Dear Colleagues,

Associate Professor Clare Wall has taken over as Academic Director. She will continue in her role as Head of the Discipline of Nutrition and Dietetics, but will pass on the day to day running of the Dietetics programme to Dr Andrea Andrea Braakhuis.

The foundation members of our new school-based research team – Katie Jones, Johanna Lundberg and Bianca Brown have been supplemented by the appointment of Meaghan House and Filomena Jennings to the team. Now that we have a full complement of staff we plan to allocate the different Research Program Coordinators (RPCs) to specific groups of research staff, while building portfolios of research expertise with in the team to support the ongoing research efforts of the School. This will enable the RPCs to provide proactive support to researchers to help them navigate the different processes associated with managing both an individual research grant and programs of research supported by multiple funders. While these changes are being bedded in we will have to deal with the next phase of IRiS which will be a review of technical support provided for research.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate those researchers who have been successful in the HRC and other grant funding rounds. These successes only go to reinforce the School’s reputation as the major driving force of biomedical research in New Zealand.

We have also had a number of successes on the teaching front that are an endorsement of the quality of our teaching programmes. Anuj Bhargava has been awarded the 2018 Butland Award for Innovation in Teaching, Clare Wall received the 2018 Butland Award for Leadership in Teaching and Dr Rachelle Singleton being selected for a CLeaR Fellowship in Teaching and Learning for 2019.

Cheers,

Paul