contribute a blog post, please email him (dfar197@aucklanduni.ac.nz). For more information, please see our website: vgp.blogs.auckland.ac.nz See you soon!

Ako – Teaching and Learning

ENV AKO

The School’s online Academic Guide has been around since 2016. This is primarily a resource for academic staff and especially course coordinators. It can be accessed from P-Cubed through the How to do stuff menu (at the top) and has been referred to frequently in recent posts.

ENV AKO will be its Canvas-based successor. Semester 1 Course Coordinators have already been receiving announcements via this Canvas ‘course’, and all remaining teaching staff will soon be receiving invitations to join. Please note:

The ENV Academic Guide is still available – either directly or as a plug-in through ENV AKO.
ENV AKO is under development and functions will be rolled-out over the next few months.

If you do not receive an invitation (from Canvas) please contact our Group Services Administrator, Alex.

Assessment for Covid-19 travel-ban students

AKO Innovation Committee will run an informal round-table conversation (with lunch) on Tuesday 3 March from 12pm in 302.551 (Ontology Lab). This is primarily for staff teaching Semester 1 courses with students ‘attending’ at a distance (from China). Please advise Mel Wall if you would like to attend.

Software for Covid-19 travel-ban students

The University has updated its list of software that can be used by China-based students. This may be found on the Coronavirus outbreak page – which is worth keeping a check on.

Rangahau – Research

Funding model for postgraduate students

Starting this year we have modified the funding model from the School for postgraduate students so please make sure your students are aware (they will also hear about this during orientations over the next two weeks) and that you have discussed this when filling out the PD3B forms.
• PGDipSci: School of Environment will cover printing expenses (up to $150).
• Honours will stay the same ($350).
• MSc: The allocation needs to be reduced from $2000 to $1000 (with $150 for thesis binding)
• MEG/MENV (90pt research component): $750 (with $150 for thesis binding)
• MENV (30pt): same as Honours ($350).

Printing costs for postgraduate students are allocated in $50 allotments, covered by the School of Environment (not part of the allotment). For allocations and top-ups see Group services administrator Alexandra Soudlenkova

Once the allocations are spent, students may apply for a top-up of their funds- please send top up requests to Chris Struthers at env-pgadmin@auckland.ac.nz. However, these requests must be justified and consistent with anticipated expenses in their PD3B forms.

News

A temporary adieu to Amy Weir, one of the Faculty’s Research Programme Coordinators supporting researchers in the School of Environment, who has been appointed to a 10 month secondment as a Research Programme Manager to support researchers in the School of Biological Sciences and Institute of Marine Science. Researchers Amy was supporting in the School, will now be supported by Ivana Mlinac or Kathryn Howard. The researchers supported by Kelly Kilpin remains the same.

If you’d like to clarify who your primary research support contact is, please email Kathryn at Kathryn.Howard@auckland.ac.nz. But of course you are welcome to contact any of us with any research queries at any time – we (Kelly, Ivana and Kathryn) are ready to assist you.

Meetings, seminars and events

Title: Regional to reservoir stress-induced seismic azimuthal anisotropy

Presented by Lisa Gavin, Woodside Energy, Perth, Australia

Date: Friday, 6 March
Time: 2 – 3 PM
Venue: 303 – G14

You can find the flyer here.

Title: Automating seismic data analysis and interpretation

Presented by Sergey Fomel, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA

Date: Monday, 30 March
Time: 12 PM
Venue: 303 – G16

You can find the flyer here

Title: Just deserts? Charitable organisations, geography and inequality in contemporary Britain

Presented by Professor John Mohan
Date: Thursday 12th March 12noon – 1pm
Venue: Ontology Lab
You can find the flyer

Unlocking the potential of terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides on tectonically active rock coasts

Aidan McLean

Wednesday, March 4th · 10am · Ontology Lab 302-551

Title: Is the concept of coastal resilience useful for coastal communities? A pilot study for England

Presented by Prof. Ian Townend, visiting from Southampton University
Date: Wed 11 March 2020, 3pm
Venue: Coastal Lab, building 302, 4^th floor

Vision Mātauranga Wānanga sessions:

These sessions are provided by Kaiarahi Geremy Hema from UniServices.

March Session

Date and Time: Wed, 25 March 2020 10:00AM – 12:00PM, Location: Sir Owen G Glen Building: Case Room 4 / 260-009, Auckland

To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/uniservices-vision-matauranga-monthly-wananga-march-2020-tickets-94718803491

April Session

Date and Time: Wed, 22 April 2020 10:00AM – 12:00PM, Location: Science Centre Building 303Room 101, Symonds Street, Auckland

To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/uniservices-vision-matauranga-monthly-wananga-april-2020-tickets-92999450861

These sessions will cover:

What VM seeks to achieve (beyond the words of the policy, advancement and protection of Mātauranga Māori)
Engagement best practice, and
Iwi expectations.

These two hour sessions will include:

A one hour presentation
30 minutes Q&A
Time to meet and greet other colleagues, Uni staff, and the UniServices team

Research and Funding Opportunities

Call for Scholarship applications

Doctoral Research Scholarship: Fostering Inclusion and Equity in Disaster Risk Reduction

3-year Doctoral Scholarship
The University of Auckland

The University of Auckland is awarding a 3-year PhD Scholarship from mid-2020 – 2023 as part of Resilience to Nature’s Challenges (RNC) research programme, Kia manawaroa – Ngā Ākina o Te Ao Tūroa. The scholarship is available to students of all nationalities. The starting date is any time from mid-2020. The successful applicant will be working with JC Gaillard (The University of Auckland) and relevant co-supervisors, with a preference for being located in Auckland.

Closing Date for Applications: 31 March 2020

Copy deadline for next edition of P-cubed: Friday 13th March, 1pm to Farnaz: f.sheikh@auckland.ac.nz

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