Students submit theses
Two more PhD research students from our 2003-2010 program have submitted their theses in the past fortnight and two more have had their doctorates conferred.
Karyn Bosomworth has submitted her thesis to RMIT University, Melbourne. Her research looked at the capacity for adaptive governance (as a climate change adaptation strategy) in the Victorian fire management sector, taking its perspective from the sector's bureaucrats.
Briony Towers has submitted her thesis to the University of Tasmania. She has researched better ways to educate the public – and especially children – about bushfire risk.
Both Briony and Karyn will be working hard at RMIT over the next few months to turn their theses into journal papers. Such papers are critically important to early career researchers and all students are strongly encouraged to get publications from their theses out as quickly as possible.
While not one of our scholars, Patrick Dunlop at the University of Western Australia has been undertaking Bushfire CRC work as a member of Professor David Morrison’s team at the school of psychology. His thesis, submitted last week, looks at how people who resit the psychometric tests for firefighting perform during subsequent tests. This work was done in close collaboration with FESA and is of considerable interest to that agency. Patrick spoke on this research at the recent AFAC/CRC conference in Sydney.
Meanwhile, Anne Miehs and Matt Phillips have had their degrees conferred.
Anne, studying at the University of Melbourne, looked at the role of coarse woody debris to forest fuel level and biodiversity conservation. Matt, at Deakin University, researched the physiological effects on volunteer firefighters engaged in bushfire suppression.
Anne is now employed as Bushfire Project Officer at the Nature Conservation Council of NSW and Matt is working with the Department of Defence.
Bushfire CRC Research Manager Lyndsey Wright congratulated all five doctoral candidates.
“They have worked very hard to and produced some tremendous research which is already making a difference in their fields.”
