Author Archives: Antony Steiner

Seeing the Unseen: MRI Innovation from Regional New Zealand

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Speaker: Associate Professor Samantha Holdsworth, Associate Professor at University of Auckland and Research Director of the Mātai Medical Research Institute, Tairāwhiti-Gisborne
Date: Thursday 9 October 2025
Time: 6:00pm
Venue: Lecture Theatre 1, EIT Taradale, Napier
Entry: Gold coin donation

How can advanced MRI help us better understand the brain and tackle some of our biggest health challenges? In this talk, Associate Professor Samantha Holdsworth shows how cutting-edge MRI is reshaping our understanding of the brain – from concussion to better detection of multiple sclerosis, from methamphetamine-related recovery to non-invasive measures of brain pressure. She’ll also share how community-embedded science in Tairāwhiti–Gisborne is inspiring young people, building research capability, and creating opportunities for New Zealand.

Join us for an evening that connects science, technology, and people – and highlights Aotearoa’s leadership in global imaging research.

Associate Professor Samantha Holdsworth is a world-leading MRI physicist at the University of Auckland and Research Director of the Mātai Medical Research Institute in Gisborne. After completing her physics degree at the University of Canterbury, a PhD in Queensland, and a fellowship at Stanford, she returned home to pioneer world-first MRI research in Aotearoa. At Mātai, she leads a multidisciplinary team working with iwi, schools, scientists, and clinicians to advance health, education, and innovation in the regions. Samantha is passionate about ensuring that cutting-edge science delivers benefits both to communities in Aotearoa and to the wider world.

Behind the Scenes: Visit T&G’s High-Tech Apple Packhouse

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Date: Thursday, 22 May 2025

Time: 5:30pm

Location: T&G Global, Whakatu (access details will be provided to confirmed attendees)

Booking Required via Eventfinda – Limited to 40 People. Bookings will open on 22 April.
This is a members-only event. You must be a paid-up RSNZ HB Branch member with membership valid through to March 2026.

Join us for an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of T&G’s cutting-edge $100 million apple packhouse in Whakatu, which opened in May 2023. This state-of-the-art facility is nearly fully automated, using advanced technology for apple washing, grading, packing, palletising, and storage. Some apples are even packed by robots – though humans still do it faster!

This is a rare opportunity to see one of New Zealand’s most advanced post-harvest facilities in action.

Visitor Requirements:

  • Wear hi-viz if you have it (T&G will provide hair and beard nets)
  • Wear flat, fully enclosed shoes
  • No jewellery or watches (plain wedding bands without stones are permitted)
  • No photos allowed – please leave your phone in the car

Tuesday 25 July: Rebuilding Hawke’s Bay’s stopbanks

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Jon Kingsford, Project Manager, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council

Date: Tuesday 25 July 2023 at 6.00pm

Venue: Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Dalton Street, Napier

Admission: Gold coin donation

Cyclone Gabrielle wreaked havoc on Hawke’s Bay as rivers overcame flood protection, leaving many stopbanks in need of urgent repair. This task fell to a rapid rebuild team at HBRC, led by Jon Kingsford. His talk will cover how the team came about, how it was structured to enable rapid scaling up of resource and about the challenges encountered during the repairs, using specific sites as examples. Then looking forward, Jon will describe planned future work and river management challenges more generally.

Jon Kingsford is a civil engineer and Project Manager, managing a small team of project managers delivering infrastructure construction work relating to stormwater and flood protection across the Hawke’s Bay. Jon is an outdoor enthusiast, feeling most at home in the ocean (on a surfboard) or in the mountains and native forests.

Generative AI – a lecture series in May and June 2023

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Four lectures on this topical and important subject are being broadcast free of charge by the Faculty of Science, University of Auckland

Click here for more information about the lecture series

Friday 21 May: Demographic Change in a COVID World : Implications for Hawkes Bay

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Friday 21 May 2021 at 6.00pm
EIT Lecture Theatre 1, 501 Gloucester Street, Taradale
Admission by gold coin donation

Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley FRSNZ

Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley FRSNZ, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Massey University Auckland

In the 2010-2020 period, New Zealand experienced major demographic change : declining fertility, rapid population ageing, and the highest ever net migration gains. All these had implications for New Zealand’s regions, including Hawkes Bay. COVID has confirmed some of these changes and accelerated others. This has become obvious in Hawkes Bay over the picking and processing in the 2020-2021 summer and the reliance on temporary overseas labour. This was always going to be unsustainable and COVID has confirmed this with considerable emphasis. Hawkes Bay will be a very different place in 2030. This talk discusses demographic change – past and future – and the implications for Hawkes Bay.

Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley was, until recently, the Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, at Massey University. He is the author or editor of 27 books, including Rebooting the Regions (2016) and The “New” New Zealand. Facing Demographic Disruption (2020). He is currently writing a book on the extreme right in this country. He is a Programme Leader of a research programme on the impacts of immigration and diversity on Aotearoa (MBIE, 2014-2021, $6 million). He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2011 and was granted the title of Distinguished Professor by Massey University in 2013. 

Tuesday 13 April 2021: Two Williams, one Microscope

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EIT Lecture Theatre 1, EIT at 6pm

Ian St George MD FLS

preceded by a short presentation of the microscope itself by former President of the Branch, Dr Elizabeth Pishief

Admission by gold coin donation

In 1890, Rev. William Colenso FRS FLS was Secretary and Dr William Isaac Spencer FLS MRCS President of the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute, the forerunner to our branch of the Royal Society. The two collaborated in several of their scientific studies and both used Spencer’s microscope. This talk presents details of the lives of both men, with some emphasis on their scientific achievements.

Ian St George is a general medical practitioner, amateur orchidologist and writer of several biographies of New Zealanders, including both William Colenso and William Spencer.

Royal Society Te Apārangi videos

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Courtesy of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, here are some videos of past lectures. Simply click on any of the images below to watch the lecture

‘What’s really inside your medicine cabinet?’ was a public lecture presented by Professor Dame Carol Robinson in Christchurch on Friday 16 March 2018

‘Climate change: stormy weather ahead’, a public lecture presented by Prof. Jim Skea in Wellington on 21 March 2018

‘Human longevity: myths and possibilities!’ is a talk presented by British gerontologist Professor Sarah Harper, founder of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, with introductions from Professor John Windsor FRSNZ.

Is New Zealand becoming a world leader in the bioengineering industry? 
Professor Merryn Tawhai, Director of MedTech CoRE, examines our capabilities in this field, and also shows the progress of her own research, modelling the human lung with its implications for healthcare.

The 2018 Rutherford Lecture ‘super tour’ was presented by the 2017 Rutherford Medal winner Professor Colin Wilson FRS FRSNZ who delivered his lecture at 22 locations across New Zealand.

‘Energy: what’s possible, what’s not’ with Professor Daniel Nocera (USA).

Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy at Harvard University, Professor Daniel Nocera presented this lecture at Royal Society Te Apārangi on 20 February 2018, thanks to The MacDiarmid Institute.

A pioneer in energy conversion, particularly on the generation of solar fuels, Daniel talks about developing his inventions, the Artificial Leaf, which harnesses solar power to split water molecules into hydrogen fuel, and subsequently, the Bionic Leaf, in the hope that these inventions can become affordable energy sources to those in poverty.

Videos of Royal Society lectures

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Here are some of the lectures hosted by Hawke’s Bay Branch that have been videoed (with thanks to Wayne Dobson of EIT), and also videos of events hosted by other branches of the Royal Society.

Wellington Branch of the Royal Society, Hudson Lecture 2019
By Prof. Tony Ward, Victoria University of Wellington

It was our pleasure to present the Hudson Lecture, of the Wellington Branch of the Royal Society, on the 14th August. This year the lecture was by Prof. Tony Ward  “Theoretical illiteracy and therapeutic dead ends: lessons from forensic and correctional practice”. 
The classification and explanation of crime is important for research and practice. The categorization of problems associated with crime sets explanatory targets, underpins predictive models, and ideally provides clinicians with a rich description of offending groups and their various difficulties. Dynamic risk factors and offence type categories are the fundamental constructs in this work and structure forensic practice and guide rehabilitation policy throughout the world. However, in my view there are serious theoretical problems with these two constructs which adversely impact on their utility. Continued reliance on them is stifling the field and is rapidly leading to theoretical dead ends, fragmented practice, and disappointing rehabilitation outcomes. In this talk, I present new ways of formulating DRF and classifying crime and its related problems in the forensic and correctional domains. I demonstrate how these theoretical innovations can lead to better explanatory theories, and more targeted interventions.
Professor Tony Ward, School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, has primarily researched forensic and correctional topics, prominently centered on violent and sexual offenders and rehabilitation. His theoretical contributions have resulted in substantial empirical research projects and innovations in treatment around the world. Tony is the developer of the “Good Lives Model” for the rehabilitation of offenders. He has taught clinical and forensic psychology at the universities of Melbourne, Canterbury, and Deakin and is a professorial fellow at the Universities of Birmingham, Kent, and Portsmouth. He has authored more than 400 academic publications. Tony was made a Fellow of Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2018.
Cheese, platinum and fundamental constants – what is the revision of the SI all about?
By Annette Koo, Measurement Standards Laboratory of New Zealand (MSL)
Worldwide agreement on units of measurement has brought us freedom to trade and innovate, as well as supported improved wellbeing and trust. This talk will describe why are we changing things now and what the revision of the International System of Units promises for the future. In particular, the redefinition of the kelvin away from the triple of point of water will be described, including the measurements contributing to the final value of Boltzmann’s constant and the ongoing implementation of the temperature scale.
Annette completed a physics PhD through Victoria University in 2005 and then spent 3 years in Melbourne as a postdoctoral fellow at CSIRO and then at Monash University doing research into catalysts for solar hydrogen generation. In 2008 she started at Measurement Standards Laboratory of New Zealand (MSL) as a research scientist, developing expertise in the measurement of light and human perception, including design of MSL’s robot-based goniospectrophotometer and piloting the CCPR comparison of spectral transmittance. Annette is now a Principal Research Scientist with MSL.

Tue 3 Dec 2019: Wine and Tributes: early knowledge-bearers and sharers in the sciences and humanities in Hawke’s Bay

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Professor Kay Morris Matthews, Research Professor, EIT

Tuesday 3 December, 6pm

Room R101, School of Viticulture and Wine Science, EIT,
501 Gloucester Street, Taradale

Cost: $10 a head for drinks and nibbles; pay at the door (cash please). To secure your place, please email: secretary@hawkesbay.rsnzbranch.org.nz

From 1874, large numbers of Pākehā settlers travelled to the Athenaeum in Napier to attend monthly lectures of the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute (HBPI). They came to listen, learn, take part in discussions and meet up with others interested in a range of subjects. In the main, those presenting their ideas and research were local.

Through and alongside the HBPI meetings emerged an inter-generational network of researchers, friends and supporters, both women and men. Drawing upon a range of primary and secondary sources collected during thirty years of research, the focus here is the behind-the scenes mentoring and the relationships between an inter-connected group who sought out and then shared new forms of knowledge. This celebratory tribute for the end of year features William Colenso, Henry Hill, William Spencer, Bessie Spencer, James Large, Amy Large, Frank Hutchinson, Herbert Guthrie-Smith, Georgina Guthrie-Smith and Barbara Guthrie-Smith.

Professor Kay Morris Matthews was raised in Hawke’s Bay, and has held academic positions at the University of Waikato, the University of Auckland and at Victoria University of Wellington. Kay is now Research Professor, Education, Humanities and Health Science, at EIT.Kay’s published research on William Colenso and Henry Hill has provided insights into their educational and research realms. Her current research, the biography of Anna Elizabeth Jerome Spencer, has led to a greater appreciation of the contributions of others involved in the HBPI, which from 1947, became the Royal Society of New Zealand Hawke’s Bay Branch.

Tuesday 19 November 2019: What is Cold Fusion?

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Holt Planetarium, Napier Boys High School,
Chambers Street, Napier

Tuesday 19 November 2019 at 6.00pm

Dr Michael McKubre, Former Director of Energy Research Centre SRI International

Admission by gold coin donation

In 1989 two respected scientists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, stunned the world with the announcement of possible evidence for nuclear level energetic effects in a distinctly non-nuclear experiment; electrochemistry. The importance of this claim and its potential for science and mankind was as obvious as its improbability.  

Dr Michael McKubre and many others around the world began to test the idea experimentally.  Some succeeded in generating evidence in support of the claim of “cold fusion”; many others attempted but did not encounter the nuclear realm, and the effect was labelled “irreproducible”. With the benefit of 30 years hindsight, scores of person-years effort and tens of millions of dollars spent (in Michael’s lab alone), it is clear that nuclear effects can and do take place in solids and liquids.

Cold Fusion, now more properly termed Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (CMNS), remains exquisitely difficult to control and demonstrate, but holds out the tantalising prospect of a flexible and cheap source of nuclear energy.

In his talk, Michael will explain the principles of, evidence for, the objections to and the potential of CMNS.

After under- and post-graduate studies in Washington DC and Wellington, Michael McKubre completed a PhD in Electrochemistry before heading first to the UK for post doctoral research and then to California to work at SRI, an energy research institute. Michael now lives in Napier, is still active in this field, and is one of our branch members.