Waikato News

Congratulations to Brendan Gill (Fonterra) on being elected as a Fellow of the NZIC.
Michael Mucalo gave his Presidential address to the branch late last year, which was well attended.
A small but enthusiastic contingent from Waikato attended the NZIC conference in Auckland in November. The branch was ably represented by Lauren Gris in the student oral paper competition with her talk, “A chemical study of the predator-prey relationships in nudibranchs”.
As part of the IUPAC Global Women’s Breakfast event on 14 February for female chemists and supporters, a very enjoyable breakfast was held at Jack’s Coffee Lounge in Hamilton. This was one of nearly 400 events held in over 70 countries and we were one of the very first breakfasts to launch.

Daniel Reason successfully defended his PhD on "Process optimization for the manufacture of medicinal cannabis products". Daniel's research was supervised by Megan Grainger and Joseph Lane and was carried out for Cannasouth where Daniel is now employed full time.
Brittany Jaine and Edie Thomas (both supervised by Megan Grainger) completed their MSc(Research) work. Their theses were entitled, “Effects of toxic heavy metals on European honeybee (Apis Mellifera) neuronal cells” and “Characterisation of the aroma profiles of New Zealand monofloral honeys”, respectively.
Megan Grainger, along with Dr Cathy Buntting (Director of Wilf Malcom Institute of Educational Research) and Dr Brent Wagner (School of Education) spent Terms 3 and 4 in 2022 working with a group of students and teacher Whaea Oriana Tauranga to learn more about honeybees. This was part of a joint venture with Professor Les Bailie (Cardiff University) and Ysgol Pen Rhos School students and teacher Jo Cudd (Llanelli, Wales). The spot-a-bee app (http://www.spotabee.buzz/) was modified for inclusion of New Zealand native flora to track the movement of bees. One of the highlights for the students was spending a day working with the university's portable SEM, dissection microscopes and light microscopes.
After many years of valuable service, both Bill Henderson and Merilyn Manley-Harris retired from the university at the end of 2022. We wish them both well in their retirement.

Chairperson: Michael Mucalo

Secretary: Brendan Gill

Treasurer/Chemistry Education representative: Martina Pietsch Brown

Council delegate/Branch editor: Michèle Prinsep

Student representative: Amber Bell

Committee members:
Megan Grainger, Lauren Gris, Kavitha Ranaweera, Matthew Risi, Simon Winship