Associate Investigators
Adrian McDonald
Associate Investigator
Adrian, an Associate Professor with the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences at the University of Canterbury, is a climate scientist who primarily works on understanding atmospheric process in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. He holds various Antarctic research leadership roles – among them, he heads up the ‘Processes and Observations’ programme in the Deep South National Science Challenge and was recently appointed Director of Gateway Antarctica. Adrian came to New Zealand in 2001 after obtaining his PhD from the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, and subsequent research posts in academia and industry. More about Adrian here.
Alexei Drummond
Associate Investigator
Alexei is a Professor of Computational Biology in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Auckland. His main research interests involve probabilistic models of molecular evolution and population genetics. Prior to his current role, Alexei spent 3 years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. In 2005, he founded Biomatters Ltd, a bioinformatics software company providing solutions for the analysis, interpretation and application of molecular sequence data. Alexei has won several prestigious science awards over the years, including a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship in 2010. More about Alexei here.
Andrea Byrom
Associate Investigator
Andrea is the Director of the New Zealand’s Biological Heritage National Science Challenge. Her research interests are in understanding the impacts of invasive mammals on New Zealand’s native flora and fauna, along with other drivers of global change such as climate change and land use intensification. More about Andrea here.
Ann Brower
Associate Investigator
Ann Brower, an environmental scientist and geographer at the University of Canterbury, is a methodological pluralist, using lots of types of data to explore the intersection of environmental, economic, and social systems. She is also committed to making a difference to the life of the nation. Ann’s work has changed the Building Act and the Land Act, both fairly fundamental to the NZ environment. She can claim: (a) The 2019 demise of South Island high country tenure review, which will safeguard 1 million hectares (5% of NZ) from privatisation; and (b) The 2016 ‘Brower amendment’ to the Building Act, which will make NZ’s streetscapes safer in earthquakes. Universities NZ awarded her the ‘Critic and Conscience of Society’ Award in 2018 to recognise her contribution to the life of the nation. More about Ann here.
Anna Matheson
Associate Investigator
Anna is a senior lecturer in health policy at Victoria University of Wellington and a Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar. Anna was previously a senior lecturer and researcher in public health at Massey University, Wellington, and her research expertise lies in the application of complexity theory to enhance understanding of actions to reduce health inequalities. She is particularly interested in the use of innovative research methodologies for recognising complexities in social systems, and has been involved in numerous research projects related to the social determinants of health, barriers within the health system, and approaches to reducing health inequalities in Aotearoa. Her current work includes co-leading the evaluation of Healthy Families NZ funded by the Ministry of Health, and as a co-investigator on two community action research projects funded by the Health Research Council. More about Anna here.
Arvind Tripathi
Associate Investigator
Arvind is an Associate Professor in Information Systems in the University of Auckland Business School, prior to which he was a faculty member at the Foster School of Business, University of Washington, Seattle, USA. His research interests include electronic markets, supply chain management, open source software and social networks. His research is very interdisciplinary, and has been published in a wide array of management, marketing, information systems, computer science and operations research journals. He is currently a senior editor at POMS and Decision Support Systems, and serves as an associate editor at Decision Sciences Journal, Information Systems Frontiers and the Journal of Database Management. He has a PhD in Information Systems from the University of Connecticut. More about Arvind here.
Audrey Lustig
Associate Investigator
Audrey is a postdoctoral fellow at the Geospatial Research Institute Toi Hangarau, University of Canterbury, after graduating with a PhD at the Bio-Protection Research Centre, Lincoln University. Her current work closely aligns with Te Pūnaha Matatini’s predator-free New Zealand research and its ‘Complexity and the Biosphere’ theme. Audrey uses socio-ecological models to assess the feasibility of scaling-up predator control outside traditional conservation areas and to inform decisions about resource allocation. She loves how Te Pūnaha Matatini provides a home for researchers who cross disciplinary boundaries in search of holistic answers. More about Audrey here.
Barry Milne
Associate Investigator
Barry is a Senior Research Fellow and the Director of the COMPASS Research Centre, Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland. He holds a Masters degree (Psychology) from the University of Otago, and a PhD in Psychiatric Epidemiology from Kings College London. Barry’s research focus is on life-course and longitudinal studies, and using large or complex whole population datasets to answer a broad range of policy and research questions – from analysing the influence of family medical history on the development of psychiatric disorders to looking at what childhood factors can be intervened upon to ensure positive developmental outcomes. More about Barry here.
Cameron Walker
Associate Investigator
Cameron is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Auckland. He first joined the department as a faculty member in 1998 after completing his PhD in Mathematics. Cameron’s research area is computational analytics and he is currently lending his expertise to a range of major collaborative research programmes based in New Zealand and internationally. In particular, he specialises in building models that utilise system measurements to understand the dynamics of those systems, and often incorporates optimisation techniques to help decision makers improve their system performance. More about Cameron here.
Christina Painting
Associate Investigator
Christina (Chrissie) is a Lecturer in Animal Behaviour at the University of Waikato. Chrissie has a BSc Hons from Lincoln University, a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Auckland, and has held postdoctoral positions in New Zealand, Australia and Singapore. She is inspired by the incredible amount of phenotypic diversity seen in animals, which has led to her researching the mating systems of insects and arachnids around the globe. In 2018, Chrissie received a Rutherford Postdoctoral Fellowship, which adopts an integrative approach to understand the evolution of animal weapons and complex mating behaviours. More about Chrissie.
Claire Postlethwaite
Associate Investigator
Claire is an Associate Professor in Applied Mathematics at the University of Auckland. Prior to arriving in New Zealand, she completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge and spent two years working as a postdoctoral researcher in the US. While Claire’s background is in the field of applied dynamical systems, she has a broad range of research interests – from theoretical studies of differential equations to applying mathematics to understand navigation, movement and behaviour. Claire has won several awards for her work. More about Claire here.
David Hall
Associate Investigator
David Hall is Senior Researcher at The Policy Observatory, Auckland University of Technology. His research interests include climate policy, climate finance, impact investment, migration policy and wider questions in ethics and political theory. He is a prolific writer, contributing to the BWB Texts series, New Zealand Listener, New Zealand Herald, Pantograph Punch, Spinoff, Reading Room Journal and more. He is presently developing an environmental impact bond to unlock private capital for permanent native forest planting, funded by Foundation North’s GIFT fund. More about David here.
David Hayman
Associate Investigator
David is a Professor of Epidemiology in the School of Veterinary Science at Massey University. His research interests are in disease ecology and epidemiology of infectious diseases affecting public health and conservation. David has won a prestigious Wellcome Trust Training fellowship in the UK while at Cambridge University, David H Smith Postdoctoral fellowship in the USA, and a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship from the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2017. More about David here.
David Welch
Associate Investigator
David is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Auckland. His main research interests are in developing and fitting phylogenetic models to epidemiology, Bayesian computational methods, epidemics in networks, stochastic simulation, and inference for coalescent-based population genetics. He obtained a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Auckland in 2010, and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher for several years with long stints at Imperial College London in the UK and the Centre for Disease Dynamics and Department of Statistics in the US. More about David here.
Élodie Blanc
Associate Investigator
Élodie Blanc, a Research Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, is also a Research Scientist at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Élodie completed her graduate studies at École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and the University of Otago. Her research interests include agricultural economics, applied econometrics, water modeling and crop modeling. More about Élodie here.
Emma Sharp
Associate Investigator
Emma Sharp has a PhD (2018) from the University of Auckland in food politics. She is a Geographer with broad interests in food system sustainability, feminist theory, care, and alternative economies. She has a MSc (2004) in glacial geomorphology and has previously worked in government, consultancy, and the 3rd sector internationally on environmental, education and humanitarian issues. She is a founding member of the NZ Women and Gender Geographies Research Network (2013 – ), associated Puawai collective, and the Community Economies Research Network (CERN). She leads the Critical Food Studies Group hosted at the School of Environment. She has two young children.
Fraser Morgan
Associate Investigator
Fraser is a Senior Geographer in the Governance and Policy team at Manaaki Whenua / Landcare Research. Fraser completed a PhD (Geography) at the University of Auckland in 2011. His main research interests range from Antarctic, terrestrial bioregions, environmental impact assessments, and land use and land cover change models. Currently, Fraser leads an MBIE research programme investigating the environmental pressures on the Ross Sea region of Antarctica, and continues to be involved in modelling the implications of various environmental policies and changing farmer behaviour within New Zealand. His strong interest in science to policy advice, led him to work on the Antarctic Environments Portal, a platform for science to policy advice to the Antarctic Consultative Treaty Meetings, in association with Antarctica New Zealand. More about Fraser here.
Inga Smith
Associate Investigator
Inga Smith specialises in sea ice and energy research, particularly the influence of freshwater on Antarctic sea ice formation in a warming climate. She is based in the University of Otago’s Department of Physics. Inga’s research interests include supercooling measurement instrumentation, platelet ice formation, climate modelling of ice-ocean interactions, international transport emissions, and building physics. Inga is the co-chair of the CLIVAR/CliC/SCAR Southern Ocean Region Panel, an international research coordination panel. She is PI on sea ice and climate change related projects funded by the Marsden Fund and Deep South National Science Challenge. More about Inga here.
Isabel Castro
Associate Investigator
Isabel Castro, from Massey University’s Wildlife and Ecology Group (College of Sciences) is a wildlife biologist with broad interests including animal behaviour, parasite-host interactions, anatomy, morphology, sensory biology, and conservation. Isabel’s research is on island species, particularly birds, but also introduced mammals and charismatic land snails. She has strong Hapu/Iwi connections, particularly with Ngati Kuta-Te Patukeha and Ngai Tuhoe, and has a passion for solving conservation problems, finding new biological wonders about animals, and working with technology. Isabel is a member of the Kiwi Recovery Group, the NZ Banding Advisory Committee, Wildbase, and leads the Behavioural Ecology Group at Massey University. More about Isabel here.
James Sneyd
Associate Investigator
James is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Auckland who specialises in mathematical biology. After completing his undergraduate study at the University of Otago, James went on to do a PhD in Mathematical Biology at New York University, then worked as a postdoctoral researcher with well-known mathematical biologist James Murray at the University of Oxford. Prior to settling in Auckland and taking up his current role in the early 2000s, he worked for various other universities across different cities in the US and New Zealand. His major research interests include the network science of biochemical reactions inside cells, and biological complex systems such as the emergent behaviour of social insects. More about James here.
Jonathan Tonkin
Associate Investigator
Jonathan (Jono) is a quantitative community ecologist in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury. Jono’s research includes uncovering the causes and consequences of species roles in complex multilayer interaction networks, developing mechanistic models to improve the forecast of biodiversity under global change, understanding the structure and dynamics of biodiversity in river networks, and quantifying multi-scale ecological stability. He was recently awarded a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship and the inaugural New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society Early Career Researcher Award. He is also an editor at Freshwater Biology, Austral Ecology and PeerJ. More about Jono here.
Kate Hannah
Deputy Director, Equity and Diversity; Executive Manager
Kate Hannah has a Master of Arts (2004) from Waikato University in 19th Century American Literary Culture. Her principal research area is the historiography of the history of science, with a focus on the cultures and subcultures of science, gender in science history, and narrative and complexity. She holds dual roles at Te Pūnaha Matatini, a New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence for complex systems and networks – executive manager and associate investigator; she is a research fellow in the Department of Physics at the University of Auckland, course convener of Science Scholars 101, and a Te Pūnaha Matatini-funded PhD candidate in the Science and Society Group at Victoria University Wellington, investigating novel hybrid methodologies for the historiography of science. Basically, she’s a historian in a Physics department. More about Kate here.
Kirsten Locke
Associate Investigator
Kirsten Locke is senior lecturer in the School of Critical Studies in Education at the University of Auckland. As a philosopher of education, Kirsten is particularly interested in the philosophical theories that underpin mass education systems and the ways these shape issues of gender equity and democracy in education more broadly. Her recent research has focused on women in academia and the ways in which women navigate the university landscape. Kirsten sits on the Executive Board of the innovative publishing platform for the Association of Visual Pedagogies, is Editor for the New Zealand Journal of Women’s Studies alongside three other feminist scholars, and has a long association as Associate Editor for the journal Educational Philosophy and Theory. She is also the Secretary and Awards Convenor for the New Zealand Association of Research in Education (NZARE) and was awarded the Early Career Research Excellence Award for the University of Auckland in 2016. More about Kirsten here.
Krushil Watene
Associate Investigator
Krushil Watene is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Massey University in Albany, Auckland. Krushil’s research addresses fundamental questions in moral and political philosophy, particularly those related to well-being, development, and justice. Her primary areas of expertise include mainstream theories of well-being and justice (particularly the capability approach), obligations to future generations, and indigenous (particularly Māori) philosophies. Krushil’s recent research pioneers high-level discussions of indigenous concepts in global justice theorising, grounded in research that demonstrates the central role of local indigenous communities. More about Krushil here.
Leilani Walker
Associate Investigator
Leilani is a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Health and Environmental Science at the Auckland University of Technology. In her current role she is investigating how landowner values around native reforestation shape landscape management decisions. Leilani completed her PhD in behavioural ecology and evolution at the University of Auckland and her research interests include biodiversity, animal behaviour and relationships between New Zealanders and native flora and fauna. More about Leilani here.
Les Oxley
Associate Investigator
Les Oxley is Professor of Economics at the University of Waikato. His research interests include sustainable economic development, economic growth and wellbeing, anthropometrics, cliometrics, time series econometrics, and the economics of China. Les was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2004 and is Chair of the 2018 Business & Economics Panel of the PBRF. He was awarded the Waikato Management School Dean’s Award for Research Excellence in 2014. More about Les here.
Lynn Riggs
Associate Investigator
Lynn Riggs is a Research Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research. Prior to taking on this role in July 2018, Lynn had worked for the US government for 20 years. She most recently worked for the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the primary regulator of swaps and futures markets. Prior to that, she worked at the US Bureau of the Census and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lynn also taught health economics and microeconomics as an adjunct professor at DePaul University in Chicago. She has worked extensively with large, confidential data sets in the US, including the US Longitudinal Business Database (LBD) and other firm-level data. Lynn’s research interests are in labour, health, education, and financial economics. She received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. More about Lynn here.
Marama Muru-Lanning
Associate Investigator
Marama Muru-Lanning is a Senior Research Fellow and Research Director of the James Henare Māori Research Centre at the University of Auckland. Her research is primarily concerned with debates and critical challenges in social anthropology where she focuses on the cultural specificity of iwi-Māori and their unique sense of place and belonging in New Zealand. Marama’s current research focuses on the commodification and privatisation of water and other natural resources. She also leads a number of kaumātua and interdisciplinary research projects. Her book Tūpuna Awa: People and Politics of the Waikato River, was published by Auckland University Press in 2016. Marama is from Tūrangawaewae Marae and is of Waikato Tainui and Ngāti Maniapoto descent. More about Marama here.
Mark Gahegan
Associate Investigator
Mark is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Auckland and the Director of the Centre for e-Research, a group that helps researchers tackle challenging computational research. Prior to his current roles, he was the Associate Director of the GeoVISTA Center at Pennsylvania State University for a period of nine years. Mark has an extensive and varied range of research interests including most aspects of geographic information science, geo-visualization, remote sensing, spatial data structures and algorithms, cyber-infrastructure, knowledge representation, and discovery science. More about Mark here.
Mark Wilson
Associate Investigator
Mark is a senior lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Auckland. After completing a PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Mark worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Auckland, then at Northern Illinois University and the University of Montana. He then joined the Computer Science Department at the University of Auckland in 2001. Mark’s primary research interests include discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science, mathematical theory of voting and elections, and models of social networks. More about Mark here.
Markus Luczak-Roesch
Associate Investigator
Markus is an Associate Professor of Information Systems at Victoria University of Wellington. As a computer scientist by education he is working on mathematical models and computational tools that allow for capturing temporal dynamics in complex systems such as human language, brain activities, and digital traces online, in order to ultimately understand emergence. Before joining Victoria University of Wellington, Markus was involved with the project SOCIAM – The Theory and Practice of Social Machines in the UK where he helped pioneer novel methods to understand the complex socio-technical environment of the World Wide Web. More about Markus here.
Matthew Parry
Associate Investigator
Matt Parry’s main areas of research are the development and use of scoring rules/score matching for evaluating probabilistic forecasts, the application of statistical and mathematical models to the spread of plant diseases, and, more recently, statistical analysis for genome-wide methylation studies. Matt’s PhD was in theoretical cosmology at Brown University and he is now a Senior Lecturer at in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics at the University of Otago. More about Matt here.
Maui Hudson
Associate Investigator
Maui is a member of the Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board and Director on Eastern Seafarms Limited, and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Waikato. Maui’s research is interdisciplinary in nature focusing on the application of Mātauranga Māori to decision-making across a range of contexts from new technologies to health, the environment to innovation. Access to data and governance of data are key issues emerging from his research and underpin his involvement in Te Mana Raraunga, the Māori Data Sovereignty Network. More about Maui here.
Melinda Allen
Associate Investigator
Melinda is a Professor of Archaeology in the Discipline of Anthropology at University of Auckland. Prior to joining the University in 1996, she was a Research Anthropologist at Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, the Hawai’i State Museum of Cultural and Natural History. Melinda’s research focuses on indigenous marine fisheries, human colonisation processes, traditional agroeconomies, landscape change and other aspects of human palaeoecology. She is particularly interested in the dynamics of socio-natural systems, including human impacts, feedback relations, and emergent resilient (vulnerable) outcomes. She specialises in Polynesian archaeology with current study sites in the Cook Islands, Marquesas Islands, and New Zealand. Melinda is Editor of the Journal of the Polynesian Society (1892–), one of the oldest continuously published anthropology journals in the world—although she has not been at the helm quite that long! More about Melinda here.
Michael O'Sullivan
Associate Investigator
Michael is a Senior Lecturer in Engineering Science at the University of Auckland who specialises in Operations Research (OR). After completing a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science and a Masters in OR at the University of Auckland, Michael spent time at Stanford University in the US where he obtained a MS in Engineering-Economic Systems and OR, and a PhD in Management Science and Engineering. Michael created the research group Operations Research Union Analytics (ORUA) which combines OR and analytics to develop intelligent systems. More about Michael here.
Michelle Dickinson
Associate Investigator
Michelle is a Senior Lecturer in Engineering at the University of Auckland and the Director of Nanogirl Labs. Michelle obtained her PhD from Rutgers University in the US and a MEng in Biomedical Materials Engineering from Manchester University in the UK. Her main research focus is in measuring the nanomechanical behaviour of biological materials. She is a strong advocate for open, transparent science and has won several prestigious awards, including the Women of Influence award for science and innovation in 2016 and the Prime Minister’s Science Media Communication Prize in 2014. More about Michelle here.
Mubashir Qasim
Associate Investigator
Mubashir Qasim is a Scientist (Analytics) at the Research and Development department of Livestock Improvement Corporation with an interdisciplinary background in data science, statistics, mathematics, econometrics, bibliometrics, and applied economics. Mubashir completed his PhD on Sustaining Intergenerational Well-being at the University of Waikato in Hamilton. His research interests include a broad range of topics around the economics of disruptive technologies (eg. 5G, block-chain, artificial intelligence), closed loop economies, comprehensive system of national accounts, and inter-temporal sustainability and well-being. Mubashir has won several scholarships including Marsden funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand and several other awards and during his academic and professional journey. He is also a co-founder of an IoT and big data analytics start-up called Qubits Technologies Limited. More about Mubashir here.
Nirmal Nair
Associate Investigator
Nirmal Nair is an Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and directs the Power Systems Group at the University of Auckland. Nirmal’s research interests include integration of Distributed/Renewable electricity resources to energy infrastructure with emphasis on blackouts, protection, restoration resilience, economics and Innovation (Smart Grid, PV, Storage, EV integration). He is exploring big-data analysis, power law distribution and graph theoretic work around blackout prevention through Te Pūnaha Matatini. More about Nirmal here.
Niven Winchester
Associate Investigator
Niven is a Senior Fellow at Motu Economic & Public Policy Research and a Principal Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Niven’s research evaluating climate policies using applied general equilibrium models has been published in major academic journals and informed policy discussions. He is also interested in sports analytics and his research on sports ranking systems inspired a change to the rugby bonus point system. He is co-editor of the Journal of Global Economic Analysis and was twice named a Global Trade Analysis Project Research Fellow for excellence in research. More about Niven here.
Phil Wilson
Associate Investigator
Phil is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Mathematics & Statistics at the University of Canterbury, and is Deputy Director of the not-for-profit initiative Maths Craft New Zealand. Trained in mathematical fluid dynamics in the UK, Phil worked in biomathematics in Japan, and now likes to apply mathematics to problems in geology, oceanography, industry, sport, and space. He has made forays into the philosophy of mathematics, and with Maths Craft New Zealand has helped to organise free public engagement festivals at which over 10,000 people have attended. More about Phil here.
Priscilla Wehi
Incoming Co-Director, Te Pūnaha Matatini
Priscilla (Cilla) is a conservation biologist and Rutherford Discovery Fellow at Manaaki Whenua / Landcare Research in Dunedin. Since completing a PhD in ecology and Māori at the University of Waikato, her research has focused on the links between culture and biodiversity, and ecological restoration. Cilla is passionate about inclusivity and diversity in science and is part of the 2018 Homeward Bound programme – the largest ever all-female Antarctic expedition that aims to raise awareness of the low representation of women working in Stemm. Cilla is also a member of the Predator-Free 2050 Bioethics Panel and the Kindness in Science Committee sponsored by Te Pūnaha Matatini. More about Priscilla here.
Rachael Ka'ai-Mahuta
Associate Investigator
Rachael is a Senior Lecturer at Te Ipukarea (National Māori Language Institute) and Associate Director of Te Whare o Rongomaurikura (International Centre for Language Revitatalisation) at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). Rachael, who is of Māori, Hawaiian, and Cook Island Māori descent, completed a PhD in 2010 before commencing at AUT in 2011. Her research interests include: the Māori oral tradition and performing arts; the revitalisation of Indigenous languages, traditions and knowledge; Indigenous Peoples’ rights; and the politics of identity and place, especially in relation to the Indigenous diaspora. More about Rachael here.
Richard Arnold
Associate Investigator
Richard is an Associate Professor in Statistics at Victoria University of Wellington. He started his research career in astronomy, and has transited into work in a variety of problems in Applied Statistics, often approaching analysis from a Bayesian Statistical viewpoint. Richard’s research interests are in directional statistics, reliability theory and clustering, and a variety of applications of these techniques in areas such as geophysics, linguistics and fisheries. He has been the election night forecaster for Television New Zealand, and has in interest in improving the public understanding of statistics. More about Richard here.
Sandra Velarde
Associate Investigator
Sandra is an Associate Research Leader at Scion (New Zealand Forest Research Institute) where she manages the environmental economics and governance research portfolios. Her interests are adaptive governance, integration and implementation science, ecological economics, urban green spaces, indigenous forestry, and biofuels. Born and raised in Peru, Sandra’s curious mind has taken her to work on sustainability issues in Italy, Kenya, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. She uses visual tools for sense-making and enjoys graphic recording, water colours, marketing her family business, and advocating for women in science leadership and kindness in science. More about Sandra here.
Simone Linz
Associate Investigator
Simone is a Senior Lecturer in the University of Auckland’s Department of Computer Science and a specialist in developing mathematical tools to describe evolutionary relationships between biological species. Simone first became interested in theoretical questions underlying biology during her PhD, which she completed at the University of Düsseldorf in Germany. Of note, she was awarded a three-year Marsden Fund Fast-Start Grant in 2015, and took part in the University of Auckland Women in Leadership Programme in 2016. More about Simone here.
Steffen Lippert
Associate Investigator
Steffen is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Auckland’s Business School and a Co-Founder of the Research Network for Applied and Theoretical Economics. He has also lectured in Economics at the University of Otago and Massey University. Steffen completed a PhD at the Toulouse School of Economics and Mannheim University, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm. His current research interests include the economics of innovation, industrial economics, and the economics of social interaction and networks. More about Steffen here.
Tahu Kukutai
Associate Investigator
Tahu Kukutai is Professor of Demography at the National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis. She was raised in Ngaruawahia, where she lives with her husband and three children, and affiliates to Ngāti Tiipa, Ngāti Kinohaku, Ngāti Mahanga and Te Aupōuri. Tahu specialises in Māori and indigenous demographic research and has written extensively on issues of Māori population change, Māori identity and official statistics. She co-edited Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Toward an Agenda and is a founding member of the Māori Data Sovereignty Network Te Mana Raraunga. Tahu has undertaken research for numerous indigenous communities and Government agencies. She is a member of the Chief Science Advisors Forum and the Child Wellbeing Strategy Reference Group that is informing the development of the Government’s first child wellbeing strategy. Tahu has degrees in history, sociology and demography from the University of Waikato and Stanford University. She was previously a journalist. More about Tahu here.
Tammy Steeves
Associate Investigator
Tammy is an Associate Professor of Conservation Genomics at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha/University of Canterbury where she co-leads the Conservation, Systematics and Evolution Research Team (ConSERT). Tammy’s research interests focus on the ecological and evolutionary processes that contribute to the formation and maintenance of species boundaries, and the application of this knowledge to enhance the recovery of species at risk. In partnership with mana whenua and in collaboration with conservation practitioners, her team uses genomic and non-genomic data to co-develop conservation genetic management strategies for some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s rarest taonga species. More about Tammy here.
Tara McAllister
Associate Investigator
Tara is a Research Fellow with Te Pūnaha Matatini and recently completed her PhD in Freshwater Ecology at the University of Canterbury where she investigated the environmental drives of toxic algal blooms. Tara’s research interests include co-developing research with Māori communities, freshwater ecology, mātauranga Māori and the experiences of Māori academics in crown Universities. More about Tara here.
Tze Ming Mok
Associate Investigator
Tze Ming is an interdisciplinary social researcher with a background in human rights advocacy, writing, and public policy evaluation. Her research interests are race and ethnicity (particularly inequalities, ethnic segregation, multiple ethnicity, and ethnic measurement); and mixed-methods evaluation approaches. She is currently a PhD Candidate in the Social Policy Department of the London School of Economics, an Associate of progressive policy thinktank The Workshop, and Council member of the Population Association of New Zealand. More about Tze Ming here.
William Godsoe
Associate Investigator
William is a Senior Lecturer in the BioProtection Research Centre at Lincoln University in New Zealand. William earned his PhD at the University of Idaho studying the long-term consequences of cooperation and coevolution between plants and insects. He then completed a Post-Doctoral fellowship at the U.S. National Institute for Mathematical and Biological synthesis. William is an ecologist who seeks to better predict how species will respond to climate change and other environmental disturbances. To do this he integrates insights from other disciplines including evolution, information and game theory. More about William here.