MBIE Grant Success for Sciences

Congratulations to the three research projects based in Geology and Physics that secured funding from the MBIE Endeavour fund and announced this week. Altogether nine Otago scientific research projects received more than $16 million, and of this Geology’s Associate Professor Chris Moy (pictured below left) secured $8.6M to explore the future potential of Fiordland’s fjords as a natural carbon storage sink. This multi-disciplinary project will be a collaboration between Ngāi Tahu, Fiordland Marine Guardians, and a team of NZ and international scientists who will explore the fjords future carbon storage potential in the face of changing fjord circulation patterns driven by generation from the Manapouri Power Station as well as climate.

Geology’s Professor Claudine Stirling (pictured below middle) has also received $1M for developing an environmental toolkit for tracing historic, current-use and emerging heavy metal pollutants which will help protect NZ’s vulnerable ecosystems, and improve sustainability of major primary-sector export industries.

Associate Professor Harald Schwefel in Physics received $1M for research into the development of space-ready radiometers, that use light to detect thermal radiation, for monitoring climate and green-house gases.