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Monday 19 December 2022 1:20pm

2022 Distinguished Research Medal: Jacinta Ruru

Jacinta Ruru standing outside wearing a traditional korowai - a traditional feathered cloak_
Professor Jacinta Ruru (2022 Distinguished Research Medal Winner)

In 2011, Professor Jacinta Ruru (Raukawa, Ngāti Ranginui) was one of two winners of the Rowheath Trust Award and Carl Smith Medal, recognising the outstanding research performance of early-career staff at Otago.

“It is an amazing testament to all those I've worked with over the years to develop a research programme in the study of law that makes sense to me and my whānau, to us as Māori."

Eleven years later, the influential Māori legal scholar has been awarded the University's top research honour – its Distinguished Research Medal.

Professor Ruru says she is “incredibly honoured and moved” to receive the award for 2022.

“It is an amazing testament to all those I've worked with over the years to develop a research programme in the study of law that makes sense to me and my whānau, to us as Māori. Law has a huge role to play in recreating a more reconciled and well future for us all in Aotearoa New Zealand.”

For more than 20 years, Professor Ruru has been thinking and writing about how environmental law could recalibrate to be more respectful of Māori rights, interests and responsibilities.

Considered a trailblazer, Professor Ruru was the first Māori woman to be recognised as a fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (at the same time as Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith) and is Aotearoa New Zealand's first Māori professor of law.

Professor Ruru joined the University's Faculty of Law in 1999. She has received many significant awards, including the University of Otago Sesquicentennial Distinguished Chair, the Prime Minister's Supreme Teaching Excellence award and a local Kiwibank hero award. She is also a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

Professor Ruru is the first Humanities scholar to receive the Distinguished Research Medal in a decade and the first female Humanities recipient since 2003.

2022 Rowheath Trust Award and Carl Smith Medal: Associate Professor Peter Mace

Associate Professor Peter Mace image

Leading structural biologist Associate Professor Peter Mace is the recipient of the 2022 Rowheath Trust Award and Carl Smith Medal, awarded to early-career research staff who demonstrate outstanding scholarly achievement that enhances the understanding, development and wellbeing of individuals and society.

“It's great validation that you are doing internationally-significant research – that you're on the right path.”

Associate Professor Mace (Biochemistry) leads research which focuses on understanding signalling networks that regulate how cells respond to stress.

The overall goal is to decipher how specific proteins are regulated in normal and diseased cells, and to translate this knowledge into more effective disease therapy. His research has uncovered multiple protein structures that are relevant to cancer treatment.

“It's really rewarding to have this recognition, not just for myself, but for all the hard work put in by my research staff and students, who go above and beyond,” he says. “It's great validation that you are doing internationally-significant research – that you're on the right path.”

As well as his key research contributions, Associate Professor Mace has held important leadership roles in the structural biology community in New Zealand and is the current President for the New Zealand Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

2022 Early Career Awards for Distinction in Research

Dr Philip Adamson

(Department of Medicine, Christchurch)

Dr Philip Adamson's growing body of internationally-acclaimed work focuses on the prevention and treatment of heart
attacks. The Christchurch campus-based clinical cardiologist and senior lecturer within the Department of Medicine's Christchurch Heart Institute is currently principal investigator on three cardiovascular trials focused on coronary atherosclerosis - hardening of the heart's arteries.

Dr Sebastian Gehricke

(Department of Accountancy and Finance)

Despite having achieved his PhD less than four years ago, Dr Sebastian Gehricke is already making his mark. His focus has become sustainable finance research and teaching, which aligns with his off-grid lifestyle and is a field where academic research can have real life impacts on people and the planet. The Senior Lecturer has published extensively, attained significant funding, supervised several postgraduates and co-leads a successful research theme.

Dr Jemma Geoghegan

(Department of Microbiology and Immunology)

A leader in the field of evolutionary virology, Dr Jemma Geoghegan is a Senior Lecturer who has published over 50 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Her findings have won several awards including the Prime Minister's MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize, the Tall Poppy Award in Australia and the Genetics Society of Australasia Alan Wilton Award.

Dr Anna Gosling

(Department of Anatomy)

Dr Anna Gosling is a Research Fellow in the Department of Anatomy, with a transdisciplinary approach to addressing questions about Pacific health. Focused on understanding the patterns of genetic variation seen in human populations, her award-winning research identified that individuals who might have a genetic predisposition for hyperuricaemia would potentially have a faster and more efficient immune response to a malaria infection. In 2019, she was both awarded a Rutherford Postdoctoral Fellowship and her research served as one of the first multidisciplinary Marsden Council Grants.

Dr Amandine Sabadel

(Department of Zoology)

As an environmental scientist, Dr Amandine Sabadel's work across chemistry and ecology is applied to ecosystems and food web dynamics. Dr Sabadel joined the Department of Zoology as a Research Fellow in 2020 and concurrently holds a position as a stable isotope ecologist consultant with NIWA. Her experience in analytical chemistry and leading-edge compound-specific stable isotope analysis techniques, has grown her expertise in reconstructing energy links between organisms, and between organisms and their environments.

Dr Joseph Watts

(School of Social Sciences)

Religion programme Lecturer Dr Joseph Watts investigates how human evolution, culture and cognition interact. He is a member of Otago's Centre for Research on Evolution, Belief and Behaviour and leads Marsden grant research on the cultural evolution of theory of mind in the Pacific. He is also involved with projects investigating cross-cultural patterns in religious belief and behaviour.

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