Post graduate News

Our HDR graduates over the years

CSU’s HDR students,who are/were student members of ILWS supervised by Institute researchers, have played a vital role over the years contributing to the Institute’s research outputs across a wide range of disciplines. During the Institute’s 15 years, there have been a total of 149 HDR students who have graduated. (Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Business Administration, Doctor of Social Work, and Masters). A number of the students have been international including from countries such as Nepal, PNG, Ghana, The Philippines, Bhutan, Poland, Indonesia, Laos, China, India, Zimbabwe, U.S., Mexico, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Thailand.

ILWS PhD scholarships (two each year) were introduced in 2007. To date 14 recipients have graduated with another nine still to complete. Richard Segal, who commenced his PhD in 2018, is expected to submit his thesis in February next year. PhD candidate Josh Hodges, who also commenced his PhD in 2018, is due to submit July 2022.

As at the beginning of December, the Institute has 38 HDR student members. In recent years, the Institute has been successful in getting industry or government grants to support a HDR study including funding from the Soil CRC, NSW DPI, DAWE, DELWP, Director of National Parks, Consolidated Minerals Pty Ltd., Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Murray LLS, Hermon Slade Foundation, Australia and Pacific Science Foundation, ACIAR, MDBA, and Greening Australia.

A number of graduates are still associated with the Institute, as Institute members employed by the University or as post-graduate researchers working on ILWS projects. They include Dr Wayne Robinson, Dr Michael Mitchell, Dr Felicity Small, Dr Jodie Kleinschafer, Dr Maggie Watson, Dr Nicole McCasker, Dr Wendy Minato, Dr Jenni Greig, Dr Liz Znidersic & Dr Xiaoying Liu (Sha sha). More information about our HDR students is available on our web pages Postgraduate Students and ILWS Postgraduates.

Graduates 2016

Graduates 2012- Dr Jodie Kleinschafer (centre) Graduates 2015- Yalmambirra and Dr Alexandra Knight

Graduates 2012

Welcome

We finally have the opportunity to welcome 2021 ILWS PhD scholarship recipient, Kakoli Bhowmik. Kakoli’s PhD study with CSU was delayed until early August because of Australia’s COVID-19 travel restrictions for international residents. Kakoli is based at the Wagga Wagga campus with principal supervisor Associate Professor Azizur Rahman, from the School of Computing, Mathematics and Engineering, and co-supervisors Dr Ryan Ip, also from the School of Computing, Mathematics and Engineering, and Professor Jade Forwood, School of Dentistry and Medical Sciences.

She is currently reviewing for a tentative topic “Modelling the early development of Australian children using the AEDC [Australian Early Development Census] data from 2009 - 2021.”

Kakoli, originally from Bangladesh, has a Bachelor (Honours) (2009) and a Masters in Statistics (2011) from Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh with her thesis on “Factors affecting early childhood mortality in Bangladesh.” She then completed a second Masters in Statistics specialising in Bio-Statistics, at Hasselt University, Belgium in 2018. Her thesis title was “Assessing impact of violations against normality assumption in linear mixed models for the evaluation of Genetically Modified Organisms.” Prior to taking up her PhD study, Kakoli worked as a statistician/researcher at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) in The Netherlands.

Presentations

Ghulam Zakir Hassan (Zakir) has certainly been busy over the past few months. Presentations he has given include: • Hassan G.Z., Allan, C., Punthakey, J. & Baumgartner, L. (2021). Potential of managed aquifer recharge in an irrigated river basin- a case study from Punjab Pakistan, abstract presented at 24th International River Symposium 27-30 Sep 2021, Brisbane (online), Australia. • Salim, S., Akhtar, S., Punthakey, J., Hassan G.Z. & Shabir, G. (2021). Groundwater and livelihood- a case study from Indus River Basin in Pakistan, abstract presented at 24th International River Symposium 27-30 Sep 2021, Brisbane (Online), Australia. • Hassan G.Z., Butt, M A.S., Shabir, G. & Akhtar, S. (2021). Urbanization and groundwater sustainability-A case study of Lahore Pakistan. Presented at Intl Conference on Urban Drainage (ICUD), 24-29 Oct 2021, Melbourne, Australia. • Hassan G.Z., Hassan, F.R., Shabir, G. & Rafique, H. (2021). Irrigated agriculture and groundwater nexus under changing climate- a case study from Punjab, Pakistan, abstract presented at Global Conference on Agriculture and Horticulture September 30 to October 2, 2021 (Online). • Hassan G.Z., Allan, C., Punthakey, J. & Baumgartner, L. (2021). My research journey- field work under Covid-19 pandemic. Presented at DocFest21, Charles Sturt University, Australia.

Zakir also presented at a one day training workshop on “Sharing knowledge and capacity building for groundwater management in Punjab” organised by SMEC, September 2.

Left. Zakir water sampling in his study area in south-eastern Punjab in Pakistan - during the COVID-19 pandemic. So far he has collected 24 goundwater samples and conducted 26 interviews.

Right: Zakir celebrated World Environment Day by helping to plant 400 trees as part of a community engagement activity in Pakistan.