Researchers have received Federal Government funding to improve wellbeing in daily life, advance Australia's position in time keeping, and explore traditional ecological practices and the creation of cultural landscapes.
Three mid-career researchers from The University of Western Australia have been awarded $3,393,116 in total from the Australian Research Council's Future Fellowships scheme.
Associate Professor Kristin Gainey, from UWA's School of Psychological Science and director of the Emotional Wellbeing Lab, received funding to research experiences of wellbeing, including positive emotions and purpose/meaning, which are key to thriving communities and healthy, productive individuals.
"Wellbeing levels change throughout the day and over time, however, little is known about the underlying causal factors contributing to daily life changes in states of emotional and meaningful wellbeing," Associate Professor Gainey said.
"We aim to build a novel, comprehensive model— using people's self-reported real-time experiences, current context, and behaviour measured with passive sensing— that explains wellbeing fluctuations in daily life in the general population."
Dr Maxim Goryachev, from UWA's School of Physics, Mathematics and Computing, received funding for a project that aims to investigate and develop materials and techniques required for construction of a solid-state nuclear isomer transition clock together.
"Leveraging international collaborations, we will provide a foundation for both a practical device and fundamental knowledge of an engineered nuclear quantum system," Dr Goryachev said.
"This project will advance Australia's position in time keeping, the backbone of modern communication, commerce, defence systems, metrology and fundamental science providing nation resilience to interactions in access to stable time scales."
Dr Emilie Dotte, from UWA's School of Social Sciences, will used the funds to lead an archaeo-botany project that explores the deep history of its relationship through anthracology (wood charcoal analysis).
"We will establish its application across Australia and the Pacific, developing essential resources, pioneering new methods and studies, to deliver unique datasets evidencing the combined history of people and trees across Oceania," Dr Dotte said.
"It will generate new knowledge on the archaeology of traditional ecological practices and the creation of cultural landscapes and support two-ways science for Indigenous-led environmental management and the solutions offered for a sustainable future."
The Future Fellowships scheme supports mid-career researchers with demonstrated capacity for high-quality research, leadership, research training and mentoring to create research with economic, commercial, environmental, social and/or cultural benefits for Australia.
