Outstanding early career researchers receive funding

Research on how venom shapes biodiversity, changes to the Antarctic ice sheet over time, and the illegal parrot trade are among projects led by early career researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) to receive federal funding announced today.

Researchers from ANU received $5.6 million worth of funding across 13 projects in the latest round of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) scheme. 

ANU Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) Professor Keith Nugent extended congratulations to the funding winners.  

“It’s wonderful to see the dedication and curiosity among the 13 early-career researchers who have been acknowledged in the latest round of ARC funding,” he said.

“Over the next few years, these talented researchers will explore issues of national significance including conservation monitoring, energy transitions, quantum phenomena and climate change governance.

“At ANU, our research has the power to transform our world. I celebrate these efforts and warmly congratulate our skilled researchers from across the University.” 

ARC Chief Executive Officer Ms Judi Zielke PSM said researchers benefit from the opportunity provided by the funding to research and train in high quality, supportive environments.

“The DECRA scheme allows researchers in the early stages of their career to develop and apply their research skills, on projects that benefit Australians,” Ms Zielke said.

ANU projects to receive DECRA funding:

• Dr Rebecca Colvin – Harnessing social norms to find a socially acceptable energy transition
• Assistant Professor Kaitlin Cook – In one zeptosecond: quantifying energy dissipation in heavy element fusion
• Dr Damien Esquerre – The evolution of venom and its role in shaping biodiversity
• Dr Gemma King – Signs on Screen: Language, Culture and Power in Sign Language Cinema
• Dr Mira Käkönen – Volatile Rivers and the Infrastructure Politics in the Mekong Region
• Associate Professor Aparna Lal – A geospatial toolkit to assess community risk to environmental change
• Dr Galina Levitina – Spectral estimates in the presence of a magnetic field
• Dr George Olah – Forensic genomic toolkit for tracking the illegal wildlife trade
• Dr Mitzy Pepper – Comparative genomics to improve conservation planning in Australian deserts
• Dr Thanh Son Pham – Probing Antarctic Ice Sheet by Correlation Seismology
• Dr Prasanga Samarasinghe – Listening to Nature: Transforming Bioacoustics through Spatial Audio
• Dr Ying Xin Show – Un/making homeland: Sinophone literature and Cold War culture in Malaya
• Dr Jonathan Zhu – Rigidity and boundary phenomena for geometric variational problems

More details of each project are available at the ARC website.