Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington
The official Bluesky page for Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
- As part of her PhD research with WSBG, Annika Naschitzki studied restructuring in the public sector between 2018 & 2021. She found that organisations found it easier to signal commitment to change by making visible cuts & declaring new operating models, than the slog of sustained, measured reform.
- PhD candidate Michael Miller is using mathematical modelling to determine whether more than a million people in New Zealand will be able to speak a basic level of te reo Māori by 2040. The impact of policies and interventions that may have interrupted this trajectory is also part of his research.
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- It's no secret New Zealand is facing a literacy crisis, says Anne Goulding, Professor of Library and Information Management from the Wellington School of Business and Government. Professor Goulding explains how this has been overlooked by Goverment in this piece for Newsroom.
- Congratulations to Emeritus Professor Charlotte Macdonald on her new book, Garrison World: Redcoat Soldiers in New Zealand and across the British Empire, launched by Her Excellency The Right Honourable Dame Cindy Kiro, Governor-General of New Zealand.
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- More than a thousand of our graduates marched through the Wellington city centre last week, celebrating achievements big and small. Congratulations to all our future leaders, innovators, & change-makers. We're so thrilled to have celebrated with you all last week. 🎓 Read more at The Post below.
- Our grads will stop traffic this week with glam fits, billowing cloaks, and bright smiles, on their way to celebrate their achievements at the MFC and Te Herenga Waka marae. The parade will run from the Old Government Buildings to Queens Wharf on Thursday 11 December.
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- Business leader Dame Theresa Gattung and legal luminary Sir David Carruthers will receive honorary doctorates from Te Herenga Waka this week at graduation.
- More yellow-legged hornets have been found, with new nests discovered on Auckland’s North Shore. VUW Professor of Biology Phil Lester says we now have a narrow window to stop the hornets’ spread.
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- Our work is exploring the role of these fish in carbon sequestration, part of a fantastic collaboration between @vicuniwgtn.bsky.social , University of Otago, and @aucklanduni.bsky.social, made possible with support from @marsdenfund.bsky.social
- Rose Barton from @vicuniwgtn.bsky.social investigating how people perceive the mind of BabyX #kiwicam2025
- Ezra Ramsey from @vicuniwgtn.bsky.social sharing work on experiences of tāngata Māori reclaiming identity #kiwicam2025
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- Dylan Horrocks & Dr Zach Dodson from the School of Design Innovation are co-founders of the Visual Narrative Lab. They recently spoke with B-Side Stories on Wellington Access Radio about their work, the role of play in the creative process, & the joys and challenges of creativity.
- Asset sales could become a key issue in the 2026 general election, say VUW political scientists Dr Sam Crawley, Dr Matthew Gibbons, and Professor Jack Vowles. In an article for Newsroom, they look at voters’ appetite for asset sales, drawing on the latest data from the New Zealand Election Study.
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- The UN’s latest climate change conference kicked off in Brazil this month. VUW climate change lecturer Dr Cathrine Dyer argues New Zealand’s delegation will be there “beneath a cloud of scepticism about the government’s seriousness in addressing carbon emissions”.
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- The recent fire in Tongariro National Park burnt through nearly 3,000 hectares, leaving a charred landscape in its wake. Unfortunately, the risks of more events like this are rising, says Julie Deslippe, an associate professor in VUW’s School of Biological Sciences.
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- Failings in the police’s top ranks were revealed in the recent investigation of how complaints against former deputy commissioner Jevon McSkimming were handled. Michael Macaulay says the case "brought into sharp focus how poor judgement and processes can corrode public confidence in an institution".
- Wonderful work in the @elccprogramme.bsky.social at @vicuniwgtn.bsky.social! Congratulations @nikkihessell.bsky.social
- This essay began its life a long time ago, in conversation with an @elccprogramme.bsky.social Summer Scholar, Tuioleloto Laura Toailoa. It’s taken years to bring some of that early thinking to fruition. Thank you so much to the Defoe Society for this award
- In this episode of RNZ's Our Changing World, Dr Andrew Lensen, a senior lecturer in AI at Te Herenga Waka, and Professor Bing Xue, deputy director of the University's Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, discuss how they're applying artificial intelligence in Aotearoa.
- From his office window, Professor Geoff McLay can see all three branches of NZ’s government. He joined RNZ’s The House to unpack how they interact, interpret, and keep each other in check, without a written constitution, but with plenty of tension and tradition.
- It's International Translation Day on Tuesday 30 September, coinciding with the Feast Day of Bible translator St Jerome, the patron saint of translators. For Professor Marco Sonzogni, the day is a special one to honour the work of translators and interpreters he calls "unsung heroes".
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- Te Herenga Waka researchers have secured $15m in Endeavour Fund support for projects from strengthening global software supply chains to brewing better non-alcoholic drinks—plus contributions to six others tackling challenges from tsunamis to climate monitoring.
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- With AI regulation in Aotearoa lagging, more than 20 AI experts have signed an open letter urging the government to act. One of the authors, Dr Andrew Lensen, Programme Director for Artificial Intelligence at the University, spoke to RNZ about why stronger oversight is needed.
- Research fellow Dr Vincent Olsen-Reeder and Associate Professor Corinne Seals unpack the jargon, such as “decoding” and “grapheme-phoneme correspondences”, behind the government’s near-total ban on Māori words in new books for teaching five-year-olds to read.
- You can’t beat Wellington on a good day, and you definitely can’t beat Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington on Open Day. We’ve just wrapped up our biggest Open Day yet, welcoming more than 7,000 future students and their whānau to our campuses.
- Deputy Vice-Chancellor Māori and Kaitiakitanga, Professor Rawinia Higgins, who is also the Māori Language Commissioner, last week had the honour of speaking on a global panel alongside other Indigenous leaders at the Waves 2025 Indigenous Languages Summit in Ottawa.
- Raised amid politics and diplomacy, David Harland has dedicated his career to peacebuilding in the world’s toughest conflict zones. From Te Herenga Waka to leading global mediation, his work shows the power of courage and dialogue. This year, he is a Distinguished Alumni Award winner.
- Non-alcoholic beer has taken off in the past few years. Where options were once scarce, brewers are taking up the challenge in droves. But how can you get the same flavour into beer without it? This is where a cross-disciplinary team of researchers from Te Herenga Waka comes in.
- Get ready to experience Wellington like a Vic Uni student! We've got our 2025 Open Day coming up on Friday, 22 August. Whether you’re coming from out of town or already call Wellington home, Open Day is your opportunity to picture the next exciting chapter of your life in the capital.
- Time limits for filing civil claims relating to historic abuse continue to deny justice to survivors, say Dr Zoë Prebble, a lecturer in Criminal Law at Te Herenga Waka.
- Announcing our 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award winners! Every two years, we celebrate the brightest and boldest innovators, visionaries, and community connectors from within our 140,000 alumni with the Distinguished Alumni Awards. This year, we have named five exceptional alumni as winners.
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- Maria Rabino-Neira, a PhD student at our Faculty of Law, is off to Harvard Law School thanks to a Fulbright NZ scholarship, where she will conduct research into humanitarian legal protection. At Harvard Law School, Maria will join the Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (PILAC).
- Over 200 staff, students and alumni, including Vice-Chancellor Nic Smith, dug in for Growing our Future, planting 2,400 natives in Ohariu Valley in late July. Now in its fifth year, the project supports biodiversity research and kaitiakitanga, with 20,000 trees in the ground and counting. 🌱
- Poor-quality data, skewed evidence, half-baked findings—it’s the science of bad science. But with AI gaining the capacity to audit published research, dodgy results may be more likely to be picked up in future, say Alexander Kaurov, from Te Herenga Waka, and Naomi Oreskes, from Harvard University.
- VUW's Dr Alex Beattie explains to CapsuleNZ why we are seeing emerging subcultures within generations that are keen to bring landlines back to life.
- The mass arrival of Weddell seals outside Scott Base is a sign that high summer has likely arrived on the continent. Basking seals are among the key tohu (signs) observed by researchers exploring a potential Māori lunar and environmental calendar, or maramataka, for Antarctica.
- An independent reference group set up by the NZ Government recommended a 20-year transition period to stop natural storm and flood-related government buy-outs for homeowners. Here's VUW's Jonathan Boston on this "morally bankrupt" policy change: www.rnz.co.nz/national/pro...
- VUW's Dr Ian Schipper has just returned from using a double-hulled waka to reach volcanoes in the Solomon Islands. He spoke to @RadioNZ's Saturday morning about how his team gathered valuable data from gas emissions there.
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- In April, Robyn Cockburn received an Active Champion for Equity (ACE) award from the Oceania National Olympic Committee. The award recognised Robyn’s mahi founding and facilitating Wāhine Toa, a sports leadership programme for women across New Zealand and Oceania.
- Recent PhD graduate Dr Lloyd Martin was interviewed recently on Radio NZ about his research into alternative education provision for young people. He says spending more on alternative education would be an investment for society.
- The judges’ brief for the annual Post Gold Awards is always to find the most inspiring local businesses—the ones that take off, generate cool ideas, and look out for people. So, it’s not surprising that our alumni won big at this year’s awards ceremony.
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- Head down to Te Marae in Te Papa Tongarewa each week from 12.15 pm - 1.15 pm from 7 July to 8 September (then MEOW and Circa from 16 to 29 September), and you will find real live writers telling stories to one another about how they create their work, in the Writers on Mondays series.
- We recently hosted Mark Amery from RNZ's Culture 101 at the Miramar Creative Centre, where he donned "robot pyjamas," and learned how the MCC is inspiring the next generation of filmmakers from Raqi Syed and recent grad Jun Huang.
- The saga of the school lunch programme has generated plenty of headlines about inedible meals, but it’s also provided “a window into the wider debate about the politics of ‘fiscal responsibility’ and austerity politics,” says Dr Ian Lovering, a lecturer in International Relations at Te Herenga Waka.
- Mina Zarei Sanabadi combines her real-world marketing experience and work at LitMaps while studying for her PhD. Mina’s doctoral research looks at how digital humans, such as avatars or virtual assistants, can help people collaborate more effectively with AI systems.
- In his years as a builder, Daven Candy says he had to “work with timber saturated in chemical preservatives, adhesives riddled with dangerous compounds, and paints that leave behind a legacy of microplastics”. The experience motivated him to return to complete his Master of Architecture degree.
- Three VUW PhD students are heading to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in California for a once-in-a-lifetime space scholarship. Taran, Sofie, and Mark will spend 3 months tackling cutting-edge space research, from lunar rovers to the Big Bang.
- Te Herenga Waka, in collaboration with Royal Society Te Apārangi delivered Powering Potential ki Pōneke, a three-day science and innovation programme for 45 rangatahi from across the Wellington region.
- Alumna Monica Gruber believes that it’s crucial for environmental stewardship to be championed by people who have a lived connection to the region they are supporting. She hopes that this scholarship will encourage more Pasifika students to enter a career in environmental or ecological sciences.
