diff --git a/app/controllers/application_controller.rb b/app/controllers/application_controller.rb
index 948df939..5e540dbb 100644
--- a/app/controllers/application_controller.rb
+++ b/app/controllers/application_controller.rb
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
   layout :api_or_html
 
+  before_filter :authenticate_user!
+
   # CanCan - always check authorization
   check_authorization unless: :devise_controller?
 
@@ -36,6 +38,8 @@ class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
 
   after_filter :set_csrf_cookie_for_ng, :resource_representation_caching_fixes
 
+  before_filter :set_user_time_zone
+
   # set and reset user stamper for each request
   # based on https://github.com/theepan/userstamp/tree/bf05d832ee27a717ea9455d685c83ae2cfb80310
   around_filter :set_then_reset_user_stamper
@@ -411,4 +415,8 @@ def set_then_reset_user_stamper
     end
   end
 
+  def set_user_time_zone
+    Time.zone = current_user.time_zone_name if user_signed_in?
+  end
+
 end
diff --git a/app/models/user.rb b/app/models/user.rb
index fc304d63..e2edc114 100644
--- a/app/models/user.rb
+++ b/app/models/user.rb
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ class User < ActiveRecord::Base
 
   attr_accessible :user_name, :email, :password, :password_confirmation, :remember_me,
                   :roles, :roles_mask, :preferences,
-                  :image, :login
+                  :image, :login, :time_zone_name
 
   # Virtual attribute for authenticating by either :user_name or :email
   # This is in addition to real persisted fields.
diff --git a/app/views/devise/registrations/new.html.haml b/app/views/devise/registrations/new.html.haml
index 91684319..0f79b17f 100644
--- a/app/views/devise/registrations/new.html.haml
+++ b/app/views/devise/registrations/new.html.haml
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
     = f.input :user_name, required: true, autofocus: true
     = f.input :password, required: true
     = f.input :password_confirmation, required: true
+    = f.time_zone_select :time_zone_name, /Australia/, default: 'Brisbane', required: true
     = f.input :email, required: true
   .form-actions
     = f.button :submit, 'Sign up'
diff --git a/config/application.rb b/config/application.rb
index 16dc453c..0570b6c5 100644
--- a/config/application.rb
+++ b/config/application.rb
@@ -40,6 +40,8 @@ class Application < Rails::Application
     # Run "rake -D time" for a list of tasks for finding time zone names. Default is UTC.
     # config.time_zone = 'Central Time (US & Canada)'
     #config.time_zone - 'UTC'
+    # used as default when user is not logged in
+    # for detecting user daylight savings time, see http://stackoverflow.com/a/11888430/31567
     config.time_zone = 'Brisbane'
 
     # The default locale is :en and all translations from config/locales/*.rb,yml are auto loaded.
diff --git a/db/migrate/20140906231545_add_time_zone_name_to_user.rb b/db/migrate/20140906231545_add_time_zone_name_to_user.rb
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..73683f8c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/db/migrate/20140906231545_add_time_zone_name_to_user.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+class AddTimeZoneNameToUser < ActiveRecord::Migration
+  def change
+    add_column :users, :time_zone_name, :string, null:false, default: 'Brisbane'
+  end
+end