Curtis lecture

In November Professor Shane Telfer delivered the NZIC Wellington Branch 2025 Curtis Lecture. The Curtis Lecture is a triennial lecture series (in sequence with the Halton and Mellor Lectures) held by the NZIC Wellington Branch in honour of Emeritus Professor Neil Curtis and his immense contributions to inorganic chemistry and coordination complexes. Professor Telfer gave a fantastic talk on his research into Metal-Organic Frameworks.

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Massey-Vic Day

Each year in November Massey and Victoria University have a shared symposium. The universities take turns at hosting and travelling and this year the symposium was held at Massey university with the support of the Manawatu NZIC. A huge thanks to those at Massey for hosting this year, it was a fantastic day with 15 excellent talks from across the two universities.

‍SCPS Victoria University of Wellington

Dr Mathew Anker wins Hamilton Award for chemistry breakthrough

Congratulations to Mat on receiving the 2025 Hamilton Award for excellence in early career scientific research administered by the Royal Society Te Aparangi. This is a highly prestigious prize and is a clear recognition of Mat’s cutting-edge research into the unexpected chemical reactivity of lanthanide complexes. 

Chase Zemke-Smith wins Tutor Excellence Award

Congratulations to PhD student Chase Zemke-Smith, who has been award the 2025 Te Maruako Tutor Excellence Award! Chase has been a committed and supportive tutor for SCPS courses over many years and is a positive role model to students studying science. This year, he has also been the Māori and Pasifika student chemistry and physics tutor for Āwina and Pasifika students. We are delighted that Chase’s dedication and skills have been recognised by this award.

Marsden funding success

Congratulations to Mat Anker and Rob Keyzers for their Marsden Fund success this year. Mat and colleagues from the Ferrier Institute and ANU were awarded a Marsden grant to develop The next generation of high-density data storage materials for data centres. Rob and collaborators from SBS, the Ferrier Institute and University of Auckland were awarded a Marsden for Development of new antifungal peptides derived from a New Zealand marine sponge, to combat systemic fungal infections.

PhD completion

Congratulations to Brenda Luong (Supervisors: Bridget Stocker, Mattie Timmer, Lisa Connor and Emma Dangerfield) who successfully defended her PhD in October titled, “The synthesis and immunological evaluation of carbohydrate-derived agonists to activate innate and innate-like T cells”.

Ferrier Research Institute

PhD completion

Congratulations to Lani Burke (supervisors: Emily Parker and Luke Stevenson) who successfully defended their thesis in October titled, “Investigating transcriptional regulation to enhance natural product biosynthesis in Penicillium paxillin”. Lani is now working for Bontia Bio, a spin-out company based on the Fungal Factories platform developed in the Parker group.

Marsden funding success

Congratulations to Benji Compton for the award of a Marsden grant for their project titled, “Developing new and improved mRNA vaccines to better control bacterial diseases”. Congratulations also to Sarah Draper and Amy Foster who are associate investigators on the project.

Ferrier Research Institute outreach: connecting chemistry with community

In September, the Ferrier Research Institute hosted two groups of rangatahi as part of its ongoing outreach programme, including participants from the Moko Foundation and Tauhara North through the Robinson Tech Bootcamp.

Both visits featured practical sessions demonstrating how Ferrier’s natural products research connects with traditional remedies. The sessions encouraged discussion on how traditional knowledge and modern science can complement each other, providing an accessible introduction to current research at the Institute.

These visits reflect Ferrier’s commitment to engaging rangatahi and communities across Aotearoa with authentic, hands-on experiences in chemical research, and to strengthening connections between scientific innovation and societal impact.