YOUR LEVY AT WORK
JOY FOUND IN SUCCESSFUL DELIVERY OF RESEARCH Words by Elaine Fisher
Miriam Hall is a business manager with Plant & Food Research Ltd
Enabling and empowering great science is Miriam Hall’s day job and it’s one she absolutely loves. With a Master of Science in plant physiology and a Master of Business Administration, Miriam has found the ideal role for her talents and interests as a business manager with Plant & Food Research Ltd. “My current role is to work with customers to understand their needs and challenges and work with the science teams to help find solutions,” says Miriam, who is also a member of Women in Horticulture. Miriam works with HortNZ and vegetable product groups including Potatoes New Zealand and Onions New Zealand. “It’s a really diverse job and I love that I get to work with science and scientists on projects initiated from talking with customers,” she says. Seeing growers apply the results of scientific research that make positive differences to their businesses is an aspect of Miriam’s job that she says she really enjoys. “I worked in research for eight years, which combined with my degree, gave me the grounding and understanding for the work I now do with scientists. However, I came to
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realise that doing the science was not what brought me joy and that I could add more value by helping with the successful delivery of research to those who needed it.” Miriam grew up in Auckland in a family with a tradition of growing plants. “My mum is a gardener and landscape designer and my grandparents loved gardening too, so taking a science degree at university and studying plants seemed logical to me.”
Part of my role is to present the customer’s perspective to scientists and the scientists’ perspective to the customers After graduating, Miriam worked for Crop and Food Research in a casual role until she was offered a research job at HortResearch looking at post-harvest issues, mainly in pipfruit, but also in kiwifruit and hops. “What I really loved was doing research which growers could adopt within weeks or months, and then in the following season see the positive results come through in the harvest. That is very satisfying.”
