9 June 2005

Young scientists to meet with Nobel winners

For the first time, young New Zealand scientists are to attend the annual meeting of Nobel Prize winners in Lindau, Germany, Research, Science and Technology Minister Steve Maharey announced today.

The meeting – to be held later this month – will be attended by more than fifty Nobel Prize winners, including New Zealand Nobel Laureate, Professor Alan MacDiarmid. The annual meetings began in 1951 when Nobel laureates first came together with young scientists to network and exchange ideas.

Steve Maharey said the meeting was a unique opportunity for the young scientists and the wider New Zealand research community.

"The meeting brings together the living heroes of international science and the next generation of leading researchers," Steve Maharey said. "It's great that young New Zealanders will get a chance to rub shoulders with Nobel Prize winners and their peers from all over the world."

The New Zealanders attending were chosen by the Royal Society of New Zealand and will join up with 600 other specially-selected students from Europe, North America, and Asia for the four-day programme.

"We have a small, but thriving research community here in New Zealand," Steve Maharey said. "It's vital that we take every opportunity to participate in international forums where we can tell the world about the great science being done in our country."

“The young New Zealanders will no doubt establish contacts that will have future benefit, not just for them, but also for the institutions they belong to."

The New Zealanders attending are: Kaa-Sandra Chee who is doing a PhD in Biomedical Science at the University of Auckland; Peter Mace from the Biochemistry Department at Otago University; and Shelley Scott from the University of Canterbury Physics and Astronomy Dept.

ENDS

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