Biological Sciences News
Ecology graduates achieve major research success
(9 Oct 2009) UC’s Freshwater Ecology Research Group is
celebrating the latest in a string of successes
for its graduates.
Dr Michelle Greenwood, who completed her PhD in freshwater ecology in the School of Biological Sciences in 2007, has been awarded a $190,000 postdoctoral fellowship by the Rutherford Foundation of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
It is one of two inaugural fellowships awarded by the foundation, a charitable trust established to provide funding for emerging New Zealand scientists.
Dr Greenwood, who has recently been working as a research associate with the Freshwater Ecology Research Group, will investigate freshwater ecology of braided river systems looking at how changes to river flows impact on aquatic habitats. She will undertake her research at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Christchurch.
Professor Angus McIntosh (Biological Sciences) said Dr Greenwood had “done extremely well to be selected against some stiff competition”.
“Michelle also recently gained the 2009 award from the New Zealand Ecological Society for Best Publication by a New Researcher for a paper from her doctoral research published in Ecology in 2008 about how patterns of flooding affect populations of organisms living next to streams.
“These awards also cap off a really successful
year for students completing their PhD studies
within the Freshwater Ecology Research Group.
In March Dr Hamish Grieg, who graduated in 2008, gained a FRST Science Technology
Fellowship to undertake three years of research
at the University of British Columbia, and PhD
candidate Amy Whitehead recently won the
Understanding Planet Earth category and was
named runner-up in the 2009 MacDiarmid
Young Scientist of the Year Awards,” Professor
McIntosh said.
“These accolades are a good indication of the strength of ecology at UC and reflect very positively on the efforts of all the staff and students that contribute to the ecology programme.”