Examples of Future Fellowships projects commencing in 2014
Tasmania
Tasmanian (TAS) research organisations will receive more than $3 million through the
Australian Research Council Future Fellowships scheme for four new research projects
commening in 2014.
The TAS projects are provided below.
To view the summaries of all successful projects, visit the ARC announcements page.
University of Tasmania
Future Fellow: Associate Professor Kim Beswick (FT140101351)
Summary: Mathematics teachers need to know their subject and how to teach it and need
passion for the discipline and for inspiring their students to love it. They must believe that
their students can learn mathematics and set high academic expectations for all of them.
Knowledge and beliefs must be addressed in order to improve teaching, but exactly how
can this be done? This project aims to build on existing work to develop theoretical insights
that will lead to innovative approaches towards teacher change based on the integration of
teacher knowledge and affect.
ARC funding: $733 489 over four years
University of Tasmania
Future Fellow: Dr Eloise Foo (FT140100770)
Summary: Plants form intimate relationships with soil microbes that give plants access to
previously unavailable but essential nutrients. Legumes are major Australian crops for
fodder, grain and nutrients, and are unique in forming symbioses with both nitrogen-fixing
bacteria and with mycorrhizal fungi that supply nutrients such as phosphate. This project
aims to determine the role of plant hormones (small, mobile, potent growth regulators) in
the formation of these relationships. In particular, the role of interactions between hormones
and other novel plant signals will be determined. An insight into the common and divergent
roles of hormones in these symbioses is essential to provide new tools to maximise nutrient
acquisition.
ARC funding: $747 839 over four years
University of Tasmania
Future Fellow: Dr Heather Lovell (FT140100646)
Summary: New information technologies allow utility infrastructures to operate as smart
grids, with the promise of multiple economic and environmental benefits. Utility
infrastructures are largely unaltered since first installed 100 years ago, and smart grids
have the potential to catalyse significant innovation. This project aims to investigate the
societal drivers for, and implications of, smart grids and assess how these grid
implementations vary from place to place. It will assess the implications of this for theory
and practices of innovation and learning. This project also aims to provide new insights into
the messy, complex societal reaction to smart grids in Australia; a country at the forefront
of smart grid implementation.
ARC funding: $820 406 over four years
University of Tasmania
Future Fellow: Dr Gretta Pecl (FT140100596)
Summary: Global redistribution of Earth's species is widely recognised as a fingerprint of
climate change. However, the physiological and ecological processes that underpin such
shifts in the distribution of marine species are poorly understood. Even less is known about
why species respond at different rates, and how such widespread changes will impact the
structure and function of Australia's marine ecosystems. This research will address critical
knowledge gaps of why and how species respond in vastly different ways to environmental
change. Research outcomes will improve the capacity to predict responses of marine
species and ecosystems to climate change and provide advice relevant to strategic
management of valuable natural resources.
ARC funding: $763 857 over four years