Dr Annie Lau is a coastal geomorphologist with a primary research interest in analysing past occurrences of coastal hazards, in particular extreme waves generated by storms and tsunamis, through sedimentary, geomorphological and historical records for assessing the future threat in coastal areas. For example, she has specialised in using the characteristics of large coastal boulders (e.g. size and distribution of rocks) to estimate the strength of extreme waves and to reconstruct the history of extreme events in the past millennia at a few tropical islands in the Asia-Pacific area. More recently, Annie investigates coastline evolution of the sandy Central to Southern Queensland coasts in the late Quaternary - Holocene by analysing sediments and using OSL quartz dating.
Annie teaches a range of courses in Geography, Marine Science, and Geoscience disciplines. She is interested in all types of natural hazards and disaster management, some research areas that she's expanding into since acquiring in-depth knowledge through leading the "Environmental Hazards" course. Students who are interested in researching hazard topics are encouraged to discuss their research ideas with Annie.
She is a project leader of the following research networks:
IGCP Project 725 - Forecasting Coastal Change: "From Cores to Code: Bringing together scientists from coastal geology and numerical modelling to improve the predictive capacity of numerical models to fore- and hind-cast coastal change"
ISROC - Inundation Signatures on Rocky Coastlines: This network serves as a focal point for researchers, educators, and students to understand Coastal Boulder Deposits (CBD) and the storms and tsunamis that generate them.
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Dr Mason began at The University of Queensland in late 2014 after holding academic positions at The University of Sydney and QUT. Prior to joining UQ he also worked as a catastrophe risk researcher for the industry-focused research centre, Risk Frontiers at Macquarie University. Matthew’s key areas of interest and expertise lie in the fields of:
Wind Engineering
Stochastic modelling of hazards, including convective storms and tropical cyclones
Probabilistic modelling of structural and infrastructure vulnerability to wind, water and hail
Catastrophe loss modelling for natural hazards
Modelling and observation of the atmospheric boundary layer
Wind tunnel testing and analysis
Disaster insurance
Dr Mason is currently the Chair of the Standards Australia wind loading sub-committee responsible for maintenance of AS/NZS1170.2.
