Month in review: June 2022

June was a very (very!) busy month but lots of great things happened, including my son’s 4th birthday.

I also commited to presenting in an upcoming seminar in September, met one of my PhD students who recently managed to move to Australia after COVID delays, and travelled and met old friends and colleagues in beautiful Tropical North Queensland. I also received an invitation to present in an exciting Urban Heat Seminar in Cairns.

Besides that, there was a lot of research-related bureaucratic but necessary work, and marking. Here is what happened in more detail…

Research

In the research front, I travelled to Townsville to finally place some weather sensors for a very delayed urban climate project. This project is in collaboration with Townsville City Council and I can’t wait to work on the data, there is already interesting patterns showing up and we only have 40 days of data!

A project I have been collaborating in has finished and the final report has been submitted. The next step for me in that project is now to work on an article with the project team.

I also received the great news that a grant application in collaboration with the Sunshine Coast Council was approved!

Finally, we also got all approvals for purchasing ENVI-met and installing it in our network at USC. This will allow important urban climate research to be undertaken in the near future.

Writing and publications

At the School of Law and Society at USC we had our Research Planning Day, where some of us presented our trajectory and current research. It was great to finally meet in person some colleagues who work in other campuses and hear about their experiences and aspirations.

One article was published in Ecosystem Services, titled Valuation of ecosystem services through offsets: Why are coastal ecosystems more valuable in Australia than in Brazil? This was my first collaboration with Caroline Fassina, from Brazil, and I hope other opportunities will come up.

I worked in the final revision of an article I have been co-authoring with colleagues from other countries. The article was then submitted in the end of June.

I worked with a research internship student who has finished the formal internship period, and is now finalising data analysis for a project focused on Urban Climate Education in Australia. We intend to soon submit an article for publication.

I also worked on two grant proposals with deadlines in July.

Presentations, teaching and supervision

This was the busiest part, so much happened in regard to teaching!

I delivered two presentations for Ipswich City Council about a research project in collaboration with them and Griffith University.

My first PhD student has passed his confirmation! This was a great and very well deserved achievement for him. Honours students completed Semester 1 and are now ready to undertake fieldwork and collect data for their thesis. I am their course coordinator and also supervise a student.

Besides that there was lots of marking, finalising grades, starting to organise Semester 2 classes and a fieldtrip I coordinate in one of my courses.

Learning

Not much in this space apart from an interface training to assess and analyse real time climate data. There will be (much) more coming up next month.

Service and engagement

I reviewed a paper for a journal, wrote a few reference letters and presented topics about Urban Design and Town Planning to students from a local school who visit us a few times per year.

June was great, but very tiring. I was hoping that after the classes finished and all marking was done I would manage to take things slower, but there was so much to catch up that I haven’t yet managed to slow down. Luckily I have less hours in class in the second semester, so hopefully will be able to catch up on things that were left a bit behind so far this year.

How was your June?