The University of Otago’s Dr Owen Jones never planned to come to New Zealand. Looking for adventure after completing a psychology and neuroscience degree at the University of Liverpool, he moved to Japan to teach English. There, he met a kiwi woman, “and you can...
“When you read my CV, I look a bit nuts,” Justine Camp (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Mamoe, Waitaha) says. And indeed, the path that lead her to do a PhD at BRNZ is more diverse than most: Justine has taught te reo Māori since she was 16, studied social work, managed an art gallery...
“I can’t really remember a time that I wasn’t interested in science,” Sophie Mathiesen (Ngāpuhi) says. “My dad has a background in engineering and mum in chemistry, so they were always keen to help with the elaborate projects I designed.” In high school, Sophie...
Helen’s love for science started when she was very young, a spark ignited by her dad. “We would sit down and he would teach me about molecules as a little six year old,” Helen says. “I think that’s my earliest memory of science.” As a teenager, when her dad got sick...
Meg Spriggs is a PhD candidate within BRNZ. She’s an MRI and EEG specialist working alongside the Dementia Prevention Research Clinic in Auckland, assisting clinic participants and other researchers with brain imaging. As an undergraduate psychology student, Meg was...
For a country as small as New Zealand, research into rare diseases can be incredibly difficult. When you’re looking for those tiny changes that set apart the healthy and the sick you need enough people to really compare. This is one of the reasons behavioural variant...
Chris Heinrich is a PhD candidate based at the University of Otago. With his supervisors, Professor Holger Regenbrecht and Dr Tobias Langlotz, Chris is examining the use of virtual reality to aid stroke rehabilitation. “I’m developing an augmented reality system that...