Michael Edmonds • Apr 28, 2016 •
Earlier in the week I attended the New Zealand Association of Scientists conference in Wellington. The theme of the conference was “The Future for Scientists in New Zealand”. It was a very interesting conference with a diverse range of thoughtful and thought-provoking talks. During the conference the idea that young children are natural scientists was mentioned several times – an … Read More
Siouxsie Wiles • Aug 28, 2015 •
NZ’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has accused the NZ Association of Scientists (NZAS) of casting doubt on the integrity of NZ’s scientists, and says it will no longer pay membership fees for its staff. This morning, news broke on Radio NZ National of an internal email within the Crown Research Institute (CRI) NIWA sent … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Apr 08, 2015 •
Over the years I’ve spoken out about a number of issues through this blog, some controversial. (Well, at least some people think they are controversial. But that’s often the point: the issue is often not considered controversial to most scientists, but is to others.) There’s a lot of things you could consider about speaking … Read More
Siouxsie Wiles • Jun 05, 2013 •
At the amazing Kiwifoo earlier this year, Richard Easther floated the idea of doing something to celebrate the great science that is going on in New Zealand. Roll on a few months and Shaun Hendy asks us if we would like to help organise next year’s New Zealand Association of Scientists (NZAS) … Read More
Elf Eldridge • May 12, 2012 •
So, one month on from the NZAS emerging scientist’s conference, what has come from a conference that aimed to discuss whether emerging scientists have a future in New Zealand? The answer, in this author’s opinion at least, has been a resounding ‘Maybe’. One publications that highlighted the themes debated at the conference is ‘Callaghan vision stumbles on realities’ … Read More
Peter Griffin • Apr 19, 2012 •
There has been some good discussion following this week’s Association of Scientists conference in Wellington and also some media interest in what the two politicians who addressed the conference said. Find below audio recordings of the presentations from the politicians. Other podcasts will be added soon… Minister of Primary Industries, David Carter [audio: http://ia601205.us.archive.org/10/items/HonDavidCarterAddressingTheNzasConference/DavidCarterNzas.mp3] Labour leader, David … Read More
Elf Eldridge • Apr 18, 2012 •
I’m going to finish up my following of the NZAS Emerging scientists conference, with my own reflection on the things that have been said and done. Sciblogs own Peter Griffin has already reviewed many of the main discussion points of the conference – so I won’t rehash them here (although you can follow the hashtags #nzas and #nzasconf … Read More
Peter Griffin • Apr 17, 2012 •
There’s a lot of angst in the scientific community about the apparent whittling away of opportunities for emerging scientists in New Zealand as a result of the dismantling of the FRST postdoctoral fellowship scheme. Dr Massaro – concerned about postdocs This manifested itself late last year in a letter being circulated that was signed by 560 … Read More
Elf Eldridge • Apr 15, 2012 •
Te Ropu Awhina whanau 2011 These answers were provided by Catherine Davis and Shalen Kumar, both senior mentors in Te Ropu Awhina, Victoria University’s whanau that I have blogged about before. Both are final year PhD candidates in Victoria’s School of Biological Sciences. 1. NZAS has picked emerging scientists as the topic of their yearly … Read More
Elf Eldridge • Apr 07, 2012 •
There’s also a huge population of undergraduate science students in NZ with a vested interest in seeing the country grow and appreciate science. Here we ask Jayne Ihaka and other members of the Victoria University Science Society their views on the conference from the perspective of NZ’s future researchers. 1. NZAS has picked emerging scientists as the … Read More