PhD Top-up With Bureau of Meteorology

We have an exciting opportunity for a PhD candidate to work on a collaborative project between the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and the vegetation modelling team at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (HIE).

The project will bring new knowledge of Australian plant physiology and ecology into the numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems run by the Bureau of Meteorology. NWP systems include a land surface scheme which describes the feedbacks from the land surface to the atmosphere. The goal of the project is to modify the operational land surface scheme currently in use in Australia to represent the phenology and ecology of the major Australian plant functional types, leveraging extensive knowledge of vegetation dynamics developed at HIE.

Benefits:

• Research with impact: the project will have a significant impact on how the land surface is modelled in Australia and consequently on the quality of weather predictions and projections
• Industry exposure: The student will work closely with researchers at the Bureau and contribute to the development of an operational weather service
• Funding: A $10,000 pa top-up scholarship is available

Requirements:

• The successful candidate must gain a main-round scholarship to Western Sydney University. Details and criteria available here:
• https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/schools/grs/scholarships/main_round_scholarships
• In addition, candidates must have skills in programming and data analytics, and a keen interest in Australian ecosystems

Closing date: 17^th September 2023. For further details contact me directly, b.medlyn – at- westernsydney.edu.au

PhD scholarships available

I have three PhD scholarships available for quantitatively-oriented students to join our Dynamics of Australian Vegetation team! Closing 30/4/22. See links for additional details and email me to talk projects.

The Future of Australian Vegetation: Developing a Dynamic Vegetation Model for Australia Two scholarships available for students to develop their own programs of research within the overarching project according to their interests. The students could, for example, explore the dynamics of a specific ecotone, such as the boundary between tropical rainforest and savanna, or the gradient from tall wet forest to open grassy woodlands. Alternatively, they could focus on and lead the modelling of a particular vegetation process, such as tree mortality, plant responses to heatwaves, or carbohydrate storage.

Predicting Vegetation Dynamics in Australia’s Arid Zone Co-funded by Arid Recovery and Bush Heritage Australia, this PhD project aims to develop a predictive model of vegetation dieback and recovery in Australia’s semi-arid woodlands.  Looking for a special person for this project: you’ll have good quantitative skills and be prepared to work in Australia’s remote outback.

Dieback at Arid Recovery

Scientific Programmer Position

We are looking for a scientific programmer to join our Dynamics of Australia Vegetation (DAVE) team! The role of the Scientific Programmer is to deliver on the development, optimisation, testing and management of a new dynamic vegetation model with a focus on Australian ecosystems. Closing 16th December. Details

NSW Chief Scientist Breakfast Seminar

My seminar to the NSW Chief Scientist Breakfast series is now online:

Climate Change and Australian Vegetation: Where are we Headed?

Tree Mortality in Australian Ecosystems seminar

I recently gave a seminar on Tree Mortality in Australian Ecosystems for the International Tree Mortality Network. You can now catch it on Youtube

PhD Scholarships Available

I have three PhD scholarships available as part of my ARC Laureate Fellowship project to develop a unified Dynamic Vegetation Model for Australia. I’m looking for folks with a passion for plant ecology and a strong quantitative background. The scholarships offer four years of funding + a tuition waiver for international students. You’ll join a great team of researchers on our Hawkesbury campus at the foot of the beautiful Blue Mountains. More details here:

https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/schools/grs/scholarships/current_scholarships/current_scholarships/a_unified_dynamic_vegetation_model_for_australia

Congratulations Mingkai Jiang – DECRA success

Thrilled for my post-doc Dr Mingkai Jiang who has been successful in winning an ARC-funded DECRA fellowship. Mingkai’s project, titled “Assessing Eucalyptus forest responses to rising CO2 and climate change,” will combine meta-analysis, data assimilation and ecosystem modelling to study how Eucalypts respond to rising CO2 and extremes of heat and drought. Congrats Mingkai!

New EucFACE results

Our new study on the fate of carbon in a mature forest under CO2 enrichment was published in Nature today. Led by postdoc Mingkai Jiang, with contributions from 48 co-authors, the study shows that the forest did not sequester additional CO2. The plants photosynthesised more, but the additional carbon taken up was rapidly returned to the atmosphere through plant and soil respiration. 

These findings have global implications: models used to project future climate change, and impacts of climate change on plants and ecosystems, currently assume that mature forests will continue to absorb carbon over and above their current levels, acting as carbon sinks. The findings from EucFACE suggest that those sinks may in actual fact be weaker or absent for forests on low-nutrient soils. Without mature forests acting as sinks, we have even less time than we thought to bring down greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the media release here

Read the study here

Georgina Sweet Laureate Fellowship

I’m thrilled to have been selected as the 2019 ARC Georgina Sweet Laureate Fellow.

Fifteen years ago I was at home with my second baby, wondering what my future held. I was hoping to work part-time, but I didn’t see how I was going to be able to do that and stay in science. We talk about the ‘leaky pipeline’ for women in science – I was very much at the point of ‘leaking out’.

But the leaky pipeline is a terrible analogy, because there is no way to leak back in to a pipe. We need a better analogy. Highways, for example, have both off-ramps and on-ramps. We are encouraged to take off-ramps. Take a break, attend to our personal needs, do a bit of sightseeing and then take the on-ramp refreshed and ready to drive on. People who take off-ramps have a better journey! The key is providing on-ramps so they can get back onto the highway.

In my role as Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellow I particularly want to foster a discussion about how we provide on-ramps for women (and men) who want to take detours. I’m hoping that my own experience of working part-time for ten years before going on to win a Laureate fellowship will serve as an example and inspiration for that discussion.

I’m also hoping to spread the word to girls and women about the importance of maths and computing in all fields of science. My own field is ecology, but my background is in mathematics. It’s noticeable that while there are many women working in ecology, there are many fewer working in computational ecology – yet that’s where many of the most important advances are being made right now. Building women’s confidence in the areas of maths and computing is crucial to improving women’s representation in science across the board.

 

Laureate Fellowship

I am thrilled to have won an ARC Laureate Fellowship!

https://www.arc.gov.au/news-publications/media/funding-announcement-kits/2019-australian-laureate-fellowships/2019-laureate-profile-professor-belinda-medlyn

The goal of my fellowship research is to build a dynamic vegetation model (DVM) focusing on Australian vegetation. My plan is to build a community model to bring a wide range of different types of data together that will allow us to identify the factors that determine Australian vegetation distribution, and make predictions for the kinds of vegetation shifts that we might expect in the near future as climate change gets underway. We’ve needed this model for a long time – this fellowship will provide the resources to make it a reality.