Research Interests

Since I am looking for a job, I would like to work, or rather continue working but at a larger scale in the area that I am already working in, Population ecology.

I am looking at the population dynamics of phytoplankton in an estuary in Victoria, using bio-physical time series. I have tried to understand the short time scale dynamics, varying from the order of hours to days. I have used an iterative non-linear statistical modelling tool which in other words is called feed-forward neural network. (neural networks have been given the bad name of being a black box, however I think it has got more to do with they way they are used).

Using partial-derivative sensitivity analysis (I have come across at least one paper which gets upset with this terminology) I have tried to evaluate the strength of the relation between each of the bio-physical parameter and chlorophyll. (chlorophyll is used an indicator of phytoplankton population.) And to see how the relationships change as the time interval between chlorophyll and bio-physical parameters is increased.

Now what I would like to do further is

1. Study non-linear time-series and see how does chaos (which appears in weather time series and water flows) appear in ecological time-series.
2. Study oceanography, my approach to my project was as a mathematician. I have, hopefully, learned some decent amount of biology in the process. However, I am sure there are quite a few things out there – so, I would like to do a short course in oceanography. (Note: I did NOT say I wanted to do a short course in chaotic time series analysis)
3. Study Bayesian: Bayesian is used to quantify uncertainty. It is being used to make ecological models more accessible to decision makers who can use them as decision support systems.