The NeCTAR funded project Quadrant recently released their new cloud-based eResearch tool. Free to use until June 2014 http://www.quadrant.edu.au Quadrant is built especially to create efficiencies for participant-based researchers in the disciplines of health, humanities, social science, politics, marketing and so forth.
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Maria Seton explores the sea of time
Long-term sea level fluctuations reconstructed in a Virtual Geological Laboratory
Australians are often forced to think outside the box to solve problems because we don’t have the backing of a large community and large amounts of funding due to our relatively small population. NeCTAR is an example of an initiative that helps facilitate research by connecting researchers from around the country to key tools, resources and virtual laboratories. Australians are also generally good-natured, are a little laid-back and have a good reputation overseas. People like working with us! This also helps to form an extended international community working towards common goals and solving global problems.
Name of resesarcher: Maria Seton
Where do you work? I’m an Australian Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Geosciences, University of Sydney and part of the EarthByte group headed by Prof. Dietmar Müller.
Discipline? Geology and Geophysics
Your research field and how you became interested? I work broadly in the field of plate tectonics and geodynamics. I reconstruct the configurations of the continents and ocean basins over hundreds of millions of years using GPlates, a Virtual Geological Observatory prototype. I became interested in plate tectonics when I realized that the earth was not static but ever changing and we can understand present day and future processes by reconstructing the planet’s history through “deep” geological time.
Inspirations and influences? My PhD supervisor and mentor, Prof Dietmar Müller has had the greatest influence on my career. I also get inspired by the young and bright students in our research group!
What has been a research highlight? A research highlight has been completing a research project building and describing our current knowledge of plate tectonic reconstructions over the past 200 million years. This work forms the foundation for many subsequent studies such as understanding long-term sea-level change driven by the changing shape and size of the ocean basins through time, the vertical motions of the continents driven by mantle processes and even the formation of the Australian monsoon!
As an Australian researcher, what is a highlight? Australians are often forced to think outside the box to solve problems because we don’t have the backing of a large community and large amounts of funding due to our relatively small population. Nectar is an example of an initiative that helps facilitate research by connecting researchers from around the country to key tools, resources and virtual laboratories.
Australians are also generally good-natured, are a little laid-back and have a good reputation overseas. People like working with us! This also helps to form an extended international community working towards common goals and solving global problems.
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Joanne Whittaker is a Research Fellow at the School of Geosciences in the University of Sydney. She conducts research investigating Earth-ocean system phenomena including understanding interactions between upper mantle convection patterns and the manner with which they interact with the newly forming lithosphere of ocean basins.
Nicky Wright is fascinated by the earth’s geologic history. She is currently researching paleogeography throughout the Phanerozoic and combines GPlates, an open source plate tectonic software, with the online global Paleobiology Database to reconstruct past environments. "I am learning how to unravel the secrets of past worlds..."
Sabin Zahirovic is a PhD candidate at the School of Geosciences in the University of Sydney conducting research on the plate tectonic history and evolving geography of our planet through geological time. Sabin has studied the history of the collision between the Indian and Eurasian continent that was responsible for the uplift of the Himalayas and Tibet.
Maria Seton is an Australian Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Geosciences, University of Sydney. She works in the field of plate tectonics and geodynamics, reconstructing the configurations of the continents and ocean basins over hundreds of millions of years using GPlates, a Virtual Geological Observatory prototype.
Dr Shelley Wickham is a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School in the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Working in Associate Professor William Shih’s lab, the entire lab uses an open-source electronic lab book. Shelley shares her research story.
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NeCTAR Partners
Senior software developer from Cybera in Alberta, Canada, Everett Toews, recently visited Melbourne to offer his support to Australia's Research Cloud. He shares his experience building clouds. Everett is a keen scuba diver, since 2004. He is seen in these photos playing hockey underwater in Hawaii.
A NeCTAR partner is a friend, an individual or a group doing something of interest to the NeCTAR project. They are not necessarily someone with an economic or stakeholder interest in NeCTAR. As NeCTAR is partnering with a broad range of disciplines; eResearch communities and their computing partners, there are lots of interesting stories to tell. Please email: communications@nectar.org.au
Canada has embarked on building a Research Cloud. Read more about their journey via an interview with technical architect John Shillington.
