College of Sciences , Te Wāhanga Pūtaiao

Human nutrition depends on agricultural production, which in turn relies on soils, climate, agricultural inputs, and farmers’ decisions. While increasingly more studies recognise the stochastic impacts of weather on desirable farm outputs, little is known about their impacts on undesirable outputs, such as leaching and emissions.

This project identifies the impacts on New Zealand farm outputs (desirable and undesirable) of:

• inputs
• soils
• weather, and
• climate change.

It also designs future policies capable of reducing farm negative externalities, while boosting sustainable agricultural productivity and profitability.

Contact Simone Pieralli

This project addresses central areas in nonlinear analysis and low-dimensional topology and geometry. Using new developments in modern geometric function theory, we attack important and longstanding problems.

Building on our earlier work developing new approaches to higher regularity for distributional equations, super-regularity and studies of the degenerate Ahlfors-Hopf equation, we construct a variational Teichmuller theory for Riemann surfaces linking the classical and harmonic approaches. The partial differential equations will uncover new structure equations for moduli spaces linking these previous important but disparate approaches.

Contact Gaven Martin

Abnormal accumulation of HDAC4 protein in the nuclei of nerve cells has been implicated in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders.

In our Drosophila (fruit fly) model system, excess levels of HDAC4 also impair neuronal development and memory. This HDAC4 accumulation in nuclei results in the formation of protein aggregates, but it is unknown how they contribute to disease.

We will determine the protein composition of the aggregates and will investigate their role in neuronal dysfunction in our Drosophila model.

Contact Helen Fitzsimons

Our research involves large-scale field experiments that quantify song diversity, social networks, and individual bird movements across fragmented landscapes. We will use three iconic NZ native birds, tui, korimako and tieke, to understand the roles of:

• social learning mechanisms (cultural transmission pathways)
• patterns of animal dispersal on the cultural evolution of song in wild bird populations.

Contact Dianne Brunton

AI can be a powerful tool to combat emerging cyber threats. Massey's Cybersecurity Lab works with Data61 (CSIRO, Australia) and top trans-Tasman universities to develop AI solutions.

These use the latest in machine learning and deep learning techniques to detect, classify, and respond rapidly against network intrusions and malware attacks.

Contact Julian Jang-Jaccard

A research centre applying advanced technology to the primary production, agricultural and food supply chain. We unite and leverage Massey’s diverse capability in precision agriculture, primary production science, horticulture supply chains, sensor technology, robotics, AI and data science.

MAF Digital Lab

Massey's Molecular Epidemiology and Public Health Laboratory (mEpiLab) focuses on the prevention and control of infectious diseases. We develop and apply new techniques to inform decision-making and improve the health of all New Zealanders.

mEpiLab

Research themes include digitisation, health and safety, off-site construction, and project management.

Research includes the flagship five-year programme Creating Capacity and Capability for the New Zealand Construction Sector. The aim is to boost:

• investor confidence in delivery
• stability of construction companies and resource planning
• confidence for people seeking training and education to work in construction.

Research funding to address future needs of NZ