Chronicle Vol 49 Issue 4

September 2014

He Kupu Whakamahara

Secrets of the ancient world

From sheep to chic Flying high

The James Hight building has been renamed Puaka-James Hight.

Two campus buildings renamed The fully remediated Registry building and the James Hight building have been renamed Matariki and Puaka-James Hight respectively.

Chronicle 49 no.4

September 2014

Editor: Renee Jones 364 2987 ext 6072 S taff Writers: Kip Brook Charlene Smart

Sub–editor: Col Pearson

Photos: Duncan Shaw–Brown

Artwork: Brian Carney

Printer: Toltech Print

D istribution: Canterbury Educational

Printing Services Email: communications@

canterbury.ac.nz Address: Communications and

Stakeholder Relations, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch.

Thanks to everyone else who has played a part making this issue happen.

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The UC Council agreed to change the names of the two iconic buildings in August and appropriate signage will appear in due course.

In the Māori language, Matariki is both the name of a small distinctive star cluster (Pleiades) and the season of its first rising in late May or early June, and is seen as the beginning of the new year. In traditional times, Matariki was a season to celebrate and to prepare the ground for the coming year. The name has been specially gifted by Ngāi Tahu to UC. Matariki is the new hub for frontline services to all students. It will also be the home of the University Council and the Vice-Chancellor’s Office.

The similarly “star” themed Puaka-James Hight building is named after the brightest star in the constellation Orion, which rises at about the same time as Matariki and is also associated with the start of the new year.

Chancellor Dr John Wood said these new names reflected the growing strength of UC’s relationship with Ngāi Tahu and the mana of Te Ao Māori at the heart of UC’s campus.

“I know that staff and students will join with me in celebrating these new names, which mark a new chapter in UC’s transformation,” he said.

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UC student launches country clothing label.

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App developed to help young voters.

New treasures for Logie Collection.

Caption

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UC’s Chancellor aids Treaty settlements.

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Meet UC’s Thesis in Three winners.

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Rural runway comes to town A summer scholarship has helped a UC international business and law student to launch a New Zealand clothing label website aimed at promoting women’s rural wear.

Fourth-year student Hannah Port, with support from UC’s student entrepreneur hub, UC Innovators, has launched Hawthorn Country Design.

The clothing website is offering quality English-style country attire and accessories to customers worldwide.

Hannah, who grew up on and lives on a farm, said that to ensure their quality, her products had been carefully selected and designed with raw materials such as cashmere sourced from inner Mongolia, Ethiopian lamb leather and mulberry silk.

“I have spent my whole life between the farm and Christchurch and, as time has gone on, I have noticed that there are very few transitional casual options, particularly for women,” she said.

“New Zealand rural women’s wear is effectively a smaller version of the male counterparts. They are not overly feminine in shape or colour and therefore many rural women do not feel feminine on a daily basis, nor do they feel like they can wear farm clothes into town to meet friends.

“However, in England, rural wear for men and women is considerably more stylised and is acceptable in multiple situations.

Men and women are being seen wearing Barbour quilted jackets and Hunter boots from on the farm to jobs in the city. There are even feature articles in UK magazines about bankers choosing to adopt the stylised rural look.”

Hannah said her original plan was to import the English brands but, after realising many of their garments were made in China, she decided to find a short-run supplier in China to make the garments for Hawthorn.

“I won the summer scholarship late last year, which was amazing because it allowed me to spend all summer working on this venture. Mum and I went to a buying fair in Hong Kong,” she said.

“The products are very much multi-

seasonal, which is fantastic for life in New Zealand, where we all know the weather is not always as the season dictates.”

Hannah said rural fashion was becoming more relevant to people in places like Canterbury, considering the rather dramatic outward shift into subdivisions and lifestyle blocks post-earthquakes.

She said UC Innovators Manager Dr Rachel Wright was a great co-ordinator who gave her help and advice throughout the scholarship programme.

“She also set up various meetings to discuss business with established business

4 UC student Hannah Port with some of her clothing range.

owners and also introduced me to my mentor for the programme, Dr Nigel Johnson,” she said.

“He was supportive and helped hone my ideas, particularly as I moved from wanting to import, to establishing my own brand.

He is an expert in textiles and so we had many fascinating conversations about silk and cashmere fibres.”

Dr Wright said Hannah was one of a string of student entrepreneurs at UC who are expanding their ideas and growing them into commercial ventures.

Remote flying takes off Electrical and Computer Engineering staff (from left) Dave van Leeuwen, Head of Department Professor Philip Bones, Philipp Hof, Dr Steve Weddell and David Healy.

Two UC academics have designed a programme that allows third-year engineering students to fly model helicopters remotely from any computer in the world.

Dr Steve Weddell and Professor Philip Bones (Electrical and Computer Engineering), with the assistance of three technical staff, have created a “heli lab” with three model helicopters that are flown remotely when students write the correct software code and upload it through a browser on the internet.

Dr Weddell, who set up the programme after receiving a $5000 UC Teaching Development Grant, said it was the first of its kind in New Zealand and has been created using software designed by the University of Technology, Sydney.

“The student’s code, if written correctly, controls the model helicopters to take off, hover, descend, land and also turn. The helicopters are in a remote lab on campus and they are attached to a stand,” he said.

“But what is challenging about this is that they need to write a control algorithm

that will provide a reasonably precise height as well as turn angle. The best thing about this is students can potentially do this anywhere, even if they were overseas they could log in and operate the devices remotely via the internet.”

Dr Weddell said the team hoped to boost the number of helicopters to six by the start of next year.

“The students can watch the helicopter’s movements through the cameras set up in the lab, which allow them to see in real time if their software is working correctly. I think it gives another dimension to their learning, which they clearly enjoy. The students might write an algorithm that only works on one helicopter, but it should work on all three so they learn that the hard way,” he said.

Professor Bones said the students purchase a low-cost microcomputer development board, or single board computer, to communicate with the model helicopters.

“It is what’s called real-time programming, which means the computer has to react very quickly to things that are happening. It’s a very demanding type of computer program to write. Even quite small delays can prevent accurate control,” he said.

“It’s the sort of project that captures the imagination; everyone wants to make it succeed and the students work pretty hard to get there, but that’s an important part of the learning. It’s all about problem based learning.”

Dr Weddell, who first made a connection with the University of Technology in Sydney while he was on sabbatical late last year, said there was potential for commercial application of the programme although that was not their focus.

“We are seeing more and more industry taking up remote lab applications. Not so much here but in Australia they have large mining rigs and most of those are controlled through remote labs. You might have huge trucks that are being driven thousands of miles away by a person remotely,” he said.

“This is a good example of how we can use different levels of technology from browsers to embedded systems that, at the end of the day, provide a really good experience for the students.”

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Pneumonia research wins medal UC’s Dr Maggie-Lee Huckabee, whose research has reduced pneumonia rates in stroke patients, has won the UC Innovation Medal for 2014.

Dr Huckabee’s (Communication Disorders) research seeks to prevent pneumonia in post-stroke or post-surgical patients and has led clinicians from across New Zealand to change care protocols.

In the Canterbury District Health Board alone, the rate of pneumonia for patients who struggle to swallow following strokes, dropped from 26 per cent to 11 per cent in the three years following the implementation of her research protocol.

“We were able to reduce pneumonia rates in patients with swallowing difficulty following stroke by implementing a new test and management protocol based on that test,” she said.

“If you or I have food that goes down the wrong way — towards the lungs — we produce Dr Maggie-Lee Huckabee

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a strong reflexive cough to protect our airway.

This is what keeps us from getting pneumonia. In some patients with swallowing impairment, sensation in the throat is reduced so food can go into the lungs but not produce a protective cough. In this case, the food in the lungs is not cleared and causes an infection — called aspiration pneumonia.

“We implemented a test called a ‘cough reflex test’ that tests sensation in the airway and helps us predict if a patient will be able to protect the lungs in the event of food going the wrong way. Then we developed and implemented a clinical protocol for New Zealand district health boards based on this test that guides clinicians to appropriate management for patients following stroke.”

Dr Huckabee’s nomination received support from hospitals and speech therapists from around New Zealand and overseas.

“Although I directed the research programme, the UC Innovation Medal is really recognition of the commitment of clinicians in Canterbury and across district health boards in New Zealand, as well as a number of fantastic postgraduate students,” she said.

“It is a clear example of the power of translational research to effect rapid change in health outcomes when clinicians and researchers work together, bringing diverse skills together to create the new ‘best practice’.”

Professor Mike Steel has been awarded a 2014 UC Research Medal.

Medals recognise researchers’ work UC’s Professor Mike Steel (Mathematics and Statistics) and Professor Michael Hall (Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurship) have been named winners of the University’s Research Medal for 2014.

Professor Steel is using mathematics to help biologists discover more about the evolution of life. His research methods have provided new ways to extract evolutionary information from genetic data, on scales that range from viruses and bacteria, to humans.

“They’re also used to help figure out where some newly discovered organism fits in the tree of life, or how much biodiversity is at risk from current high levels of extinction,” Professor Steel said.

“Phylogenetic techniques are also starting to be applied in medical research to reconstruct the tree of cell divisions in a tumor, and in linguistics the methods are used to understand how languages developed and diverged.

“Mathematics is really essential since it gives a way of systematically exploring the huge space of possible evolutionary scenarios. Since evolution is a random

process, probability models play an important role.”

Professor Steel has also been working on models of earliest life, using mathematics and computing in new ways to investigate how early biochemical networks might have arisen. This research is attracting worldwide attention and has led to collaborations with leaders in the field of origin of life research.

Professor Steel was recently named as one of four principal investigators to win a $695,000 grant for a three-year research project, “Terraces, Large Trees and Trait Evolution”, funded by the US-based National Science Foundation. He is director of the Biomathematics Research Centre, hosted within UC’s School of Mathematics and Statistics, and is deputy director of the Allan Wilson Centre. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Professor Hall said his research examined the environmental, economic and political aspects of temporary human movement.

“This is sometimes called tourism — but is actually much wider than how people usually conceive of tourism as going for a holiday,” he said.

“This focuses on issues such as sustainable cities and sustainable mobility, public transport, walkability, wine and local foods, biosecurity, climate change, entrepreneurship, innovation, rebound effects, as well as the prospects of behavioural change given the design of economic, educational and technical systems.”

Professor Steel and Professor Hall will receive their Research Medals during the University of Canterbury 2014 Chancellor’s Awards Dinner in November.

7 CHRONICLE 49, No.4, September 2014

App encourages the young to vote UC commerce and law student Hannah Duder has produced a website and mobile app to help inform younger voters during the September general election.

“I had responses from ACT, NZ First, Internet Mana, National, Labour, Green and the Māori parties. These parties were represented in Candidate.”

Hannah said it was UC’s Innovators and entré organisations that initially sparked her interest in entrepreneurship, innovation and app creation.

Candidate is a web-based app, aimed at young and first-time voters, which can be used on any cellphone, computer or tablet with an internet browser.

It was designed to give the user a first impression of party policies across nine issues that matter to young people, and get them interested enough to find out more prior to the election.

“There is some surprising data which shows youth voter decline is a much bigger issue than most people think. A lot of young people feel that politics and voting is quite boring and not relevant to their lives,” she said.

Hannah developed the app after being granted $10,000 by entrepreneur and founder of Shoulder Tap, Derek Handley, after pitching the idea to him during a job interview. She worked with Mr Handley to help set up the Virgin Voter Collective, which aimed to increase the number of young voters.

“Our aim with Candidate and the Virgin Voter Collective was to get at least another 18,000 young people to vote,” she said.

“A lot of people are out there trying to get people my age excited about voting in this year's election and we recognise that if we pool all the brains, numbers and activities then we can have a bigger impact.”

Hannah approached all the main political parties to help develop the app.

“They provided policy topics following a survey I put out to young people to see which topics were important to them,” she said.

8 UC student Hannah Duder with the voting app she designed.

“UC Innovators manager Dr Rachel Wright gave me the inspiration and belief to run with my ideas, which gave me the confidence to apply for the Handley Shoulder Tap recruitment campaign,” she said.

Rare items added to the Logie Collection A 2300-year-old Greek mug is among a number of ancient artefacts from antiquity that have been gifted to UC’s James Logie Memorial Collection.

The mug, a unique lidded oinochoe (330-320BC), is one of seven precious artefacts from ancient Egypt, Greece and Mesopotamia that have been donated to the University by the PhiloLogie Society and Diane Coulbeck, daughter of the late Maxwell Coulbeck, who was a Christchurch collector.

The other new additions include a guttus flask or oil lamp, a comic mask, two cuneiform tablets with administrative information on them, a Ptolemaic Egyptian funeral mask and an Egyptian Mshabti figure of the god Osiris, which would have gone into the tomb of a deceased person.

Logie Collection Co-curator Terri Elder said that the unique new additions would enhance research opportunities and reinvigorate people’s interest in studying classics.

“Every time we take in a new addition it means that we are able to offer fresh material for students, staff and researchers, both from inside and outside the University, to look at and view the collection in a new way,” she said.

Logie Collection Co-curator Penny Minchin-Garvin said the oinochoe was particularly important to the collection as it was the first example of a vessel with an intact lid to be held in the Logie Collection.

“It is quite unusual for us as we don’t have any other lidded vessels in the collection. To actually have a vessel with a

A rare lidded oinochoe (330–320 BC) has been added to the Logie Collection.

lid is very exciting. The vessel would have been used from day to day and the lid is one of the things that is going to get lost or broken or disassociated from the object over time. Having these items really strengthens the story that we are already trying to tell,” she said.

“The drinking vessel would have been used in a sympotic setting or formal drinking party where songs, poetry and philosophical debates would have been aired. The oinochoe is decorated with an Eros figure and a seated woman holding a food basket.”

The donation of the oinochoe was made possible with the generous assistance of Lorna Buchanan, and Stephen and Mhairi Erber, in memory of Naylor Hillary who was

a member of the PhiloLogie Society and an active supporter of the Logie Collection.

The Logie Collection is one the finest teaching collections of Greek and Roman antiquities in the southern hemisphere.

The collection includes Greek and Roman artefacts, with pieces from Ancient Egypt as well as a small collection of Greek and Roman coins. Its artefacts span a period of more than 2500 years, from about 2000BC. The collection, housed in the University’s Classics Department, has been fully conserved following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. It is safely stored in museumquality cabinets and is open to the public by appointment.

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Architect takes up residency at UC UC has appointed Christchurch architect Tim Nees as the first Architect in Residence in the College of Engineering.

Mr Nees, a senior design architect with commercial and residential experience in Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington, is a highly respected architect and a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA). His work has won 20 NZIA Awards for Excellence in Architecture, including the top national award.

Mr Nees said he was delighted to take on a role which was intended to foster more effective working relationships between engineers and architects, and to encourage greater levels of architectural awareness in undergraduate and postgraduate students and academic staff.

“It is an honour to be the first Architect in Residence at the University at an exciting time of the Christchurch rebuild. Some of the world's great cities have, at some stage, been rebuilt following significant disasters.

They wouldn't be the cities they are today had disaster not once struck them down,” Mr Nees said.

“The Great Fire of London enabled Christopher Wren to build St Paul's Cathedral. Lisbon gained an elegant neo-classical city centre after their 18th century earthquake and deluge. Tokyo has been rebuilt several times following earthquakes and fires. Napier has become known as New Zealand's charming Art Deco city after the devastating 1930s earthquake.

What most of these rebuilds achieved was a consistency of urban space and urban fabric.”

Mr Nees said that during the residency he aimed to contribute to teaching and 10

UC Architect in Residence Tim Nees.

research outcomes, as well as develop a programme of workshops and lectures involving local and international speakers, to illustrate how well some practitioners collaborate.

“For a few architects and engineers, creative collaboration is a daily occurrence but, for many, established professional attitudes restrict a more flexible relationship,” he said.

“The University of Canterbury should be applauded for establishing this position and giving students the opportunity to engage in a wider range of ideas, but I also hope the professions will be encouraged to reconsider the way they work together.”

Professor Mark Davidson, Head of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, said the new residency was established with the support of Sir Miles Warren’s Warren

Architects Education Charitable Trust, and the late Dr Jim Rutherford.

“The Architect in Residence will provide a catalyst for developing more systematic and effective interaction between the architectural and engineering professions.

More specifically, this unique initiative will provide important opportunities to broaden the education of our engineering students in an architectural context,” Professor Davidson said.

“The residency will also contribute to our education and research activities in earthquake engineering at the postgraduate level where UC has considerable expertise and there is a need to further develop that specialist expertise in an architectural context.”

New textbook edition marks long collaboration Two UC academics will celebrate 22 years of research collaboration with the upcoming publication of the fourth edition of one of the leading textbooks on the European Union (EU).

Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Business and Law) Professor Sonia Mazey and Professor Jeremy Richardson from the National Centre for Research on Europe (NCRE) — who is also an Emeritus Professor at Nuffield College, Oxford — are about to publish the latest edition of their book, European Union: Power and Policy-Making (Abingdon: Routledge).

The new edition of the book, which contains contributions from a number of new authors, analyses the distribution of power within the EU and explains how and why the EU has evolved over time to become a supranational, policy-making state.

Professor Mazey and Professor Richardson, who are married with two

daughters, have been publishing research on the EU since they first met at Nuffield College, Oxford, in 1992.

Professor Richardson said it was enormously rewarding to see their book, which was first published in 1996, remain such an important reference.

“It is very satisfying to see that the book has been well received for so long, but the really enjoyable aspect is working with a team of internationally recognised EU experts,” he said.

The pair are now working on two more books, which are under consideration by publishers in the United Kingdom.

“The first volume will be a co-edited Handbook of European Public Policy, likely to be published in 2016. The second

publication will focus on changing policy styles in Western democracies. This book is also scheduled for publication in 2016. Both books will involve collaboration with international teams of researchers,” Professor Richardson said.

Professor Mazey said sharing their professional and personal lives was fun, but could sometimes be a challenge.

“Writing with Jeremy can be frustrating as we have very different working and writing styles. Jeremy can never specify in advance what he is going to cover in his sections of any joint publication. The ideas come only when the writing starts,” she said Despite the challenges, their shared passion for political science makes their enduring collaboration inevitable.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Business and Law) Professor Sonia Mazey and Professor Jeremy Richardson.

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Making a historic difference Playing a key role in finalising two historic Treaty of Waitangi settlements has resulted in “huge relief ” for UC Chancellor Dr John Wood.

Dr Wood has not only helped govern UC through one of its most difficult times in the University’s history since the Canterbury earthquakes, but he has also led the recent resolution of two significant treaty settlements, after six years of negotiation.

Dr Wood was the Chief Crown Negotiator, appointed by the Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Christopher Finlayson, for the $81 million Whanganui River Settlement, signed by Government and iwi in August, and the $170 million Tūhoe Settlement signed in June 2013.

“It was a matter of relief as much as anything. I am pleased that we were able to be innovative and come up with concepts that delivered on iwi aspirations and were also acceptable to the Crown,” he said.

UC Chancellor Dr John Wood.

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“The Tūhoe Settlement was more than 170 years in the making. The Whanganui River Settlement comes after the longest running set of legal challenges to the Crown in the country’s history. Again, it’s something like close to 150 years in the case of the Whanganui River claim, so both of these were challenging to say the least. They needed a fresh look and some innovation from someone outside the system to get the job done.”

Dr Wood, a former two-term Ambassador to the United States with almost 40 years’ experience as a diplomat and trade negotiator in New Zealand and overseas, believed it was this background that gave him the skills required to find outcomes that historically had been elusive.

“When I took on the job in 2008 the Whanganui River claim had a background of failure. The Crown and iwi had tried before, only for negotiations to be aborted. That understandably led to a loss of confidence in the settlement process on the part of the iwi,” he said.

“It made it very difficult for their leadership to come back to the table, so building that trust, confidence and belief that we could be innovative enough, once we re-engaged, to produce a settlement to which they could agree, was a huge source of satisfaction.

“In the case of Tūhoe, there had been so many previous attempts to improve the relationship with the Crown, and effect a negotiated agreement. To actually get there

after many attempts, and the failures of the past, was particularly satisfying. We, of course, had our own stumbles along the way, but we got there in the end.”

Dr Wood said he was delighted to be part of something that would make a real difference in people’s lives.

“Some situations in the central North Island are dreadful. It is really intolerable to think that in a country like New Zealand there is the level of deprivation many tribal members find themselves trapped in,” he said.

“As a nation we cannot afford to allow another generation to go by without resolving these issues and getting the grievances behind us. Recent experience shows that these settlements have and can create some sort of economic basis sufficient to enable tribes to take charge of their affairs and to move ahead.”

Dr Wood, who has taken on two more claims this year, those of Ngati Rangi and Tongariro National Park, said that both the Whanganui River and Tūhoe settlements had received worldwide attention.

“A lot of countries are struggling with the same challenges of negotiating arrangements to own, govern and manage large natural objects where indigenous interests are involved, and there are historic grievances to be settled.”

Dr Wood has also been appointed to the Te Urewera Board, which will be the primary decision maker for what was formally Te Urewera National Park. He is also on the Lincoln University Council, is a governing board member of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, and is the President of The Canterbury History Foundation.

UC PhD student and Rangiora High School Principal Peggy Burrows.

School principal looks to enhance Māori achievement A UC PhD researcher is investigating bicultural leadership initiatives that can help enhance Māori achievement in schools.

Peggy Burrows, the Principal of Rangiora High School, has investigated ways in which schools can foster bicultural leadership and has looked at why some Māori students in New Zealand’s education system do not achieve at the same level as Pākehā students.

“There are disparities in the achievement between some Māori and Pākehā students in mainstream educational settings, and Māori student achievement does not always mirror Pākehā student achievement data,” she said.

“I thought it would be a good idea to look at leadership from a bicultural perspective as a way to improve Māori achievement, and what we would have to do to make this happen.

“It became more apparent, as I started to research, that there was a wealth of knowledge from New Zealand literature. If we want to look at this for Māori students then we have to be courageous enough to

have the conversations, and what better way of doing this than starting to look at your own leadership.”

Mrs Burrows is using an autoethnographic practitioner-based enquiry model where she is able to explore and employ new ways to enhance Māori achievement at Rangiora High School.

“Bicultural leadership is also an opportunity to look at leadership practices through a new lens, taking into account a Māori world view. For me, bicultural leadership employs leadership pedagogies that recognise and celebrate cultural difference.”

Mrs Burrows said she hoped her research would provide other schools with a leadership model to work towards.

“I am in a significant role where I can seek change but it has to be now. We are so well placed for it to happen and, if we don’t, then we are really going to miss the boat,” she said.

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CHRONICLE 49, No.4, September 2014

Members of the UC Rescue team have been recognised for long service. They are (from left) David van Leeuwen, Graeme Bull, Graham Furniss, Heather Thomas, Mark Andrews and Mark Warren.

UC Rescue team honoured

Six UC rescuers recently received Civil Defence Emergency Management Awards in recognition of the more than 100 years between them of long service to UC Rescue.

The recipients were David van Leeuwen (Engineering), Graham Furniss (Geography), Graeme Bull (Biological Sciences), Heather Thomas (Research & Innovation), Mark Andrews (Learning Resources) and Mark Warren (Facilities Management).

They were presented with the awards by David Coetzee, the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management’s National Controller.

The six recipients have each served for at least 10 years and, as part of this, were deployed to the red zone following the 22 February 2011 earthquake.

Mr Bull, who has been with the team for 37 years, said he was honoured to receive recognition.

“The certificate and plaque are treasured mementos of my time in this service,” he said.

After the 2011 earthquake the team worked alongside the Taiwanese Special Taskforce to search for earthquake victims within damaged buildings, as well as carrying out residential door-to-door checks.

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Mr Bull said working alongside the Taiwanese team was a privilege.

“Although the Taiwanese spoke no English and we didn’t speak traditional Chinese, we meshed together almost immediately as the Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) training is standardised worldwide.

An amazing camaraderie developed during the seven to eight days we worked together.”

He said that there were many things learned from the earthquakes.

“Our years of training prepared us to respond to the demands of the tasks and this training must continue into the future,” he said.

Mr Andrews has been working with various Civil Defence teams for 26 years and said working with the Taiwanese team was an invaluable experience.

“We used International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) training and markers, and all understood what our roles were. It was great to see the training come together and it enabled us to all work together even without the ability to speak to each other.”

Mr Andrews said that during his time in the red zone he got a better understanding of the rigours of rescue work, and the amount of food and water a team can burn though when working in tough conditions.

“It was interesting to recognise what scared you and just how much you can cope with when you’ve had the correct training.”

Mrs Thomas, who has been with the team for 20 years got involved with Civil Defence when a friend was working with the rescue team in Rangiora and joined the Rangiora team in the 1970s.

“I enjoyed this experience and, when the opportunity arose, I joined the University of Canterbury team as well. As well as being involved with the UC Rescue team I have also been a volunteer in a Waimakariri District Civil Defence Emergency Management sector team since 1990,” she said.

“It is great to work with the UC team as it includes a range of people from all over campus. I really enjoy being part of that.”

Thesis competition reveals UC stars Renewable energy storage, cybersecurity and reducing pneumonia in stroke patients were the winning presentations at UC’s annual Thesis in Three competition.

Chemistry student Anna Farquhar, who is studying the energy storage potential of graphene, a thin sheet of carbon, was the winner from 15 finalists. Each finalist was given three minutes to explain the what, why and how of their theses.

Computer science and software engineering student Jin Hong came second for presenting his research on cybersecurity, while communication disorders student Sarah Davies was third for her talk on reducing chest infections in acute stroke patients.

Anna was awarded $5000 for her presentation, Jin won $2000 and Sarah was granted $1000. The prize money is to be spent on research-related activities.

Anna, whose research is supervised by Dr Paula Brooksby and Professor Alison Downard (Chemistry), said that the growing demand for energy and depleting fossil fuel supplies meant that renewable energy technologies have become very important.

“Scientists have been developing a new class of materials aimed at improving the performance of supercapacitor storage devices. These devices may play a major role in the solution to storing energy from renewable sources,” she said.

Anna said the first stage of her research was to make the newly discovered material known as graphene.

“This material may be used to make devices that can store massive amounts of energy, so can both support the world’s rapidly advancing technologies and help eliminate our reliance on fossil fuels.”

Jin’s research, which is being supervised

by Dr Dong-Seong Kim (Computer Science and Software Engineering), includes finding ways to develop security models to assess how a hacker may penetrate through people’s networked systems.

“As the size of the networked system becomes large and more dynamic, it becomes inefficient to use traditional security models that were designed for smaller and static networked systems,” he said.

“My research aims to address these problems via scalable and adaptable security modelling and analysis. Key focuses of my research are to propose scalable and adaptable security modelling techniques, develop mechanisms for an efficient security analysis, and capture and analyse unknown attacks,” he said.

Sarah’s research, which is supervised by Dr Maggie-Lee Huckabee (Communication Disorders), focuses on reducing pneumonia rates in patients with acute stroke which could help save lives.

“One of the ways that we are addressing this is with the use of a stroke management protocol, currently in place at Christchurch Hospital. This tool is designed to help clinicians identify patients with swallowing problems who are at risk for pneumonia, and manage these patients accordingly,” she said.

Thesis in Three winners (clockwise from back left) Jin Hong, Anna Farquhar and Sarah Davies.

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Forestry research aims to save lives Safety on forestry roads could soon be improved and lives saved following a $500,000 grant to UC’s Forest Engineering programme in the School of Forestry.

Associate Professor Rien Visser said the funding from the New Zealand Forest Owners Association — $100,000 annually over the next five years — would go towards a postdoctoral researcher working to define forest road standards.

Professor Visser said there were 10 deaths in the industry last year and an Independent Forest Safety Review was under way identifying factors contributing to a poor safety record in the industry.

“The review has noted that forest road infrastructure is of variable standard. We have accidents happening on our roads with logging trucks coming off the road

or rolling over. We have had fatalities attributable to our roads and infrastructure,” he said.

The research will be conducted by Dr Kris Brown, who recently completed a PhD at Virginia Tech in the United States, and will be supervised by Professor Visser from next January.

“Kris’s PhD focused on improved road construction techniques to minimise environmental impacts, but he is excited about expanding his research to include both logging efficiency and safety,” Professor Visser said.

He said many Western countries had defined road standards for their forestry industry and he hoped Kris’s research would make a real impact for New Zealand.

“Very few companies in our industry have specific forest road standards, partially because they are private roads. Public roads have standards in place so we are trying to implement a similar system of standards, but they need to be based around good

research and testing, so that is what Kris will be working on,” Professor Visser said.

“There’s no one else doing research on forest roads. I think it’s a huge boost for the industry to help in setting standards. One of the problems with forest roads is that, because they are private roads, accidents are typically not well reported or investigated unless there’s a fatality,” he said.

“If a truck slides off a forest road, or rolls over, they get out a bulldozer and pull it out so we don’t have a really good database of just how many of these incidents occur. The review has highlighted that without road standards it’s not the driver’s fault — if the roads are too steep, too slick or the corners are too tight then the drivers have no chance. I think Kris will be able to make a strong contribution to these standards.”

Professor Visser said the research would focus on difficult areas of terrain throughout the country including Gisborne, Northland, Wairarapa and Nelson.

(From left) New Zealand Forest Owners Association Chief Executive David Rhodes and Executive Council member Grant Dodson, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Engineering) Professor Jan Evans-Freeman, Head of School (Forestry) Professor Bruce Manley and Associate Professor Rien Visser.

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Distinguished Professor Geoff Chase

Prestigous fellowship for mechanical engineer UC’s Distinguished Professor Geoff Chase (Mechanical Engineering) has been elected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

ASME is the world’s leading society of mechanical engineers and has more than 90,000 members worldwide, but only a small percentage of these members are fellows.

Professor Chase said he was “honoured” to be made a fellow.

“It is an important distinction and recognition of which I am quite pleased,” he said.

Professor Chase was nominated to become a fellow in the research and development category. His research in model-based therapeutics integrates innovative engineering models and methods with physiology and clinical medicine.

His research is providing significant health benefits and is being used in a number of hospitals and companies worldwide.

Professor Chase said one of his biggest research achievements so far was the implementation of dynamic systems modelling and controls to save lives in the intensive care unit.

“The blood sugar management software we designed to control blood sugar levels in critically ill patients and pre-term babies — first SPRINT and currently STAR and GRYPHON to name them — are used in

hospitals in New Zealand and overseas,” he said.

“They have delivered huge savings in lives and cost over the last eight years.

“The ‘mechanical engineering’ in this work is using these models to create virtual, simulated patients to develop the most optimal treatments and then, using the same models, to implement those treatments to the bedside,” he said.

Professor Chase said he was most proud of the 70-plus postgraduate students he had mentored, all of whom had “gone on to do great things in New Zealand and overseas and will hopefully be a great source of energy and innovation for New Zealand in the future”.

He is currently working on a range of model-based systems to measure, diagnose and optimally treat patients in critical care.

“We are working towards similar achievements in the management of circulatory (heart) failure and in mechanical ventilation for pulmonary or breathing failure, among other things,” he said.

“Both are leading causes of intensive care unit admission, length of stay, death and cost. Both are also, gratefully, funded by the New Zealand Health Research Council.”

Prestigious appointment for UC academic UC's Professor Anne-Marie Brady has become the first New Zealander to be appointed as a fellow to one of the world’s top 10 think tanks.

Professor Brady (Language, Social and Political Sciences) has been appointed a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington DC in the United States.

The centre is attached to the Smithsonian Institution and focuses on global politics and policy issues of interest to the United States government.

Professor Brady said she was honoured by the appointment.

“Very few global fellows are appointed, so it is hugely prestigious to have my work acknowledged in this way. It shows that the Wilson Center wants to continue to be associated with and support my research.

“I am the first New Zealander to have this status. No Australians or other people based in the Asia-Pacific or Oceania have been offered it, which makes this much more significant and special,” she said.

“As a global fellow, I will have privileged access to the Wilson Center and continue to be linked into the programmes related to my research on China and the polar regions.

I hope that it will help to promote my research to a global audience.”

Professor Brady is currently working on a project titled “China’s Polar Strategy and Global Governance”, as well as working on a new monograph, journal articles and book chapters.

17 CHRONICLE 49, No.4, September 2014

Back row (from left) Angie Willington, Scott Lloyd, Vice-Chancellor Dr Rod Carr, Matt Walters, Dr Patrick Geoghegan and Simon Cooke. Middle row (from left) Jamie Hape, Katie Nimmo, Alison Johnston and Felicity Watson. Front row (from left) Cassandra Yeo, Maadi McCormick, Elvi Wallin, Katelyn Key and Bernadette Dawson.

Awards recognise staff members’ contribution Ten UC staff members have received funding from the Vice-Chancellor General Staff Development Awards and the Health, Safety and Wellbeing Awards for 2014.

Vice-Chancellor General Staff Development Awards recognise and assist exceptional development initiatives.

The winners of this round of awards were Dr Patrick Geoghegan (Mechanical Engineering), Scott Lloyd (New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour), Matt Walters (Biological Sciences) and Alison Johnston (Library).

The latest awards were presented by Vice-Chancellor Dr Rod Carr, who said that the awards recognised and celebrated general staff whose contribution to UC was important.

“I respect that general staff have a role to play in helping the University deliver its core functions of teaching and research.

These awards are to celebrate that,” he said.

Mr Walters said he would use the award to visit the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, where he hoped to learn advanced skills in tropical plant taxonomy and science communication. His aim was to work towards producing a guide for photographing plants for conservation and scientific research.

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“The award, along with other support I have received, will allow me to make the guide a reality,” he said.

Dr Geoghegan plans to use the award to attend the 19th Australasian Fluid Mechanics Conference in Melbourne, Australia, where he will present a paper he has written on tracking blood drops ejected from the nasal cavity during violent assaults.

Mr Lloyd will visit the MARCs Institute at the University of Western Sydney, Australia — which conducts neuroscience and computational research on human-human and human-machine communication — to research their operational practices to better understand what is possible at the New Zealand Institute of Language Brain and Behaviour. He will also work with MARCs to refine the design of a prototype device he built to assist speech ultrasound imaging.

Ms Johnston is to go to the joint Geological Society of America/Geoscience Information Conference in Vancouver, Canada, to deliver both an oral and poster presentation. At the conference she will be able to directly engage with international scientists, educators and fellow librarians.

The Health, Safety and Wellbeing Awards are designed to reward and encourage staff members to initiate innovative health and safety practices within their department, unit or College. The winners in this round were Felicity Watson and Simon Cooke (Library Support Services), Cassandra Yeo

(Early Years Care and Education), Dr Emma de Lacey (Project Management Office), Jamie Hape (Office of the Assistant Vice-Chancellor Māori) and Angie Willington (College of Education).

Ms Yeo said the award had been used to make children from the UC Early Childhood Learning Centre more visible while on excursions through the use of hi-vis vests.

“Winning this award affirms what we are doing and gives recognition to the hard work our teaching team puts in to ensuring the children’s safety and wellbeing while they are at the centre.”

Ms Watson and Mr Cooke aim to enhance the current workplace stretching routine of Library Access and Collections staff by providing partially funded massage, access to Swiss balls and trialling different types of computer mice.

Dr de Lacey will use the award to provide as many hi-vis pack covers, fluorescent arm bands and spoke reflectors as she can to UC staff and students who cycle or walk to work.

Ms Hape will continue to develop the health and safety initiatives of the Office of the Assistant Vice-Chancellor Māori and organise a biannual Te Ao Mārama hui to celebrate health and safety.

Ms Willington will use the award to complete a National Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety Level 3 (workplace safety).

What s on at UC? December Graduation ceremony 17 December Horncastle Arena, Addington 2pm–4pm

What if... Women could balance work and family responsibilities?

24 September C3 Lecture Theatre, Central Lecture Block, 7pm–8.30pm

In this talk, Associate Professor Annick Masselot will discuss the challenges of combining work and family responsibilities, why those challenges are more acute for some people and who is benefiting the most from flexible working arrangements.

This talk will challenge the traditional gendered patterns of responsibility for domestic work and childcare, and argues that care underpins the functioning of the economy.

Register for this lecture at www.canterbury.ac.nz/wiw

UC Enrol 7 October

The UC Enrol event is happening on campus on Tuesday 7 October with sessions starting from 11am. This enrolment event will offer campus and department tours and subject presentations. On the day you can plan your course and enrol for 2015 study, meet and talk to academic and student support staff, visit the brand new Student Services Centre and gain in-depth information on subjects, qualifications and career opportunities. You will also be able to find out how to fund your study from scholarships to students loans and allowances.

Graduation ceremony for the Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences, Creative Arts and Science.

Séraphine Pick exhibition 8–30 October School of Fine Arts Gallery

Séraphine Pick rose to public attention in the early 1990s as part of a group of artists who graduated from the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in the late 1980s. Séraphine’s lyrical brand of surrealist painting is a realm of dream, memory and fantasy, which is not afraid to trespass into the darker parts of human relationships and the psyche. Her work recalls that of the symbolists of the late 19th century and the surrealists of the early 20th, and looking back even further into the Old Masters of history.

Celebration for Māori Graduands 18 December Jack Mann Auditorium, Dovedale campus 10am–12.30pm

An opportunity for graduates of Māori descent to be presented to their whānau, the Māori community and the University.

Each graduate is presented with a prized pounamu specifically designed for Māori graduates at UC.

Find out more at www.arts.canterbury.ac.nz/fina

December Graduation ceremony 17 December Horncastle Arena, Addington 10am–12pm

Graduation ceremony for the Faculties of Law, Commerce, and Engineering and Forestry.

December Graduation ceremony 19 December Horncastle Arena, Addington 10am–12pm

Graduation ceremony for the Faculty of Education.

Find out more at www.canterbury.ac.nz/study

19 CHRONICLE 49, No.4, September 2014

Bridge builders make a splash