On April 14, 2013, the world celebrated the 10th anniversary of the United States led Human Genome Project researching the estimated 20-25,000 human genes that make up human DNA. Australia is also active in genomics research, and the NeCTAR funded Genomics Virtual Laboratory is connecting Australian Genome researchers with datasets, analysis tools and computational infrastructure. The laboratory recently saw a spike in use.
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Time for a cool change
"Being a Researcher focusing on climate change discourses in Australia brings many opportunities and challenges. The political debate on climate change in Australia has a potential to bring about transformational paradigm shift that will influence social, economic and environmental aspects of Australian life style. One of the pressing political and economic issues is how will Australia conduct the transformation towards low carbon and resilient economy of the future in order to protect Australian citizens and strengthen its political and economic presence at the international level?"
Izabela Ratajczak-Juszko is a Research Fellow at Climate Change Adaptation Programme of Global Cities Institute at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She heads the climate governance research agenda with interests crossing local, regional, national, and international scales.
Name: Izabela Ratajczak-Juszko
Where do you work? RMIT University, Global Cities Research Institute, Climate Change Adaptation Programme
What is your discipline? International Relations: Climate Change and International Development
What is your research field and how did you became interested? Politics of climate change and international development
What were your inspirations and influences? UN climate negotiations involvement for over six years
What has been a research highlight? Capacity building for UN climate negotiations in developing countries, multilateral climate finance for adaptation,
As an Australian researcher, what is a highlight? multi-level governance for climate change and development (local, regional, global). Being a Researcher focusing on climate change discourses in Australia brings many opportunities and challenges. The political debate on climate change in Australia has a potential to bring about transformational paradigm shift that will influence social, economic and environmental aspects of Australian life style. One of the pressing political and economic issues is how will Australia conduct the transformation towards low carbon and resilient economy of the future in order to protect Australian citizens and strengthen its political and economic presence at the international level? Another pressing question is how will Australia fulfil its given promise to contribute to international finance to support climate change policies in developing countries?
Climate governance issues are still very much in the formative stages, at both the international and national levels. The most recent agreements, reached on 11 December 2011 in Cancún, Mexico, called for the development of a comprehensive system of mutual accountability towards agreed goals on both mitigation and adaptation in developing and in industrialized countries. New forms of climate policy and governance are emerging to more effectively link international and national (‘top-down’) approaches with those occurring within communities and local government (‘bottom-up’ approaches). Building governance structures that enhance integration and effectiveness of climate action at all levels is a key challenge.
Brief Bio
Izabela organises the Melbourne Climate Roundtable seminars with the aim to strengthen the dialogue between the Australian delegation to UN climate negotiations and their sub-local and local governments.
Her research interest includes politics of climate change and development; conceptual and applied aspects of climate vulnerability and adaptation. Her current research focuses on United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Australian multi-level governance (local, state, federal) and broad stakeholder engagement to enhance effective measures for climate change adaptation and mitigation, governance and finance for adaptation in developing countries, capacity building of UN climate negotiators. In 2005 joined Stockholm Environment Institute and Oxford Climate Policy to work with the newly established European Capacity Building Initiative (ECBI) funded by the Oxford Climate Policy. ECBI focuses on capacity and trust building between EU and developing country climate change negotiators in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Izabela was responsible for organising Oxford Seminars for high level government officials from developing countries and a series of trust building seminars in UK and Germany. Izabela also organized regional capacity building workshops in Botswana, Kenya, Indonesia, Thailand, Germany and Poland.
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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.
Associate Professor Martin Sevior performs experiments with the world's highest intensity and energy particle accelerators in Japan and at CERN in Switzerland. He shares his research story.
Izabela Ratajczak-Juszko is a Research Fellow at the Climate Change Adaptation Programme of the Global Cities Institute at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She 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.
