Our Bloggers

Lynley Hargreaves

Writes for: Infrequently Asked Questions

Lynley Hargreaves is a freelance science communicator with a background in mathematical physics. After a stint overseas at Physics Today magazine, she spent happy years working for the Royal Society Te Apārangi, albeit with intermittent disappearances to the mountains of the West Coast of the South Island. From this now permanent West Coast base, she has been conducting IAQ interviews since the beginning of 2014, asking a wide range of researchers how their work can give us insights into the workings of the world.

Marcus Wilson

Writes for: Physics Stop

Dr Marcus Wilson is a lecturer in the Engineering Department at Waikato University and author of the Physics Stop blog. His current research involves modelling of the electrical behaviour of the human brain during natural sleep, focussing particularly on the transitions between sleep states. Previous research interests include infra-red physics and signature control (stealth) and quantum Monte Carlo methods. He graduated from Cambridge University in 1992 (BA Hons) and completed his PhD at Bristol University in 1995.

Marie Brown

Writes for: The Nature of Things

Marie is the Senior Policy Analyst for the Environmental Defence Society, a long-running Auckland-based NGO, and lead author of Vanishing Nature: facing New Zealand’s biodiversity crisis. Her research interests include ecology and conservation, compliance and enforcement of environmental law and environmental policy.

Mark Hanna

Writes for: Honest Universe

Mark Hanna is a consumer advocate, intersectional feminist, amateur astronomer, and science lover living in New Zealand. He writes primarily about consumer protection with a focus on the alternative health industry, but also about other topics that he finds interesting or frustrating.

Matt Nolan

Writes for: The Dismal Science

Matt Nolan is an economist with the forecasting team at Wellington-based Infometrics. He enjoys writing on a broad range of economic issues; however his focus is on the household sector including the labour market and consumer spending. Within Infometrics, he is responsible for forecasting the outlook for consumer spending and the labour market, and giving clients an idea of the risks around these forecasts – and what they mean for their bottom line.

Michael Corballis

Writes for: Mind Matters

Michael Corballis was born and educated in New Zealand before completing his PhD in psychology at McGill University, Montreal in 1965. He joined the Psychology Department there in 1968, before being appointed Professor of Psychology at the University of Auckland in 1978, where he is now Emeritus Professor. He has published 11 books and over 400 articles and book chapters on such topics as cognition, memory, language, brain asymmetry, and human evolution. His most recent books are The Recursive Mind (2011), Pieces of Mind (2012), and The Wandering Mind (2013).

Michael Edmonds

Writes for: Molecular Matters

Dr Michael Edmonds has 20 years research experience in organic and analytical chemistry most of which has involved the synthesis and analysis of biological molecules with interesting properties. Some of this work involved developing a new approach to preparing novel fluorinated organic compounds. Since 2010 he has been in a management role and is currently Head of Engineering & Architectural Studies at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology. Over the past few years he has also realised the importance of science communication, and as such started this blog along with giving a range of public talks. Science communication is important for not only encouraging the public to understand and enjoy the benefits of science, but also to immunise them against the purveyors of pseudoscience and anti-scientific sentiments.