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News

Congratulations to  Warwick Murray who has been promoted to professor – a well deserved promotion!
Congratulations to Tim Stern who has been awarded a prestigious James Cook fellowship for two years starting in 2010. This award recognises Tim’s outstanding research record.

Marsden Awards

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Pat Walsh, says the world-class research of Victoria academics has been recognised and supported by Marsden Fund grants announced recently. The School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences' recipients of full Marsden grants distributed over three years:

• Professor Tim Naish, How does Antarctica ride the Milankovitch cycle?
• Professor Tim Stern, Ups and downs of subduction
• Professor Martha Savage, Ruamoko's rumbles: understanding magma movement and time varying seismic properties

Development Studies Masters Student selected for Young Leaders Forum

James Burford, a current thesis student in Development Studies has recently been selected out of many applicants around the country to participate in the Young Leaders Forum from 14-21 November in Wellington. In the forum, he will be exploring notions and learning skills of leadership with 29 other young people from around the country.  James has also been successful in securing funding to attend the New Zealand Sociological Conference in Palmerston North from 22-24 November to present a paper from his masters thesis exploring sexuality and development in Thai non-governmental development organisations.

First Vic Univol Volunteer heads to Papua New Guinea

Alice Keeling always hoped to be able to put her undergraduate Development Studies training into practice and now she’ll have the chance.  Selected from several applicants from Victoria and Otago Universities to the expanding Univol Programme run in coordination with Volunteer Services Abroad (VSA), Alice will be going to Kokopo, East New Britain, PNG as a special needs programme assistant for Callan Services - a local organisation that runs education/awareness-raising activities and integration services for people living with disabilities - specifically for children entering mainstream schools.

The Univol Programme was established by VSA at Otago, but this year expanded to work with staff coordinating the Development Studies Undergraduate Major at Vic because of the programme’s increasing national reputation as producing high quality graduates. The Univol scheme supports selected third year students by placing them with VSA partner organisations around the Pacific, Asia and Africa for a year.  It represents an ideal opportunity for students to gain practical experience to complement their undergraduate degree. 

For more information contact Sara Kindon in the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences.

New Zealand Geographer Award

At the AGM of the New Zealand Geographical Society, held in Auckland on Wednesday 23 September, Ray Watters was presented with the Distinguished New Zealand Geographer Award. This is the Society’s highest award, officially sanctioned by the Royal Society and allows the recipient to use the letters DNZG after their name. I t is a rare honour and reflects well on the Geography group at Victoria. It acknowledges Ray’s immense and lasting contribution in research, teaching, and communication of Geography, particularly on development issues relating to the Pacific, Latin America, as well as New Zealand