Museum honours outstanding individuals

Museum honours outstanding individuals

Auckland War Memorial Museum last night honoured the careers of four outstanding individuals in its annual Museum Medals ceremony held at the Museum on Tuesday 24th November.

The medals were presented to:

Sandra Coney, QSO – Associate Emerita of Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum
Haare Williams – Companion of Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum
Anthony E. Wright – Associate Emeritus of Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum
Prof Paul Spoonley FRSNZ – Fellow of Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum
(The recipient’s profiles are provided below)

Auckland Museum Director Roy Clare said: “We’re thrilled to be awarding Museum Medals to these outstanding individuals and acknowledge their contribution and legacy to the wider community. The recipients now join a well-respected and prestigious group of leaders in their field and those who have provided exceptional service to the Museum. It is a pleasure to honour them and celebrate with their families and friends.”

In addition, the Sir Hugh Kawharu Scholarship was presented to Ngahuia Murphy a PhD candidate at Waikato University. Now in its second year, the Scholarship comprises a $10,000 grant and is made available to a full-time student of Māori descent who has an interest in cultural heritage.

Ms Murphy’s research will investigate censored and marginalised traditions relating to Māori women, allowing her to interrogate how women’s knowledge, roles, status and stories have been misinterpreted by colonial ethnographers and early accounts of Māori lifeways. She anticipates reinterpreting texts, images and taonga held in Auckland Museum and other collections to identify the cosmological origins of Māori women’s ceremonies, filling important gaps in our knowledge of the negative impacts of colonisation on women and working towards empowering Māori women.

The event also featured a keynote address by Dr Michelle Dickinson MNZM (who also goes by the title ‘Nano Girl’) who spoke on ‘Science is not a Subject - Changing the barriers to learning: how museums empower communities to feel smarter’.

ENDS

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