Events

Join us at the Wellington campus of the University of Otago for Summer Talks and hear experts discussing today’s public health issues. This series is part of the 2021 Public Health Summer School and open to all. 

Monday 1 February 2021 

The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic
The Right Honourable Helen Clark
Former UNDP Administrator and Prime Minister of New Zealand

Includes the Opening of the Public Health Summer School.

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The New Zealand Association of Scientists will be hosting webinars on regular intervals and this is the first. We're starting with an Early Career Researchers (#ECRs) theme, with a panel of ECRs who played a  valuable role in Te Pūnaha Matatini's modelling response that informed the Government.

We'll use an interactive "town hall" format to enable ECRs to tell their story, discuss and take questions. It's like a town hall meeting for science in Aotearoa. Register here to get the zoom link sent to you!

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The University of Waikato will be hosting the 2020 New Zealand Linguistics Society Language and Society Conference from 10 - 12 February 2021.

The intention is for the conference to go ahead at the Hamilton Campus of the University of Waikato, but with the current Covid-19 Pandemic the possibility that it may need to be offered online is being planned for.  Please note, if the conference does go ahead face-to-face then online presentation options will still be available for those who are not able to travel to Hamilton.

The aim is to make the conference as environmentally sustainable as possible – delegates will be requested to bring their own name badges and coffee mugs.

Proposals for presentations are invited and must consist of a 250 word abstracts (not including references).  A 100 word bio is also to be included.  All questions about submissions should be emailed to langsoc@waikato.ac.nz

A call for papers is available on Easy Chair.

Important dates to take note of:

1 November 2020 - Due date for abstract submission

14 December 2020 - Abstract notification

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Join us for this summer talk being presented by Dr Jonathan Jarman, Medical Officer of Health, Taranaki District Health Board.

Being able to quickly identify what is safe and what is not keeps us alive. But how do we decide what is safe when the threat is a new unknown disease and we are flooded with conflicting information? The purpose of this talk is to explore how we perceive risks such as COVID-19 and what sort of risk communication challenges lie ahead for us as a country in the future.

This talk is part of our Summer Talks series.

All are welcome and refreshments will be served following the talk.

The talk will also be livestreamed.

The University of Waikato will be hosting the 2020 New Zealand Linguistics Society Language and Society Conference from 10 - 12 February 2021.

The intention is for the conference to go ahead at the Hamilton Campus of the University of Waikato, but with the current Covid-19 Pandemic the possibility that it may need to be offered online is being planned for.  Please note, if the conference does go ahead face-to-face then online presentation options will still be available for those who are not able to travel to Hamilton.

The aim is to make the conference as environmentally sustainable as possible – delegates will be requested to bring their own name badges and coffee mugs.

Proposals for presentations are invited and must consist of a 250 word abstracts (not including references).  A 100 word bio is also to be included.  All questions about submissions should be emailed to langsoc@waikato.ac.nz

A call for papers is available on Easy Chair.

Important dates to take note of:

1 November 2020 - Due date for abstract submission

14 December 2020 - Abstract notification

More information

We invite you to join us at our upcoming SSS Cyber Security Day event. Refreshments and lunch will be included.

The solution to the challenges we face today is not new technology but changing old mindsets. We cannot solve new world problems brought on by the changing consumer and technology landscape with an old-world mindset. By continuously looking at the future to unlock economic and social value, it presents an opportunity for real innovation, a dramatic shift in perspective, and adopting resilient operating processes. Our challenge is to think and plan beyond purely technical controls and build an enterprise cybersecurity program that includes user awareness, cyber resilience, and a holistic program that protects the enterprise.

Join us for a coffee from 9:30 for a 10:00 start.

The event will consist of relevant speaking topics, a panel discussion, and demos.

This event is mostly suited to experienced IT professionals and those in senior level roles.

Haere mai, join us for the first NZGBC Future Thinkers event of the year! We’ll be hosting a panel discussion on the recent declaration of a climate emergency here in Aotearoa and what this means for our cities.

What interventions will reduce emissions from cities and how can we make them happen?

Come along to hear from panelists on carbon and buildings, water sensitive urban design, transport, and construction and demolition waste.

This will be an opportunity for our Future Thinkers to hear about what we can do next in our cities, ask questions, and learn together.

Thank you to our Future Thinkers sponsors, Bayleys Real Estate and Mott MacDonald for helping make this event happen.

NZGBC Future Thinkers is a young professionals and students group, connecting people in the building industry who have an interest in a sustainable future for our urban environments.

Diana Brown’s recent biography of Dr Muriel Bell relied heavily on the Hocken Library’s collection of papers from Otago Medical School. Diana will share her experiences in researching in the archives on the life of this prominent Dunedin doctor, scientist and scholar. Dr Bell’s Papers joined the register for New Zealand’s Memory of the World in 2020.

Diana will talk about Dr Bell’s views on public health and personal health in New Zealand in the 1920s-1970s. A pioneering woman scientist, Muriel Bell devoted her life to nutrition research from a public health perspective. As the first appointed state nutritionist, she investigated nutritional problems unique to New Zealanders. Her contribution to the success of public health initiatives in the mid-20th century included promoting good nutrition, quality assurance of school milk and campaigning for water fluoridation.

Diana Brown graduated from Otago with a Master’s degree in History in 2006. She focused on the history of public health research at Otago Medical School. Otago University Press published her biography of Dr Muriel Bell in 2018.

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The University of Waikato will be hosting the 2020 New Zealand Linguistics Society Language and Society Conference from 10 - 12 February 2021.

The intention is for the conference to go ahead at the Hamilton Campus of the University of Waikato, but with the current Covid-19 Pandemic the possibility that it may need to be offered online is being planned for.  Please note, if the conference does go ahead face-to-face then online presentation options will still be available for those who are not able to travel to Hamilton.

The aim is to make the conference as environmentally sustainable as possible – delegates will be requested to bring their own name badges and coffee mugs.

Proposals for presentations are invited and must consist of a 250 word abstracts (not including references).  A 100 word bio is also to be included.  All questions about submissions should be emailed to langsoc@waikato.ac.nz

A call for papers is available on Easy Chair.

Important dates to take note of:

1 November 2020 - Due date for abstract submission

14 December 2020 - Abstract notification

More information

Department of Medicine Seminar Series

Emeritus Professor Jerome Dempsey PhD
International presenter via Zoom from UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health

In the healthy, untrained young adult, a case is made for a respiratory system (airways, pulmonary vasculature, lung parenchyma, respiratory muscles, and neural ventilatory control system) that is near ideally designed to ensure a highly efficient, homeostatic response to exercise of varying intensities and durations.

Our aim was then to consider circumstances in which the intra/extrathoracic airways, pulmonary vasculature, respiratory muscles, and/or blood-gas distribution are underbuilt or inadequately regulated relative to the demands imposed by the cardiovascular system.

In these instances, the respiratory system presents a significant limitation to O2 transport and contributes to the occurrence of locomotor muscle fatigue, inhibition of central locomotor output, and exercise performance.

Most prominent in these examples of an “underbuilt” respiratory system are highly trained endurance athletes, with additional influences of sex, aging, hypoxic environments, and the highly inbred equine.

We summarize by evaluating the relative influences of these respiratory system limitations on exercise performance and their impact on pathophysiology and provide recommendations for future investigation.

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Science Show

For International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Otago Museum wants to connect you with some of our very own local role models in STEM!

On Saturday, 13 February, we’re handing over the Hutton Theatre to local scientists – some of whom you may recognize from 100 women, 100 words... infinite possibilities – who want to share their work with you through hands-on demonstrations and activities.

Wiring circuits, extracting banana DNA, coating test tubes in silver ions, building earthquake-proof structures and more – this is an incredible opportunity for interactive experiences designed to inspire and ignite science engagement for the next generation.

Science is everywhere, STEM is amazing, and scientists can look like anything! Come along and be inspired.

10am – 2pm, Saturday 13 February 2021
Ages 10+
Hutton Theatre
Free

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An efficient and reliable energy system is fundamental to economic growth and wellbeing in New Zealand.

What is the Summer School?

The Summer School program focusses on key challenges facing New Zealand, including dependence on imported liquid fuels, transitioning to a low carbon economy, electrification of transport, renewable electricity, public transport and climate change.

Presentations cover New Zealand energy and global trends; oil, gas, electricity and carbon markets; energy resources including hydro, geothermal, fossil fuels, wind and solar; patterns of energy demand, energy conservation; innovative technology, such as? electric vehicles and hydrogen; and government policy.

Insights into the practical aspects of energy supply and demand will come from industry representatives.

A more detailed description of the Summer School in Energy Economics can be found on the Energy Centre website.

Who can attend?

The Summer School is offered at no cost to anyone studying or working in the energy sector who wants to get a more rigorous appreciation of the various aspects and challenges of energy in New Zealand. There is a limit of 80 participants allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Meals and coffee breaks will be catered for. A certificate of participation will be awarded to the attendees on request.

Parking: Available beneath the Sir Owen G Glenn Building on 12 Grafton Road.

Contact Dinah Towle for more information: d.towle@auckland.ac.nz

More info

An efficient and reliable energy system is fundamental to economic growth and wellbeing in New Zealand.

What is the Summer School?

The Summer School program focusses on key challenges facing New Zealand, including dependence on imported liquid fuels, transitioning to a low carbon economy, electrification of transport, renewable electricity, public transport and climate change.

Presentations cover New Zealand energy and global trends; oil, gas, electricity and carbon markets; energy resources including hydro, geothermal, fossil fuels, wind and solar; patterns of energy demand, energy conservation; innovative technology, such as? electric vehicles and hydrogen; and government policy.

Insights into the practical aspects of energy supply and demand will come from industry representatives.

A more detailed description of the Summer School in Energy Economics can be found on the Energy Centre website.

Who can attend?

The Summer School is offered at no cost to anyone studying or working in the energy sector who wants to get a more rigorous appreciation of the various aspects and challenges of energy in New Zealand. There is a limit of 80 participants allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Meals and coffee breaks will be catered for. A certificate of participation will be awarded to the attendees on request.

Parking: Available beneath the Sir Owen G Glenn Building on 12 Grafton Road.

Contact Dinah Towle for more information: d.towle@auckland.ac.nz

More info

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has raised public awareness of viruses to unprecedented levels. The world has waited with baited breath for the development of effective therapeutic strategies to combat the SARS-CoV-2 virus, hopeful that a vaccine would provide a solution when none had been immediately forthcoming to combat other recent virus pandemics, such as HIV, MERS, and SARS. Moreover, the influenza virus seems never to be too far away, with recent reports of new bird-flu outbreaks sweeping through domestic poultry populations in multiple countries, and the spectre of transmission to humans and a new flu pandemic lurking in the shadows.

Sugars/carbohydrates are important to the life-cycle of many of the viruses that infect humans. In particular cases they can be essential to the virus, either for infection, and/or for evasion of immune response. In this lecture Professor Fairbanks will discuss how some viruses can either profit from, or even hijack, the human cellular machinery that attaches sugars/carbohydrates to biomacromolecules such as proteins.

Professor Fairbanks will firstly outline the major pathway by which humans attach sugars to their own proteins. Then, using the influenza and the SARS-CoV-2 viruses as examples, he will discuss how in the former case the virus uses these sugars as a means of targeted infection, and in the latter how the virus tries to hide itself from the immune system by decorating its spike (S1) glycoprotein with human sugars. He will also detail how the influenza virus’ reliance on human sugars leaves itself open to attack, and the significant roles that carbohydrate chemists continue to play in the ongoing battle against influenza. Finally, he will discuss the attachment of sugars to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the context of the recently approved vaccines that have been developed to target an immune response against it.

An efficient and reliable energy system is fundamental to economic growth and wellbeing in New Zealand.

What is the Summer School?

The Summer School program focusses on key challenges facing New Zealand, including dependence on imported liquid fuels, transitioning to a low carbon economy, electrification of transport, renewable electricity, public transport and climate change.

Presentations cover New Zealand energy and global trends; oil, gas, electricity and carbon markets; energy resources including hydro, geothermal, fossil fuels, wind and solar; patterns of energy demand, energy conservation; innovative technology, such as? electric vehicles and hydrogen; and government policy.

Insights into the practical aspects of energy supply and demand will come from industry representatives.

A more detailed description of the Summer School in Energy Economics can be found on the Energy Centre website.

Who can attend?

The Summer School is offered at no cost to anyone studying or working in the energy sector who wants to get a more rigorous appreciation of the various aspects and challenges of energy in New Zealand. There is a limit of 80 participants allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Meals and coffee breaks will be catered for. A certificate of participation will be awarded to the attendees on request.

Parking: Available beneath the Sir Owen G Glenn Building on 12 Grafton Road.

Contact Dinah Towle for more information: d.towle@auckland.ac.nz

More info

This half day seminar will explain and discuss key developments in government law over the past year, including on the Bill of Rights/human rights, Te Tiriti o Waitangi/Māori issues, judicial review, COVID-19 and more. 

Seminar presented by Dr Jen Purdie - Climate change impacts on the New Zealalnd energy system.

Electricity underpins every facet of New Zealander’s lives, and has national social and economic significance for the country. Significant changes are expected in both the demand and supply sides of electricity under climate change. Rainfall is projected to get higher in the largest New Zealand hydro-electricity catchments over coming decades, and wind to get stronger over much of the country. Changes to the seasonality and volatility of hydro lake inflows are expected.

The Climate Change Commission has called for New Zealand to work towards a high proportion of renewable energy and the accelerated electrification of transport and industry. But is this possible? This seminar will discuss in depth modelling of the NZ electricity system over the next 30 years, given the changes expected to wind and hydro lake inflows. It will examine whether high proportions of renewable generation are possible, and whether electricity can be the “enabler” of decarbonisation through the electrification of our transport and industrial sectors.

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A seminar presented by PhD candidate Stephanie Junior, Department of Geology.

Noble metals – Au, Pd, Pt, Rh, Ru, Ir and Os – and crucial metals – here constrained to Ni, Co, Zn and Cu – are critical metal resources utilised in the innovation of green energy production, a paramount technological advancement for today’s warming world. While primary extractable concentrations of these essential mineral resources unequivocally reside in ore deposits, Earth’s mantle is an important reservoir for metal retention and replenishment that requires further investigation. Zealandia and its surrounding ocean basins uniquely host an array of exposed deep Earth ultramafic bodies, and this research utilises a diverse suite of local continental (mantle xenoliths) and oceanic (ophiolite) ultramafic rocks at varying degrees of melt depletion, chemical enrichment and alteration. Data presented here synthesises whole rock chemistry with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) mineral chemistry and imaging, laser ablation inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) spot analyses, and X-ray fluorescence microscopy (XFM) in-situ element mapping to better understand the ultramafic noble and crucial metal budget, and to glean insight into the mechanisms governing the retention and mobilisation of these important elements.

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Join us at the Wellington campus of the University of Otago for Summer Talks and hear experts discussing today’s public health issues. This series is part of the 2021 Public Health Summer School and open to all. 

Thursday 18 February 2021 

The Three Waters Review is missing the most important fourth water, the source water
Dr Mike Joy
Victoria University of Wellington  

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Climate Commissioner Dr Judy Lawrence will discuss the independent Climate Change Commission’s draft advice to the Government on the steps Aotearoa must take to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change at 5:30pm at Central Baptist Church, 46 Boulcott Street, Wellington, on Thursday 18 February. The event will be live-streamed and available on Zoom.

Public consultation on the draft advice begins tomorrow (Monday February 1) and runs until Sunday March 14. Written submissions are encouraged that respond to the questions and are supported by evidence and the Commission will consider them all and can make further adjustments to the advice as to what is possible over the three budget periods to 2035 and whether the recommendations will set us on a sustainable path to reaching the emissions targets in the Climate Change Response Act.

Dr Judy Lawrence is a member of the Climate Change Commission. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute, Victoria University of Wellington and Director of PS Consulting Ltd. Judy’s career traverses land use management, natural hazards, climate change adaptation and mitigation policy at central and local government. Her academic work focuses on decision making under uncertainty and changing risks and identifying institutional enablers to facilitate robust decision-making for climate change, for example for sea level rise. Judy works with multi-disciplinary teams in New Zealand and internationally and is a Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report.

The event will be live-streamed on YouTube.

More information.

Join us for the UC Teece Museum's first free public talk for 2021, where Associate Professor Peter Field will explore the writings of Thucydides and Plato, and pose the question 'Is Classics the true source of all social sciences?'.

Peter Field is Head of School of Humanities and Creative Arts at the University of Canterbury, and is an Associate Professor of History. His research interests include the social history of the early American republic, American statesmanship, the presidency, and intellectual history from Socrates onward.

FREE entry, but seats are limited so PLEASE register to attend via the Eventbrite link.

WHEN: Thursday 25 Feb, 7pm
WHERE: Teece Museum, UC Arts city location, 3 Hereford St
Museum doors will be open from 6.30pm

This talk is part of our series of free short-format public talks for 2021. For more information on our 2021 events, sign up to the Museum newsletter online at www.teecemuseum.nz

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