Talks – Past and Future

Friday 28 May at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Dr Ian Griffin, Director of Otago Museum, Dunedin. Cost: $5 per person. Since first observing the southern lights a week after he moved to Dunedin seven years ago, Ian Griffin has become obsessed with the aurora australis. On clear nights he […]

Friday 6 August at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Max Quinn, Polar Film Maker

Friday 3 September at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Dr Doug Sutton, University of Auckland (Retired). This paper summarises research over the last fifty years which has clarified what we now know about: The  original discovery of the Chatham Islands, The indigenous development there of Moriori population, culture and society, […]

Download a PDF of presentation (7.5MB) Thursday 15 April at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Professor / Ahorangi Michael Baker. Department of Public Health/Te Tari Hauora Tūmatanui. University of Otago, Wellington/Te Whare Wānanga o Otāgo ki Te [...]

Friday 6 November at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Oana Jones, Full Dome producer at Otago Museum. Cost – $5 per person. New Zealand is in a unique position for the adoption of electric cars. With a lot of cheap imports, a majority of our power [...]

MacDiarmid Institute Regional Lecture Series 2020 Materials Fact or Fiction – Wanaka. Friday 23rd October, 6pm, at the Presbyterian Community Hall, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. In order to accommodate any further changes in alert levels due to COVID, this year’s showcase will be in a digital [...]

Friday 16 October at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Associate Professor James Scott, University of Otago, Geoscience Society of New Zealand President’s Lecture. Cost – $5 per person. Mars, fourth planet from the Sun, will be visited by three missions in [...]

Friday 4 September at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Prof David Norton, School of Forestry, University of Canterbury. Cost – $5 per person. In order to comply with the Alert Level 2 requirements for our upcoming talk, we need to restrict attendance to no [...]

Friday 7 August at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Professor Arthur Grimes, Chair of Wellbeing and Public Policy School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington. Cost – $5 per person. The New Zealand government has placed great store on a [...]

Friday 3 July at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Prof Joachim Brand, New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study, Massey University. Cost – $5 per person. As temperatures fall, one might expect the physical world to become boring and lifeless. But realising [...]

Friday 24 April 6.00pm – 7pm. Online webinar (including question time) via Zoom. Connection details will be emailed to our branch members and anyone else who requests them – please email [email protected] Dr Sarah Diermeier, Department of Biochemistry, University of [...]

Friday 6 March at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Professor Greg Bodeker, Adjunct Professor at the Climate Change Research Institute. Cost – $5 per person. Link to Presentation Climate change remains the defining issue of our time. This presentation will [...]

Friday 12 February at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Dr Brian Pollard. Cost – $5 per person. Robotic landing on Mars has long been viewed as one of the most challenging engineering endeavours in space exploration. The sequence from entry into Mars’ [...]

Friday 7 February at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Drs Marcus Vandergoes (GNS Science) & Susie Wood (Cawthron Institute) and the Lakes380 team. Cost – $5 per person. The health of our lakes is central to New Zealand’s environmental, economic and [...]

Tuesday 10 December at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Professor Brendon Bradley, College of Engineering, University of Canterbury/Director of QuakeCoRE. Cost – FREE – Everyone Welcome. Link to view presentation slides: [...]

Friday 6 September at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Dr Nicola Gaston and Dr Marcus Jones, MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology. Cost – $5 per person. Come and hear MacDiarmid Institute scientists talk about how materials [...]

Friday 18 October at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Professor Tim Naish, Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington. New Zealand Antarctic Society National Speaker for 2019 Cost – $5 per person. I will present two narratives on the [...]

Friday 11 October at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Professor Neil J. Gemmell, Department of Anatomy, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand. Cost – $5 per person. New Zealand has set an ambitious goal to eradicate mammalian predators [...]

Friday 16 August at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Dr Hannah Prebble, Clinical Application Researcher at MARS Bioimaging Ltd. MARS is a new 3D x-ray imaging modality that enables the assessment of biochemical and physiological processes within the body. [...]

Friday 26 July at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Honorary Associate Professor Daphne Lee, Department of Geology, University of Otago. Cost: $5. Foulden Maar near Middlemarch is a small volcanic crater lake filled with 120 m of annually laminated [...]

Friday 7 June at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Professor Robert G. Patman, Department of Politics, University of Otago. Professor Patman has served as Head of the Department of Politics during the period 2013-2016, and he is the author of 12 books, the [...]

Friday 10 May at 6.00pm, at the Presbyterian Community Centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Associate Professor Joe Boden, Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago Christchurch. Cannabis is the most widely-used illicit drug in the world, and New Zealanders are some of the world’s [...]

Friday 22 March at 6pm, at the Presbyterian Community centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Dr Duncan Steel, Chief Systems Architect at the Centre for Space Science Technology In this talk I will outline the activities of CSST, which was founded last year in Alexandra as one of the government’s [...]

Friday 22 February at 6pm, at the Presbyterian Community centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Emeritus Professor Carolyn Burns, Department of Zoology, University of Otago. Do we understand, appreciate and value our lakes enough? I discuss some of the benefits of lakes, some of the problems we face [...]

Friday 2 November at 6pm, at the Presbyterian Community centre, 91 Tenby Street, Wanaka. Dr Helen Taylor, Department of Anatomy, University of Otago. Research fellow Dr Taylor’s science communication about conservation genetics and threatened species resulted in her last night being [...]

Friday 14 September 2018, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. Professor Alison Downard, Principal Investigator of The MacDiarmid Institute. Dr Ojas Mahapatra, Alumnus of The MacDiarmid Institute. FREE TALK The Wanaka Branch of the Royal Society of NZ is proud to host the [...]

Friday 17 August 2018, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. Dr Michael Jack, Director of Energy Management Programme, Physics Department, University of Otago. Variable generation from renewable sources (e.g. wind and solar) and acute peaks in electricity demand are [...]

Friday 27 July 2018, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. Professor Professor Colin Wilson, School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington. Royal Society Te Apārangi is aflame with excitement to present the 2018 New Zealand Rutherford [...]

Friday 29 June 2018, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. Professor Merryn Tawhai, Auckland Bioengineering Institute, University of Auckland. 2016 MacDiarmid Medal winner and newly appointed Director of MedTech Core, Professor Merryn Tawhai explains how a fascination with [...]

Friday 13 April 2018, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. Professor Tony Merriman, Department of Biochemistry, University of Otago. In this talk I will address what we know about the causes of obesity, a risk factor for metabolic diseases (diabetes, kidney and heart disease, [...]

Saturday 12 May 2018, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. Professor Michael Macknight, Co- founder and Director of ADInstruments, Dunedin. The best universities in the world are using medical technology designed by a Dunedin student nearly 30 years ago. Founded by Michael [...]

Friday 16 Feb 2018, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. Professor Liz Slooten, Department of Zoology, University of Otago. Professor Liz Slooten has studied New Zealand dolphins (Hector’s and Maui dolphins) since 1984. Her research has been instrumental in achieving [...]

Saturday 2 December 2017, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. Anthony Powell – Filmmaker and Photographer. Anthony Powell has worked in Antarctica for many years, and is the creator of the multi-award winning feature film Antarctica: A Year On Ice. His footage has [...]

Friday 10 Nov 2017, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. Prof. Philippa Howden-Chapman. Professor of Public Health at the University of Otago, and director of the New Zealand Centre for Sustainable Cities. Housing, particularly its quality, availability and affordability, has [...]

Friday 6 Oct 2017, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology. Speakers: Professor Cather Simpson, Dr. Michelle Dickinson and Professor Penny Brothers. The MacDiarmid Institute is delighted to bring its regional [...]

Friday 4 Aug 2017, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. Assoc. Prof. Alistair Knott, Department of Computer Science, University of Otago. Alistair Knott is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science department at the University of Otago. He studied Psychology and [...]

Friday 30 June 2017, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. Dr Jim Faed, Senior Lecturer, Department of Pathology (DSM), University of Otago. Stem cells are present in all living tissues. They are small populations of cells, specific to each tissue, that continue to provide [...]

Friday 12 May 2017, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka Professor Bruce Clarkson, University of Waikato, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research Charles Fleming Lecture New Zealand has a long and enviable record in conservation biology, which began with Wildlife Service efforts to [...]

Friday 31 March 2017, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka Professor Mark Stirling, Inaugural Professor of Earthquake Science, Otago University Abstract I will provide an overview of the seismology, surface ruptures and landslides produced by the Mw7.8, 14 November 2016 [...]

Friday 24 February at 7.30 pm in the Lake Wanaka Centre. VIDEOS OF MEETING Video1: Video2: Video3: Video4: Video5: The meeting will seek to provide an overview of all the research, actions and activities that are or need to be directed at guarding the health of the lakes and catchments. It will [...]

Monday 13 February, 2017, 6.00pm, Presbyterian Church Hall, 91 Tenby St, Wanaka. By Henry Snaith FRS, University of Oxford, and Professor Justin Hodgkiss, Deputy Director, MacDiarmid Institute. This year will see us capture more of our energy needs from sunlight than ever before. The phenomenal [...]

Thursday 20 October 6 pm Presbyterian Community Centre, Tenby St. $5 admission. Professor Kypros Kypri, School of Medicine & Public Health, The University of Newcastle, Australia Regulating pub trading hours has long been viewed as effective violence prevention. Until recently, however, [...]

Friday 30 September 6 pm Presbyterian Community Centre, Tenby St. $5 admission. Professor Ian Reid, Department of Medicine, University of Auckland. Ian is the RSNZ Rutherford Medal recipient and winner of the Prime Minister’s Science Prize for 2015. He will present his research into the [...]