Tūrama – a series illuminating Aotearoa early career researchers

ON WORLD SCIENCE DAY (10 WHIRINGA-Ā-RANGI NOVEMBER) WE LAUNCHED TŪRAMA - AN INTERVIEW SERIES ILLUMINATING THE STORIES AND MAHI OF EARLY CAREER RESEARCHERS IN AOTEAROA WITH TWO INTERVIEWS:

Dr Jagadish (JT) Thaker witnessed the effects of climate change first hand while growing up in India. Now he is a senior lecturer at Massey University who is passionate about raising public awareness and understanding of the climate crisis.

Dr Sarah Moss has a passion for plants that stems from her high school years. Now she’s a scientist at Plant & Food Research specialising in kiwifruit colouring, and is the co-chair of the Early Career Researcher Forum.

“I joke to my students that we ‘re-search’ because something is always lost or is in the process of losing! In communication, what we want to say could be lost in our choice of words or the message is mangled in tone. Research is important because without evidence, your opinion is as good as mine and we would not know the best approach to take to solve our common problems. Research helps identify robust parameters, analyse our observations, test our ideas and develop an evidence-based approach that is more likely to succeed than intuition.”

JT THAKER “I really love plants, they provide us with oxygen, they feed us and they boost our mental health. I think it is important to do research which will directly benefit New Zealanders through boosting the horticultural industry and helping to supply us with high-quality fresh produce. I love working at a Crown Research Institute as we span the gap between doing really interesting science and having an impact on and for New Zealand.”

SARAH MOSS

VIEW TŪRAMA PROFILES

bit.ly/2020HL-65