Events

Using DNA markers to shed light on Māori agricultural practices and mimicry in Alseuosmia shrubs


In this talk, Dr Lara Shepherd from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, will discuss two current research projects. She is using DNA sequence data to gain insight into past Māori plant cultivation and to examine the domestication of a number endemic plants and tracing their subsequent translocations around New Zealand. She is also using environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques, combined with microfossil analyses, to examine Māori agricultural practices at garden sites on the Wairarapa coastline.


More information.

Presenting Dr Ashley Bloomfield - Director-General of Health and Chief Executive, Ministry of Health.

By way of background, Dr Bloomfield qualified in medicine at the University of Auckland in 1990 and after several years of clinical work, then specialised in public health medicine. His particular area of professional interest is non-communicable disease prevention and control, and he spent 2011 at the World Health Organization in Geneva working on this topic at a global level.

Prior to commencing as Director-General, Dr Bloomfield was Chief Executive at the Hutt Valley District Health Board and has previously held several senior leadership roles within the Ministry of Health. From 2012–15 he was Director of Service Integration and Development and General Manager Population Health at Capital & Coast, Hutt and Wairarapa District Health Boards.

The School of Population Health is found immediately on the right through the main gate 1 at 261 Morrin Road, Glen Innes; there is a free visitor car park just inside the main gate.


More information. 

Visiting researcher Eric Vandendriessche (SPHERE, CNRS & Paris Diderot University) will give an overview of current research in ethnomathematics aiming at studying two procedural activities carried out in various indigenous societies, and by the Northern Ambrym Islanders (Vanuatu, South Pacific) in particular.

These practices consist in making a figure, either with a loop of string ("string-figure making", using fingers and sometimes feet and mouth) or by drawing a continuous line in the sand with one finger ("sand drawing").

The algorithmic and geometric characteristics of both activities will be examined in their relationships with culturally specific practices, and in their links with other particular expressions of symbolic systems. Finally, we will see that a comparative study of such activities - bearing a mathematical character- should contribute to revealing criteria for identifying "mathematical practices"in an oral tradition cultural context, which is a core issue in ethnomathematics.

More information.

The technology and promise of big data, together with algorithms and artificial intelligence, have revolutionised our society. They bring not only new opportunities, but also risks, to the way we live, work and make decisions. In private business and in the public sector, these evolving technologies have been used for the purposes of profiling, monitoring, predictive analysis and risk calculation. At the same time, we, as individuals, have become digitised data selves. More worrying, the proxy data self can dictate the life of the corporeal self, as we have seen in the practice of financial credit scoring or social credit scoring.

This lecture explores data privacy protection for the digitized persona, focusing on the challenges brought by profiling. The speaker argues that we should move from a pure opt-in consent regime to an accountability model for big data analytics.

Speaker: Professor Anne Cheung
Anne S.Y. Cheung is a professor in the Department of Law at the University of Hong Kong. She received her legal education at the University of Hong Kong (LLB), the University of Toronto (JD), University of London (LLM) and Stanford University (JSD). She has taught media law, and law and society. Her research interests include freedom of expression and privacy, focusing on the challenges brought by the internet and technology. Her recent projects are on cyberbullying and China’s social credit system.

More information.

The intersectional perspective, commonly used in Gender Studies since the late 1980s, appeared in the literature of Social Inequalities in Health (SIH) in the early 2000s. In this presentation, Associate Professor Estelle Carde will examine the value of this perspective for research on SIH: how can it help to read, in the health of individuals, the evidence of multiple, overlapping and co-constructed unequal relationships?

After a presentation of the principles that characterize intersectionality, Estelle will give a few examples of how intersectionality can expand the analysis of empirical results on SIH. Concluding with the changes that intersectionality has brought to SIH research. This presentation will mostly rely on a review of literature but it will also include some of Estelle's own empirical research done in French Guyana.

Speaker Bios
Estelle Carde is an associate professor of Sociology at the Université de Montréal, Canada. Her main research interest is social inequalities in health. Her first researches focused on foreigners and racial minorities’ health. Her angle was the discriminations in their access to care. Some of these studies were conducted in French Guiana, an oversea French territory, whose ethnic composition, slavery past and location in South America give altogether a specific configuration to such discriminations within the French health system. She has subsequently broadened her approach to social inequalities in health by considering other social status than that of foreign origin and race, such as socio-economic status and gender, in an intersectional perspective. Her present research focuses on the social inequalities in the credibility of the speech of people who report suffering from chronic pain.

More information.

Inaugural Professorial Lecture - Professor Michael Schultz

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a group of chronic disorders which can have debilitating effects on some patients. The incidence of IBD is increasing and affects mainly young people in their productive years. The disease is thought to be the result of an over-aggressive response of the gut immune system towards microorganisms.

For many years, the fundamental aspect of Michael’s research has been to understand the interaction of the host immune system with the gut microbiota, initially using animal models and cell cultures with the development of organoids (mini-guts) in the laboratory and later translating his findings to help patients.

As a clinician, he aims to improve the care of patients with IBD through better access to new medications and the development of non-medical interventions. He is also using digital technology, through applications on smart phone devices and telemedicine to assist the timely access and efficacy of clinical care.

More information.

The Shift Aotearoa Conference 2019 on 5-7 June at Wellington's Te Papa will bring housing-sector actors together to trigger collaborative action for one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most urgent problems.

Policy makers and officials across government, iwi, community housing practitioners, Māori-housing providers, researchers, analysts, and those delivering housing from the ground up – builders, architects, the construction sector, finance providers, planners, philanthropists, and front-line staff – will join community representatives and rangatahi Māori for three days of learning, networking, and solution creation for fixing Aotearoa New Zealand’s housing delivery system.

Sparked by the latest research from Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities Ko Ngā wā hei Kāinga Whakamāhorahora National Science Challenge, international researchers, and case studies from community housing practitioners in Aotearoa New Zealand the conference will seek to develop a platform for cross-sector action.

More information.

This is Professor Julia Tolmie's Inaugural Lecture. 


It has been suggested that legal professionals/expert witnesses frequently use outdated and inaccurate understandings of intimate partner violence when presenting facts at trial and applying the law to those facts. In this lecture Professor Julia Tolmie will argue that, as a result, defendants who have committed offences in response to their intimate partner violence victimisation may be automatically precluded from accessing the criminal defences that should be available to them. She will use the facts of a particular homicide case to make this point.

*The title stems from a misquote of Professor Elizabeth Sheehy, Defending Battered Women on Trial: Lessons from the Transcripts, UBC Press, 2014, 241. The information contained in the case could be emotionally disturbing to some members of the audience.

Julia Tolmie is a Professor at the University of Auckland. Prior to her appointment at Auckland in 1999 she taught at the University of Sydney for ten years. She served as chair of the New Zealand Family Violence Death Review Committee from December 2011-2016, deputy chair in 2017, as a member of the Government’s Expert Advisory Group on Family Violence in 2013 and academic member of the District Court Judges Education Committee in 2015-2017. She was the inaugural Shirley Greenberg International Visiting Scholar at The University of Ottawa in 2016 and a distinguished visiting scholar at the University of Monash in 2018. She served on the expert panel for several references of the New Zealand Law Commission in 2015 and has published more than 50 articles, chapters and reports on a wide range of criminal and family law topics.

More information.

The University of Canterbury, in collaboration with UC Child Well-being Research Institute and A Better Start National Science Challenge presents the 2019 Child Well-being Research Symposium.

This year’s symposium brings together international and national researchers across fields of education, psychology, public health and speech language therapy, to highlight the exciting interdisciplinary developments in facilitating young children’s success and well-being.

Hosted by the University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha, College of Education, Health and Human Development | Te Rāngai Ako me te Hauora, this two-day symposium is focused on latest research findings and their practical implications. The symposium will be of strong interest to all practitioners working to support the success and well-being of children and their whānau.

More information

Our public seminar is for people interested in research and implementation of physical interventions for improving wellbeing.

In this seminar you will hear from three speakers:

Alex Parker

'Physical activity interventions for young people with depression: From evidence to implementation'

Alex will provide a brief overview of the evidence base for physical activity in preventing and treating mental health conditions in young people. She will also present findings from an original study showing the effectiveness of a physical activity behaviour change intervention for depression in young people, based at headspace centres in Melbourne. Future directions, including treatment settings and modality of physical activity interventions for mental health (including the current development of self-guided online interventions for headspace) will be briefly discussed.

Bio: Alex is the Professor of Physical Activity and Mental Health at the Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University, Melbourne and leads the Healthy and Inclusive Communities research program. Her current research focuses on integrating physical activity behaviour change within usual treatment in youth mental health services.


Alex Shaw

'Virtual reality as a tool to improve exercise'

Alex will talk about his recent research in the use of immersive virtual reality as a tool to enhance exercise videogames (exergames), and the applications this has in promoting physical and cognitive health.

Bio: Alex is a Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Auckland. His current research is focused on the applications of immersive virtual reality in health and education.


Nigel Harris

'High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and mental health in adolescents'

Nigel will present key findings of a recently completed research project funded by National Science Challenge, A Better Start, Cure Kids. The project investigated the effects of a teacher-lead HIIT programme embedded in the school day of eight, low to mid-decile, intermediate level schools across Auckland.

Bio: Nigel is Associate Professor at Auckland University of Technology, with a research emphasis on exercise for health and wellbeing. Nigel is the Principal Investigator of this project.


More information.

Speaker: Professor Peter C Fineran, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Otago


Bacteria have evolved ‘immune systems’ as a result of their constant exposure to foreign mobile genetic elements, including bacteriophages and plasmids. For example, an estimated 1025 bacteriophage infections occur every second. Other mobile genetic elements can harbour antibiotic resistance or pathogenicity determinants, which influence bacterial evolution and our ability to treat infectious diseases.


To thwart these invaders, bacteria have many resistance strategies, including innate immunity, such as restriction-modification and abortive infection systems, and adaptive immunity provided by the CRISPR-Cas systems. Recently, there have been major advances in our understanding of these systems. They have also been exploited as molecular biology reagents and underpinned a biotechnological revolution. In this seminar Professor Fineran will present his research into these bacterial immune systems.

More information.

We are pleased to announce that the first lecture in the 2019 Tauranga Public Lecture Series will take place on Monday 10 June from 6.00pm and will be given by Te Kura Toi Tangata School of Education lecturer, Dr Katrina McChesney. Entitled Taking Care of Our Youth, Dr McChesney will address the role of schools in supporting young people's mental health and wellbeing, asking: Why should schools be involved in this effort? How can this be done? And how well are schools in Aotearoa New Zealand doing in this area?


Originally a secondary school mathematics teacher, Dr McChesney spent six years working on a large education reform project in Abu Dhabi in the Middle East from 2009-2015. There, she was involved in teacher professional development, curriculum development, assessment policy and practice, and resource development and selection for the public school system from early childhood to secondary levels. Her PhD research (2012-2017) looked at teacher professional development in the Abu Dhabi context and highlighted the impacts of cultural and contextual factors on this process. Dr McChesney also worked on literacy and numeracy assessment for NZQA and contributed to research and professional development projects on socioemotional school climates, student mental health and wellbeing, and student behaviour. She now works in initial teacher education at the University of Waikato, Tauranga campus and online.

More information.

Nicola Macaulay is a researcher, an AFHEA-accredited teaching assistant, and experienced tutor who has previously marked papers covering a range of topics in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes with the Centre for Defence and Security Studies since 2014. Nicola’s key interests lie in intelligence, border security and cyber security and the implication of these on individual, national and international security.

More information.

Linked data to quantify rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease in Australia: challenges and methods

The Australian Rheumatic Heart Disease Burden Study aims to characterise the epidemiology of rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease across five States and Territories using linked administrative data from diverse sources. This presentation outlines the challenges of - and methods developed to address - fragmented and inconsistent data coupled by systematic problems in the ICD coding structure.

Speaker
Judith Katzenellenbogen is a cardiovascular epidemiologist at the University of Western Australia, with broad experience in South Africa, NZ and Australia. Her current work focuses on Indigenous CVD and research translation. She leads the Australian linked data project on ARF/RHD burden and contributes to a range of CVD projects across Australia.

More information.

Public Lecture by Professor Onwubiko (Biko) Agozino (Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Virginia USA), Seelye Visiting Fellow

Decolonization Paradigm and Liberation Criminology

The criminology discipline is closely tied to the project of colonization and patriarchal imperialism as a science designed for the control of Others. Prior to colonization, Indigenous Peoples had no prisons and remained overwhelmingly law abiding until the colonizers brought the repressive fetishes of Anglobalization to effect genocide, steal the land, and enslave the survivors.


The other social sciences and the arts and humanities were quicker to make efforts towards decolonization, while criminology remains embedded with the state power structures and therefore control-freak criminologists are more likely to resist the ongoing decolonization of theory, methodology and especially policy.

More information.

Please join us for this Inaugural Professorial Lecture by Professor Jeremy Krebs of the Department of Medicine, University of Otago, Wellington.

About Jeremy's research
Jeremy is an endocrinologist with a particular interest in diabetes and obesity. His research spans the gap between molecular and basic science and public health translation, with a very clinical focus. Supporting and developing junior researchers across multidisciplinary fields including medicine, nursing, nutrition and basic science is important to him. Having completed his doctorate in Human Nutrition Research in Cambridge, UK, his research interests mainly concentrate on the nutritional approaches to addressing obesity and the close link with type 2 diabetes.

https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/events/otago710701.html

Join EdTechNZ and TechWomen to reframe the question of how we can achieves diversity in the technology sector and debate gender equality issues in a fun and dynamic format.

For Auckland and Christchurch dates, check techalliance.nz.