Research to set children on path to success receives special Marsden funding

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06 November 2024

University news, Staff news, Faculty of Arts, Auckland Bioengineering Institute, Faculty of Education and Social Work, Faculty of Engineering, Liggins Institute, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Faculty of Science

Liggins Institute director Professor Justin O'Sullivan is the co-lead in a major longitudinal study to understand the factors leading to academic achievement and well-being for young children.

A major nationwide programme to understand how children acquire oral language and self-regulations skills, co-led by a team from the Liggins Institute, has received a $3m funding boost from the Marsden Fund Council, only the fourth since the award was established in 2018.

'Kia Tīmata Pai' is an interdisciplinary longitudinal study, following more than 1600 children, their families and whānau and teachers, co-led by Professor Elaine Reese of the University of Otago - Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, Professor Justin O'Sullivan of the Liggins Institute at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland, and Professor Vincent Reid of Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato University of Waikato.

The programme, funded for three years, aims to set children up for academic achievement and future wellbeing. It aims to measure the later impact of enriched oral language - in English and te reo Māori - and self-regulation programmes in early learning settings. The Liggins Institute team will conduct EEG scans of the children at age six to seven to understand how they responded to the enrichment at the neurophysiological level.

Liggins Institute Director Professor Justin O'Sullivan says brain development underlies and supports all aspects of children's oral language, self-regulation and academic skills. "It's possible to see how the brain changes on an EEG scan. Determining how these changes develop during childhood can help us understand new ways to optimise practical interventions," he says.

University researchers awarded $19.7m in 2024 Marsden funding

The Marsden Fund awards annual grants to established research leaders and their teams, and to support early career researchers. This year, University of Auckland researchers were successful with 28 proposals, and will receive a total of $19.7m, a quarter of the funding available nationwide, which was $75.82m this round. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the fund's establishment.

A total of 19 standard research grants were awarded to established researchers for a total of $16m.

• Associate Professor Alys Clark, ABI: Healthy placenta, healthy heart? Unravelling the biomechanical links in pregnancy that matter for later life.
• Dr Marcia Leenan-Young, Arts: Weaving connections: mapping histories and futures of Pacific Research Methodologies.
• Professor Melinda Webber, EDSW: Me aro ki te hā o Hineahuone: Pay heed to the dignity and power of women.
• Associate Professor Catherine Watson, Engineering: A new theory for the sound change within New Zealand English.
• Dr Shan Yi, Engineering: Unravelling environmental risks of forever chemicals using novel Artificial Intelligence-assisted protein structure and docking analyses.
• Associate Professor Guy Warman, FMHS: The importance of eusocial clocks for honeybee behaviour.
• Professor Thomas Proft, FMHS: Complement evasion factor (CEF), a novel candidate for the development of a vaccine against Group A Streptococcus.
• Dr Misha Vorobyev, FMHS: Strike accuracy and monocular stereopsis in mantis shrimps.
• Dr Justin Rustenhoven, FMHS: Meningeal fibrosis and central nervous system waste clearance: Targeted Interventions for Traumatic Brain Injury and Age-Related Rejuvenation.
• Dr Elizabeth Ostrowski, Liggins Institute: Solving the evolutionary paradox of kin recognition.
• Professor Rod Gover, Science: Conformal techniques in geometry, analysis, and physical theories.
• Dr Soledad Perez Santangelo, Science: How plants tell TIMEperature: The circadian clock and temperature cues interplay in modulating plant physiology.
• Associate Professor Shaun Loft, Science: Understanding the origin of cell-cell interactions in the nervous system: what was the contribution of bacterial teneurin homologues?
• Professor Karin Bryan, Science: Terrestrial or marine? Unravelling the climate drivers of extreme heat events in estuarine water.
• Dr Ray Xu, Science: Nonlinear phase-locking for ultrashort light generation
• Associate Professor Simon Greenhill, Science: Understanding the historical drivers and futures of global cultural and linguistic diversity.
• Professor Sebastian Link, Science: New foundations for the logical design of relational and graph databases.
• Dr Inken Kelch, Science: The path less travelled, exploring a novel route for virus entry into B cell follicles.
• Associate Professor Michael Rowe, Science: Gallium as a new indicator of biogenic processes in geologic materials.

Nine early career researchers received Fast Start awards, a total of $3.2m.

• Dr Recep Avci, ABI: Comprehensive characterisation of gastric slow waves using electro-anatomical mapping.
• Dr Alexandra Palmer, Arts: The surplus animal problem: Understanding the issues for zoos in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.
• Dr Jean Allen, EDSW: Virtual Voyagers: Amplifying Pacific girl gamer voices.
• Dr Amelia Power, FMHS: Does mitochondrial function determine thermal tolerance in diseased hearts?
• Dr Ru Nicholson, Engineering: Accurate and efficient algorithms for estimation and uncertainty quantification of ice sheet thickness and basal sliding.
• Dr James Brock, Science: Disentangling drivers of Pacific fern diversity
• Dr Leane Makey, Science: Soil sovereignty: an evolutionary step for human-soil relations at a time of crisis.
• Dr Rosalyn Falconer, Science: Potential of earth abundant catalysts by affixing to solid supports.
• Dr Marc Vinyals, Science: Power and limits of SAT Algorithms

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