Research Supervisor Connect
This project aims to develop an understanding of the link between the nature of distributed systems and the resilience that underpins healthy future societies.
Professor Albert Y. Zomaya, Professor Mathew Vadas.
Charles Perkins Centre – the Judith and David Coffey Life Lab
Masters/PHD
As distributed systems that underpin a healthy lifestyle (e.g. social media, food distribution, socio-economic systems) become more prevalent with time there will be a need to endow such systems with capabilities that enable them to function optimally and adapt to new knowledge, social change and variable user needs. What makes this problem very complex is the heterogeneous nature of distributed environments (grids, clouds, trade networks, etc) that could be made up of hundreds or thousands of components (computers, traders, citizens etc). In addition, no group in one location has control over other parts of the system. So there is a need to build resilience into these systems that allows them to adapt and maintain relevance.
The Life Lab creates a new kind of graduate and postgraduate training environment at the interface between life, social, economic and physical sciences. Its focus is to address the significant challenges we face from an unsustainable food system that degrades the environmental services it depends on, and creates significant societal health problems. A better understanding of the complexity of the environment-food-health nexus is critical. It is fundamental to building a sustainable society, and one that is more robust to future uncertainties. Our unique approach will be a world-first in shifting research on these growing challenges from treating symptoms to prevention.Life Lab will challenge existing paradigms and university models to create a research training environment in which traditional disciplinary boundaries do not apply. Our ambitious vision is to create an ‘innovation hub' where researchers from disciplines spanning physical, life and social and economic sciences will interface with business, government and agency leaders. It will develop integrated approaches to the challenges that threaten societal wellbeing, and train the next generation of experts with the skills required to find solutions.
The opportunity ID for this research opportunity is 1686