Professor, Centre for Animal Science, The University of Queensland My research interests are in molecular virology and are focused on improving viral disease control in production animals such as cattle and poultry. My group is characterising the molecular interactions between invading pathogens and the subsequent host responses with the goal of developing new vaccines and diagnostic technologies. A key component of this work includes improving the basic understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underpin and drive viral virulence (the capacity to cause disease) and pathogen evolution. We have utilised next-generation sequencing technologies to sequence the genomes of herpesviruses and adenoviruses from various species including, cattle, chickens, marsupials, horses, and crocodiles. My team is also investigating the role of virally encoded non-coding RNAS in virulence, virus replication, and disease development. The outcomes of these research activities are also being used to understand viral gene function and the development of novel vaccines to increase livestock productivity.
Professor of Sociology and Director, Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware Tricia Wachtendorf is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Delaware and Director of the Disaster Research Center – the oldest center in the world focused on the social science aspects of disaster. Her most recent book, American Dunkirk: The Waterborne Evacuation of Manhattan on 9/11, is coauthored with James Kendra and available through Temple University Press. Over the past three decades, her research has focused on multi-organizational coordination before, during and after disasters, improvisation, and social vulnerability to disaster events. Dr. Wachtendorf has engaged in quick response fieldwork after such events as the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, the tsunamis affecting India, Sri Lanka (2004) and Japan (2011), Hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Sandy (2012), as well as the earthquakes in China (2008) and Haiti (2010). With numerous research grants from agencies such as the National Science Foundation, she has published widely on improvisation in disasters as well as disaster convergence. Research Interest Multi-organizational coordination before, during and after disasters, transnational crises, improvisation and adaptation, and social vulnerability to disasters.
Professor of Biology, Wake Forest University My research focuses on the ecology and conservation of grassland and savannas ecosystems. In particular, I am interested in understanding the unique co-evolution that has occurred between plants and large herbivores in African savannas and the consequences of these interactions for ecosystem processes across large scales. The majority of my research is conducted in the Serengeti Ecosystem of East Africa, one of the last remaining fully functional grazing ecosystems, home to earth’s largest free-ranging ungulate herds and one of the best-studied ecosystems in the paleotropics. Recent and current projects include: (1) how landscape features, plant forage quality, and risk of predation interact to determine the spatial distribution and movements of large savanna herbivores; (2) the ecology and evolution of trees in the "acacia" clade; (3) plant and herbivore effects on nutrient cycling; (4) dynamics and stability of tree-grass coexistence in savannas across continents.
Marie Curie Senior Research Fellow , Queen's University Belfast 2017 – 2018 Associate Fellow Higher Education Academy, Higher Education Academy 2010 - 2014: PhD Supportive and Palliative Care, Queen’s University Belfast, N. Ireland 2008 - 2009 MSc Cert in Applied Applications in Clinical Psychology Newman University, Birmingham 2004 - 2007: BSc (Hons) Psychology: 2:1 Queen’s University Belfast, N. Ireland
Associate Professor in Modern and Contemporary Art History, Department of Art History & Architecture, Trinity College Dublin I am a historian of contemporary art, design, and visual culture. My teaching covers modern and contemporary art, visual culture, and design. I teach modules on global postmodern and contemporary art and on art, design, and nature since the 1930s. Past and present PhD researchers have studied a history of Irish and British adventure playgrounds, Irish interior design for autism, Irish data centre architecture, cybernetic art in post-war Argentina, participatory arts institutions, commemorative exhibitions, queer Irish art, and the visual culture of climate science. I welcome proposals for a research degree from suitably qualified applicants. My research has previously focussed on the ‘social turn’ in art and design from the 1960s on, published as Play and Participation in Contemporary Arts Practices in 2015 and in the journals Art History, Art Journal, and Journal of Design History. In 2019, I edited a special issue of Sculpture Journal on toys and modern sculpture. Current research focuses on ecocritical art and design history, the visual culture of science, and the contribution of art/design history to the environmental humanities. Buckminster Fuller’s World Game and Its Legacy (2021) studies the design strategies, gameplay, and modelling techniques of the World Game and related projects from the late 1960s to the present. Nervous Systems: Art, Systems, and Politics since the 1960s (2022), co-edited with Johanna Gosse, is a collection of essays that expand the study of systems art to address race, gender, embodiment, and the politics of global networks and infrastructures. I am Chair (2020-23) of the Environmental Humanities Working Group for the Irish Humanities Alliance at the Royal Irish Academy. I am also a member of the Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities. Selected publications Nervous Systems: Art, Systems, and Politics since the 1960s, co-edited with Johanna Gosse, Duke University Press, 2022. Buckminster Fuller's World Game and Its Legacy, Routledge, 2021. ‘Ecocritical Art History’, Art History 43, no. 3, May 2020, pp. 640-645. ‘Systems in Play: Simon Nicholson’s Design 12 Course, University of California, Berkeley, 1966’, Journal of Design History 32, no. 3, September 2019, pp. 223–239. ‘Operable Abstraction: How Toys Changed the Logic of Modern Sculpture’, Sculpture Journal 28, no. 2, 2019, pp. 161-173. ‘Something from Nothing: Tino Sehgal’s Systemic Objects’, Thresholds, 47, 2019. ‘Ludic Pedagogies at the College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley, 1966 to 1972’, in Kjetil Fallan, ed. The Culture of Nature in the History of Design, Abingdon: Routledge, 2019. ‘When Attitudes Became Toys: Jasia Reichardt’s Play Orbit’, Art History 41, no.2, April 2018, pp. 344-369. ‘How Things Grow: Gabriel Orozco’s Samurai Tree: Invariants (2005)’, Art Journal 76, nos. 3-4, Fall 2017, pp. 32-47.
