THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND ALUMNI MAGAZINE Ingenioauckland.ac.nz/ingenio AUTUMN 2021 HEARTS & MINDS Collaborating on cardiovascular research Brain gain Kauri fightback Distinguished alumni Smart Kiwis who Our researchers helping Five special members have come home save our forests of society celebrated BIG PICTURE PUMPED TO BE BACK Finally, students in 2021 could experience Orientation Week activities on campus. This photo was taken in Alfred Street, which was closed to traffic for three days of food stalls, music and information pop-up tents. The vibe was joyous. Photo: Tom Zhao. Instagram @photog.tomzhao this issue REGULARS 7 33 6 Cover story: Boost to a bright future Editorial Our hearts in our hands Distinguished Professor Brian Boyd set up Manaaki Mānawa, the University’s Heart a new first-in-family scholarship using the Research Centre, has a vital role to play in $100,000 he won with his Rutherford Medal 14-16 reducing our rates of cardiovascular disease News 17 Guest columnist: 30 36 Marie Dyhrberg A career in focus Distinguished 22 Research Emeritus Professor Colin Green is Alumni Awards internationally recognised for his From architecture to poetry to saving the pioneering research in opthalmology nation, our DAAs are a special bunch 27 David Moreau: 7 exercise tips 28 32 38 Taking Issue A lifetime of learning Charlotte Grimshaw: 34 Golden Graduate Gae Griffiths believes home truths Around the Globe everyone has something about them that is A powerful memoir shines a torch on life truly outstanding as the daughter of author C.K. Stead 40 Dame Claudia Orange and books by other alumni and staff 42 Connection Points: SUSTAINABLE Get in touch The wrap around Ingenio is 100 percent degradable and recyclable. Ingenio is also printed on environmentally friendly paper stocks. 4 | Ingenio magazine Home again Jaime King 18 The Kiwis who’ve brought their 21 Professor in health law starts skills back to Aotearoa new life in New Zealand Kauri fightback 24 Researchers working to save our precious trees auckland.ac.nz/ingenio | 5 Ingenio Editorial The University of Auckland Alumni and Friends magazine Autumn 2021 ISSN 1176-211X Editor Denise Montgomery Executive editor Helen Borne REFLECTIONS ON Art design Stephen Wang CONNECTIONS Feature photos Elise Manahan Ingenio editorial contacts Communications he University has always placed to maintain and develop our connections and and Marketing, great importance on its relationships. commitments to our partners. The University of Auckland Engaging alumni, extending our It is almost ten years since I took up the role of Private Bag 92019, reach into local and international Deputy Vice-Chancellor Strategic Engagement Auckland 1142, communities, and connecting and working and now I’m moving to a new position as Provost New Zealand. T Level 3, Alfred Nathan House with business, government, our donors and of Universitas 21. As I conclude my time at this 24 Princes Street, Auckland. supporters are fundamental to our capacity to University, it is interesting to reflect on where we Telephone: +64 9 923 6061 make positive contributions to society. have come from and where we are headed. We Email: This last year has brought reassessment and have seen the number of alumni who engage [email protected] change to how we continue those relationships. with us each year grow from 48,000 to more than Web: auckland.ac.nz/ingenio The arrival of Covid-19 challenged how we 92,000. Alumni share expertise with students as How alumni keep in touch maintain our connection and shared sense of guest speakers, lecturers and mentors and in just To continue to receive Ingenio and subscribe to @auckland, purpose with those whose relationships are so one example of University-alumni volunteering, the University’s email newsletter vital to us. Travel restrictions and lockdowns 7,000 books were collected to help establish for alumni and friends, enter forced us to connect differently. It was not just 25 libraries in Tonga. your details at: alumni. teaching that the University took online. Face-to- Universities are outward-looking organisations. auckland.ac.nz/update face meetings of every kind gave way to digital We have always reached into our communities, Alumni Relations Office interactions and we discovered advantages as well recognising the importance of these connections. The University of Auckland 19A Princes Street, as limitations. I am proud of the strong relationships we have Private Bag 92019, The Alumni Relations and Development office with our alumni in New Zealand and the Pacific. Auckland 1142, New Zealand. took the popular ‘Raising the Bar’ event online I am also proud of the partnerships we have Telephone: +64 9 923 4653 during lockdown. Instead of 20 talks in ten bars developed around the globe that are crucial for Email: on one night in Auckland, six of our leading our research, student experience and teaching [email protected] Web: alumni.auckland.ac.nz researchers Zoomed from their domestic settings collaborations. At a critical juncture for the world into more than 1,300 homes around the world in terms of global issues such as public health, Disclaimer Articles may reflect personal to present highlights of their work. Raising the climate change and tense geopolitics, the unique opinion that is not that of the Bar ‘Home Edition’ was born and the technology capacity of universities to work across borders University of Auckland. allowed alumni sprawled across the globe to join has never been more important. Audited by abc.org.nz the event. Covid-19 will continue to affect how we Copyright The year 2020 also saw the University, while do things, even as the world transitions to an No parts of this publication in lockdown, working with our new Vice- environment where travel resumes and where may be reproduced without Chancellor, Professor Dawn Freshwater, to sustainability considerations are factored into prior consent of the University of Auckland. All rights develop a vision and direction for the coming decision making. Our response to the pandemic reserved. © The University decade. Taumata Teitei Vision 2030 draws presents opportunities in our engagement to of Auckland 2021 partnership and engagement into everything the do things quite differently, to refine our shared University does. Our experience of the past year purpose and goals and the impact on our has shown we can find new and alternative ways communities. There is an exciting future for us all. JENNY DIXON Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Strategic Engagement (2013 – May 2021) Cover design Jacinda Torrance/Verso Visual 6 | Ingenio magazine Cover Story OUR HEARTS IN OUR Photo: Elise Manahan HANDS Styling: Billy Wong Cardiovascular disease kills more than 30 percent of New Zealanders, including around 500 each year who are under 55. Māori death rates from cardiovascular disease are twice those of non-Māori and it is the leading cause of death in Pacific Peoples, at almost one in three. The University of Auckland’s Manaaki Mānawa Centre for Heart Research is collaborating with clinicians, heart researchers and community experts from around the country to work towards improving these statistics. Donna Chisholm meets some of the people involved. auckland.ac.nz/ingenio | 7 r Anna Rolleston sees everything that expectancy between Māori and Pacific Peoples is wrong with Western approaches to and the rest of the population and help to shape heart healthcare in the faces of the a healthcare system that better meets their needs. clients who walk through her doors In turn, that will help improve New Zealand’s Devery day at the Centre for Health in Tauranga. overall heart healthcare statistics across the whole “These people have come to the end of their population. journey in the health system. They say, ‘I’ve HHANZ draws together a national network got nothing to go to the doctor about. I’ve had of researchers at the newly established Manaaki a stent or bypass surgery and I’m on the right Mānawa Centre for Heart Research, based medication, but I’m not well.’ The health system at the University of Auckland, Heart Otago doesn’t do wellness – it only helps you if there is and the Christchurch Heart Institute. Base something wrong.” government funding is for the national network, According to that system, says Anna (Ngāti but each heart research centre must raise its own Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngāti Pūkenga), additional funding for research. they’re “fixed” but, in all senses of the words, Anna and Healthy Hearts co-director Professor they’re sick at heart. Julian Paton say Manaaki Mānawa and the “We know that putting a stent in your heart new CoRE must effect real change in heart doesn’t make people well. It fixes a small aspect healthcare. “It can’t be business as usual,” says of something that causes an illness.” Julian. “Doing what we have done doesn’t work.” Now, as co-director of Healthy Hearts for They emphasise the importance of a holistic Aotearoa New Zealand (HHANZ), a new Centre approach in which Māori and Pacific cultural of Research Excellence (CoRE) for heart health beliefs are valued and respected. Despite being equity hosted by the University of Auckland, she disparaged by many Western health professionals, and a multidisciplinary team of scientists have alternative healing is a vital part of treatment for the chance to change that. many Indigenous and Pacific Peoples. HHANZ will receive $40.5 million in “The majority of health professionals are logic- government funding over the next seven and and evidence-based and when you talk about a half years. One of its key goals is to address connection to wairua, connection to tipuna, or the shameful seven- to eight-year gap in life having healing from a spiritual connection to “The health system doesn’t do wellness – it only helps you if there is something wrong.” – Dr Anna Rolleston Dr Anna Rolleston is co- director of Healthy Hearts for Aotearoa New Zealand.