CRC students succeed

Several CRC funded students have had their thesis accepted and are now contributing to the industry.  

Dr Mengran Yu’s PhD project analysed the relationships between bushfires, prescribed fires, soil carbon, forested catchments and water quality. Approaches for investigating wildfire impacts on catchment hydrology was accepted in October last year by the University of Sydney and used a soil and water assessment tool to detect the effect of wildfire on forested catchment hydrology, and then built scenarios using a physical-based model to investigate the cause of the catchment hydrology change and identify the wildfire sensitive areas in catchments for catchment protection. Dr Yu’s thesis supports the CRC project Modelling the effect of fire on the hydrological cycle. 

Dr Yu’s thesis is available here. 

Valuing volunteers: better understanding the primary motives for volunteering in Australian emergency services is the title of Bill Calcutt’s Masters thesis, accepted by the University of Wollongong in June this year. As part of his project, Bill's study aimed to provide a better understanding of the primary motives for formal volunteering in Australian emergency services. His research applied the Schwartz Theory of Basic Human Values and associated Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-40) survey to determine the shared and contrasting values of a large state-wide emergency service volunteer workforce.  

Bill’s thesis is available here.  

Associate student Dr Kaitlyn Watson’s thesis investigated pharmacists' roles in disasters and identified the acceptance and expectations of pharmacists throughout the different stages of a disaster. The roles of pharmacists in disaster health management in natural and anthropogenic disasters took an all-hazard and inclusive approach including stakeholders from international disaster and emergency management organisations as well as pharmacy organisations to examine the multiple practice areas in a disaster in which a pharmacist's expertise could be valuable in patient care, logistics, governance, and public health.  

Dr Watson’s thesis is available here. 

Associate student Dr Diana Kuchinke’s thesis Investigating bird responses to fire in the Heathy Dry Forests of Victoria, Australia has been accepted this year by Federation University Australia as part of her project The influence of time since fire, fire frequency and prescribed burn severity on woodland birds. Dr Kuchinke‘s study looked at the pressures that forest birds are under across 84 different sites, such as agricultural and urban development, the rising frequency of extreme weather conditions and prescribed burning within the landscape, and the ways that the birds responded to these pressures.  

Dr Kuchinke’s thesis is available here.