Dianne Brunton - Professor of Ecology and Conservation, Massey University Auckland (Te Apārangi Sponsored Speaker) Professor Dianne Brunton is a behavioural ecologist and conservation biologist in the School of Natural Sciences at Massey University’s Auckland Campus. Dianne grew up in Auckland Tamaki Makaurau and completed a BSc and MSc in Zoology at the University of Auckland. Like many young kiwis, [...]

Angus McIntosh - Professor of Freshwater Ecology, University of Canterbury (Te Apārangi Sponsored Speaker)   Angus' talk will traverse the range of issues in freshwater ecosystems his group has been working to help deal with recently. These include: galaxiids caught between stream drying and trout; mudfish dealing with droughts, tornados, willows and past effects of logging; alpine tarns in a warming [...]

Leon Perrie - Curator of Botany at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Leon's research is focused on the taxonomy and evolutionary history of New Zealand’s ferns and lycophytes, and he has co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications.  A current priority is supporting the completion of the fern and lycophyte chapters for the electronic Flora of New Zealand.  He also [...]

Mike Joy - Victoria University of Wellington Mike will be speaking on the subject of 'Source water: the crucial missing 'water' from the new Taumata Arowai Three Waters legislation. Mike has developed bioassessment tools used by many Regional Councils and consultants and has published scientific papers in many fields from artificial intelligence and data mining, freshwater fish ecology, freshwater bioassessment [...]

Alison Ballance - Broadcaster and writer, Nelson (Te Apārangi Sponsored Speaker) Alison Ballance shares stories of her favourite wildlife encounters. She sheds light on her 35-year association with kākāpō, discovers the amazing journeys of New Zealand’s great white sharks and charts the ups and downs of the long-running conservation effort to save takahe. Alison is a freelance natural history writer [...]

Manpreet Dhami - Manaaki Whenua, Lincoln (Te Apārangi Sponsored Speaker) Manpreet Dhami is a Senior Scientist at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research and a microbial ecologist by training. She is interested in how species interact and evolve together through symbiosis, coexistence and competition. She performs experimental research to assess the contributions of microbial interactions to host health and function in systems [...]