Trio of SCPS Marsden success
The School of Chemical and Physical Sciences is celebrating a trio of successful Marsden grant applications following the recent 2017 funding announcement.
Congratulations go to Dr Natalie Plank, Prof Uli Zuelicke and Dr Kai Chen for their research projects which have featured in the 17 ground-breaking Victoria university projects that have received in excess of $9 million of grants in the 2017 Marsden Fund.
Victoria has received nine Marsden Fund Fast-Start grants for early career researchers (worth $300,000 over three years) and eight Standard grants for established researchers (worth up to $960,000 over three years).
The grants have gone to researchers in the Faculty of Science (11), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (two), Faculty of Law (two), Faculty of Engineering (one) and Victoria Business School (one).
“The breadth and calibre of Marsden-supported projects across Victoria faculties reflects our embedded culture of research excellence and position as New Zealand’s top university in the Tertiary Education Commission’s last Performance-Based Research Fund quality evaluation,” says Victoria’s Vice-Provost (Research), Professor Kate McGrath.
“The world-leading and world-focused research we are conducting in biomedicine, climate change and other spheres matches our vision of being one of the great global-civic universities. Our international reputation for excellence ensures not only that our discoveries are sought after around the world but also that researchers from around the world want to join us—with 11 of our Marsden-supported projects led by overseas scholars who are now part of the Victoria research community.
“Another notable aspect of these projects is how they reflect Victoria’s nurturing environment for early and mid-career researchers—the former represented in the number of Fast-Start grants and the latter in several of the Standard grants. It is great to see the future of research in such inspiring hands.”
Dr Plank's project, entitled 'Training multiplexed electronic aptasensors to profile hormones in complex samples' was awarded a Standard Marsden grant to the value of $950,000 over 3 years.
Prof Zuelicke was awarded $905,000 over 3 years for his project entitled 'Supercharging electromagnetism: Tuneable magnetoelectricity in unconventional materials'.
Dr Chen received a $300,000 Fast Start grant for his project called 'Photoluminescence shines a light on the exemplary optoelectronic properties in hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite'.