Research & Enterprise Waikato

Dr Kiri Joy Wallace, Te Pūtahi Rangahau Taiao (Environmental Research Institute), co-leads the Eco-index, part of the Biological Heritage National Science Challenge. This programme connects biodiversity investment to its outcomes for nature, to whakamana (empower) better native biodiversity management and restoration across Aotearoa.

A/Prof Michael Cameron, Associate Professor in Economics (WMS), has undertaken numerous externally funded projects, including a Health Promotion Authority-funded investigation into the impacts of alcohol outlet density on crime before and after the Sale & Supply of Alcohol Act came into force in 2013. Earlier research is presented here.

Rutherford Discovery Fellow A/Prof Adam Hartland (School of Science) received a RISE award funded by the European Commission and the Royal Society of New Zealand to exchange with Cambridge, Potsdam and Mainz University staff on research to develop novel, quantitative proxies of past climate using speleothems (cave carbonates).

A/Prof Fiona Petchey, from the University's Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, is a leading expert in bone and shell dating. Her unique combination of specialised archaeology and radiocarbon dating expertise has attracted multiple research contracts from the Marsden Fund and the Australian Research Council.

Drs Mira Peter and Elaine Khoo, Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education, co-directed a two-year TLRI-funded project investigating the effect of a “flipped class” on undergraduate engineering students’ learning and mastering of threshold concepts and skills needed to become successful, workplace-ready graduates.

Prof Holly Thorpe and Prof Belinda Wheaton (Faculty of Health) are the first NZ-based researchers to receive a prestigious Advanced Research Project Grant from the International Olympic Committee to explore youth perceptions of the Olympic Games, informing decision-making about new Olympic sports, specifically action sports.