[Aqualist] PhD opportunity at UNSW/CABAH

[Scott Mooney]

Dear Colleagues,

Could you kindly forward this to any student that might be seeking an opportunity to do a PhD. This opportunity, at UNSW Sydney, has links with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) and is fully funded (for tuition fees and scholarship).

The deadlines are short: but given the urgency of the fire situation in eastern Australia we are keen to get this underway asap. If any potential application cannot make these deadlines please get in touch with me (s.mooney at unsw.edu.au<mailto:s.mooney at unsw.edu.au>) to discuss this, as there are other opportunities for participation later in 2020.

I hope that you all have a happy and safe festive season.

Best wishes

sdm

A/Prof Scott Mooney FIAG

Deputy Head of School
School of BEES
Faculty of Science
UNSW AUSTRALIA

T: +61 (0) 2 9385 8063
E:  s.mooney at unsw.edu.au<mailto:s.mooney at unsw.edu.au>
W: http://www.bees.unsw.edu.au/staff/scott-mooney
P: School of BEES, UNSW, 2052 AUSTRALIA



The Project: Investigating the drivers and impacts of fire in eastern Australia over the past 1000 years

Fire is one of the greatest natural and anthropogenic environmental disturbances in the Australian environment, with vast tracts burnt each year. But the climate conditions that precede the most devastating fires are poorly understood, exacerbated by the relatively short instrumental record that only extends back to the mid-nineteenth century. With future warming scenarios, there is an urgent need to identify the long-term climate conditions that drive fires in different Australian landscapes. In this PhD, the successful candidate will start their research programme on wetland and lake deposits in New South Wales and Queensland. High-resolution charcoal analysis will be undertaken to determine the timing, frequency and intensity of fire in these states over the last millennium. Intensive radiocarbon measurements through sedimentary sequences will allow the accurate dating of past fire events (with decadal age uncertainty).

The results of these analyses with be interrogated with version2 of the Australian-New Zealand Drought Atlas (ANZDA), a 0.5˚ by 0.5˚-spatially resolved reconstruction of wet-dry conditions that now extends back to 1000 CE, providing an annually-resolved measure of hydroclimate across the region. The research programme will explore the role of climate on annual- to multi-decadal timescales on fires including the impact of climate extremes and the influence of preceding pluvial events in increasing fuel loading in the landscape.

Supervision Team: Professor Chris Turney, A/Prof Scott Mooney, Dr Jonathan Palmer and Professor Anthony Dosseto (Uni of Wollongong).

The successful applicant will be based at the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) in the Chronos 14Carbon-Cycle Facility, a state-of-the-art radiocarbon laboratory with a MICADAS AMS (www.14carboncycle.com<http://www.14carboncycle.com>), part of the Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre at UNSW. The successful applicant will also have cross-institutional supervision (with UoW) and will be a UNSW-based PhD student in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH).

This has been identified as a priority project and is fully funded with an international PhD scholarship (which covers tuition fees and scholarship).

CABAH is a major research and education initiative that brings together leading Australian universities with strategically important Australian and international partners. You can learn more about how CABAH is discovering Australia’s epic story at https://epicaustralia.org.au. Our goal is to tell the story of Australia's rich and distinctive natural and human history by revolutionising our knowledge of the events and processes that have shaped this nation and combining that knowledge with cutting-edge modelling techniques to manage and protect our natural and cultural resources into the future.

As a UNSW-based PhD student in CABAH you will be joining a larger community and you will participate in regular Masterclasses, Short Courses and Thematic Workshops, with a transdisciplinary emphasis, to improve your technical, professional and communication skills. Cross-node researcher exchange opportunities will also be integral to your CABAH research training experience. Students who identify as Indigenous people, including Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders have access to additional support through dedicated initiatives such as mentoring, bursaries and top-up grants. Women will be supported through a range of initiatives, including internships and travel grants.

Applicants must have suitable discipline-related educational qualifications and should apply through the University of New South Wales (Sydney) online application system:
https://research.unsw.edu.au/submit-application

Applications are due by the 10 January 2020. If no suitable candidate is identified, the application deadline will be extended to the 20 March 2020.

All the very best,

Chris, Scott, Jonathon and Tony