Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 7.00pm

Professor Joachim Brand

Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonics and Quantum Technologies, New Zealand and Institute of Advanced Study, Massey University Auckland

Venue: Holt’s Planetarium, NBHS, Chambers Street, Napier

Admission: Gold coin donation

This lecture examines how the detection of gravitational waves resembles listening more than seeing and how the merging of two black holes was ‘heard’, a discovery that most likely could never have been made with conventional telescopes. Joachim also looks at the amazing technology of laser interferometry that made this detection possible, and the development of quantum technologies that will make future detectors even more sensitive.

Joachim Brand is a theoretical physicist and a true explorer. He is drawn to the wildest most untamed realms of physics where the rules we learn at school no longer apply. Joachim refers to these realms as “unsafe” zones. His passion is to establish little islands of order and safety amidst the chaos. His main motivation is curiosity but his intrepid adventures are also laying the foundations for the technological revolutions of the future like quantum computing.

Originally from a small town in Germany, Joachim first came to New Zealand as an undergraduate backpacker with a bike. He spent eight weeks riding around and fell in love with the country. He did his PhD in Quantum Chemistry at Heidelberg University but then discovered the emerging field of cold atoms and switched direction. He was already captivated by quantum theory and this new field would allow him to create and observe almost any quantum phenomena he could think up. Joachim spent his Postdoc at the University of Washington learning everything he could about cold atoms. After that, a four-year advanced Postdoc at the Max Planck Institute enabled him to meet and work with many of the world’s leading theorists. Then, looking for some space and quiet to get on with his own work, Joachim applied for a job in New Zealand. Now both he and his wife, who is also a Professor of Physics, are happily settled at Massey University in Auckland.

Tuesday 27 March 2018 at 6.00pm

Dr Anjan Banerjee , Orthopaedic Surgeon

Venue: EIT Lecture Theatre 2

Admission: Gold coin donation

7 July 2005 started just like any other day: the trip to work and then the Trauma Meeting at St Mary’s Hospital followed by the Ward Round. Unfortunately the day changed after that. The Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times,” seemed most apt to describe that day. Soon after the meeting ended the MAJAX Alert was sent to all Pagers in the Hospital.

This is an account of how the hospital and in particular the Orthopaedic & Trauma Team at St Mary’s Hospital responded to the Major Incident and an overview of the principles of Mass Casualty Management and Damage Control Orthopaedic Surgery.

Dr Anjan Banerjee is a General Practitioner at the Taradale Medical Centre who has 15 years’ experience in Trauma & Orthopaedic Surgery. He also works as a GP with Special interest in Musculoskeletal Medicine and is a Police Medical Officer for Hawkes Bay. He was Trained in the UK and holds a MBChB from Dundee University and the MRCS from The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. At the time of the London Bombings, he was the Spinal Registrar at St Mary’s Hospital in London, which received all the casualties from the Edgeware Road bomb in the London underground.

Thursday  22 March  7.30 pm

Lecture Theatre 1, EIT, Taradale
Catherine Knight, MA,  PhD
Environmental Historian

Free Entry

A new year and a new government, but little sign yet of any tangible progress towards making our rivers more ‘swimmable’ – an issue that attracted such controversy last year. That controversy reflected the sense of urgency that many New Zealanders feel about the perilous state of many of our waterways, concern that shows no sign of diminishing. In this talk, Dr Catherine Knight, author of New Zealand’s Rivers: An environmental history, will provide important context to this debate by exploring some of our complex – and often conflicted – history with rivers since humans first settled in Aotearoa New Zealand. She will argue that knowing our history is an important foundation to forging a better future, both in terms of our environment and our socioeconomic wellbeing.

Catherine Knight is an environmental historian. New Zealand’s Rivers: An environmental history (Canterbury University Press, 2016) was longlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2017 and was selected as one of the Listener’s Best Books for 2016. Her previous book, Ravaged Beauty: An environmental history of the Manawatu (Dunmore Press, 2014), won the J.M. Sherrard major award for excellence in regional and local history, and Palmerston North Heritage Trust’s inaugural award for the best work of history relating to the Manawatu. Her next book is entitled Beyond Manapouri: 50 years of environmental politics in New Zealand, and will be published in May 2018. Catherine is a policy and communications consultant and lives with her family on a small farmlet in the Manawatu, where they are working towards restoring the totara forest that once thrived on the river terraces.

New Zealand’s Rivers: An environmental history will be available for sale (cash only) on the night. RRP $49.99

Wednesday 7 March 2018 at 7.30pm

Helen Cadwallader MSc, PhD student, Waikato University

Venue: National Aquarium, Marine Parade, Napier

Admission: Gold coin donation

Stingrays in New Zealand are largely understudied, but as large coastal elasmobranch species, they are potentially exposed to some of the greatest anthropogenic risks. This talk will describe what we know about them, why they are important, and how we as humans are affecting them, from removal of habitat to their portrayal in the media. It will also highlight why we in New Zealand are in an excellent position to study them, and describe Helen’s current study on New Zealand’s rays, including how the rays here in the Aquarium have joined in the research.

Helen Cadwallader is a PhD candidate with the University of Waikato based at the Coastal Marine Field Station in Tauranga. She completed her MSc at Bangor University in her home country of Wales, where she specialised in cleaner-client interactions between tropical wrasse and pelagic thresher sharks, and her BSc at the University of Bristol, where her honours research concentrated on the behavioural reactions of freshwater fish to anthropogenic underwater noise. Helen specialises in elasmobranch behaviour and ecology and her PhD focuses on the stingray species in New Zealand, their spatial and feeding ecology in the Tauranga Harbour, and the potential impacts that the urbanisation of this area may be having on them.

Thursday 1 March 2018 at 6.00pm

The LAB, National Aquarium, Marine Parade, Napier

Dr Yoshihiro Ito & Dr Kimihiro Mochizuki, Universities of Kyoto and Tokyo

What can New Zealand learn from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and the subsequent establishment of an early warning system?

6.30pm on Tuesday 13 February 2018

National Aquarium, Marine Parade, Napier

Marcus Eriksen & Anna Cummins from 5 Gyres Institute

World Plastic Pollution Experts speak on Plastic Pollution and Solutions in the South Pacific

Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins from 5 Gyres Institute and guest speakers will explore the issue of plastic pollution with you. Through the science and real life experiences within the sub-tropical gyres they will bring you up to date on the current state of the issue, as well as sharing the latest global and local approaches towards solutions.

For more detail see PURE Speaking Tour and this website

5:30pm on Wednesday 14 February 2018

National Aquarium, Marine Parade, Napier

Russ van Dissen, Earthquake Geologist, GNS Science

The 7.8 Kaikōura earthquake was associated with a complex array of surface ruptures that caused damage to engineered structures, particularly the transportation network. The fault rupture mechanism was a complex system that involved at least 21 faults along an approx. 180 km zone. Many were already mapped as active or geological faults prior to the earthquake, although some specific surface traces were previously unknown. The earthquake ruptured the entire mapped lengths of some faults, and the partial lengths of others. This talk is about geological and seismological characteristics of the complex multi-fault rupture.

Russ van Dissen was born, raised and educated in the western USA. He moved to New Zealand about 25 years ago to take up a position with the then Earth Deformation Section of the New Zealand Geological Survey. His research specialties include earthquake geology and seismic hazard assessment and he has had significant involvement in the development of the Ministry for the Environment’s “Active Fault Guidelines”; characterisation of the surface fault rupture along the Greendale Fault during the September 2010 Darfield earthquake; and the “It’s Our Fault” project that aimed to better define earthquake risk in the Wellington Region. He is currently working on the Kaikōura earthquake response.

6.00pm Tuesday 30 January 2018

Lecture Theatre 2, EIT, Gloucester Street, Taradale

Admission: Gold coin donation

Professor Bob Marshall, EIT Director of Research

EIT works closely with a range of industries and institutions in Hawke’s Bay, providing research and evaluation support.  This talk will outline some of those projects as well as others.

Professor Bob Marshall is EIT’s Research Director with responsibility for the overall direction of EIT’s research, and for organising appropriate research infrastructure and support.

Caring for our coastal waters: the appliance of science

Tuesday 12 December 2017 at 6pm

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council
Cnr. Dalton and Vautier Streets, Napier

Under the chairmanship of team leader Stephen Swabey, three scientists from HBRC’s Coastal Team will present talks of 20 minutes each:

Anna Madarasz-Smith                The rise and fall of the Ahuriri Estuary
Shane Gilmer                                Jump in! Recreational water quality in Hawke’s Bay
Oliver Wade                                  Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Using new technologies in Science

Please then stay for some conviviality: we will lay on the nibbles, cake and a glass of something to celebrate the end of a very busy and successful year for the HB Branch of the Royal Society!

Thursday 16 November 2017, 6pm

ABB, 111 Main North Rd, Hawke’s Bay Airport

30 people maximum, members only please

To secure your place, please send an email to:
hawkesbay.rsnz@gmail.com

ABB is a pioneering technology leader that is writing the future of industrial digitalization. For more than four decades, they have been at the forefront, innovating digitally connected and enabled industrial equipment and systems. Every day, they drive efficiency, safety and productivity in utilities, industry, transport and infrastructure globally. With a heritage spanning more than 130 years, ABB operates in more than 100 countries and employs around 132,000 people.

The ABB site in Napier designs and manufactures power conditioning products, which are used by customers worldwide, who need a reliable power supply 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their customers include:

• semiconductor / automotive / textile industries
• data centres / supercomputers
• shore-to-ship / marine / oil & gas industries
• plastics / cable extrusion / pharmaceutical manufacturers.

We will be hosted by Nick Elliott, R&D Manager and Scott Styles, Principal Engineer, for a presentation on the business, including latest developments, and a factory tour.

Please note dress code:

• flat (i.e. no heels), close fitting (i.e. not loose fitting ballet-type), fully closed-in shoes
• trousers (shorts are not acceptable).

ABB will provide safety glasses and hearing protection.

http://new.abb.com/about