Grad draws $US75k grant

Dr Subana Shanmuganathan, of the Faculty of Business, has been awarded the Japan Society postdoctoral fellowship including a $US75k grant

Using advanced neural networking technology to study the effects of urbanisation has helped an AUT PhD graduate win a Japanese grant of $US75000.

Dr Subana Shanmuganathan, of the Faculty of Business, has been awarded the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) postdoctoral fellowship, which goes to a foreign researcher.
The recipient can conduct research for two years at the Ritsumeikon Asia Pacific University in Japan.

Dr Shanmuganathan was awarded the fellowship based on her PhD research, which analysed the effects of urbanisation on natural habitats. She looked at ecological, economic and human-influence data using artificial neural network (ANN) computer technology.

“With ready access to better computing systems and enhanced digital data capture and storage capabilities, ecological monitoring experiments can now be carried out easily – piling up volumes of data,” Dr Shanmuganathan says. The use of ANNs provides a means for integrated analysis of disparate ecological data sets.

It was the use of artificial neural networking technology that caught the eyes of the Japanese.

“This has the potential for studying natural habitats as a whole,” she says. “The earth can be viewed as a whole rather than through segmented pieces of data.”

Dr Shanmuganthan’s research also looks at the wider implications of environmental changes, especially from humans.

While in Japan she will extend her own research and use software to analyse the ecological data of the host institution.