New Zealand’s Top Young Scientists Announced

Media Statement                                                                               27th August, 2009

New Zealand’s Top Young Scientists Announced

A Wellington PhD student whose research could result in a cheap and effective way of removing toxic pollutants from vehicle emissions has been named the 2009 MacDiarmid Young Scientist of the Year.

27-year-old John Watt’s world-leading studies at Victoria University involve the growth of infinitesimally small nanoparticles of a precious metal called palladium which removes toxic gases from a car’s exhaust system. 

The nano-size palladium John has created achieves much better performance than conventional palladium and is much cheaper. Conventional palladium costs up to $11,000 a kilogram, limiting its use.

His research has received global recognition from the scientific community and samples of his palladium nanoparticles are being assessed by British company Johnson Matthey, a world leader in the supply of precious metals, to determine their suitability for pollution control systems.

John was presented with the 2009 MacDiarmid Young Scientist of the Year Award by the Minister of Research, Science and Technology, the Honourable Dr Wayne Mapp, at a function in Auckland tonight.

This year’s overall MacDiarmid Awards runner-up is Amy Whitehead from the University of Canterbury whose PhD research focuses on conservation strategies that will help save the threatened native whio or blue duck. Whio are an iconic species of New Zealand’s mountain rivers but numbers are rapidly declining.
30-year-old Amy has combined population monitoring and habitat surveys with computer modelling to evaluate the effectiveness of existing conservation programmes, and guide the Department of Conservation on future strategies for saving threatened species.

The MacDiarmid Awards are presented annually by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology and are named after New Zealand-born, Nobel Prize winning scientist, the late Professor Alan MacDiarmid. They celebrate the achievements of New Zealand’s future leaders in science and are designed to develop ambassadors for science and encourage others into scientific careers.

Foundation CEO Murray Bain described the research carried out by the emerging researchers selected as finalists in the 2009 awards as ‘ground breaking, innovative and crucial for New Zealand’s future’.

 John Watt’s win gives him a cash prize of $10,000 and a trip to an international science event as well as the MacDiarmid medal. Amy Whitehead receives a cash prize of $5,000 and a trip to an Australasian conference. Both also receive $5,000 as category winners.

A rigorous, three phase judging process culminated in the winners being selected by a panel of judges made up of Richard Faull, Professor of Anatomy at the University of Auckland, Carolyn Burns, Professor of Zoology at the University of Otago, Peter Jackson, recently retired Pro-Vice-Chancellor, College of Engineering at the University of Canterbury, Charles Daugherty, Assistant Vice-Chancellor, Research, at Victoria University of Wellington and Prue Williams, Chief Science Advisor at the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.

Other winning entries included research into:

Breeding novel coloured apples with high health attributes
Textiles from premium New Zealand wool coloured with pure gold
Protein misfolding in disease to support treatments for muscle wastage disorders
New therapies for optic nerve disease such as glaucoma
Eye-tracking technology for better eyewitness identification of criminal offenders.
 
There are five categories in the MacDiarmid Awards with each winner receiving a cash prize of $5,000, as does the winner of the award for best Masters level research and the winner of the commercialisation award. Five researchers also receive a runner-up prize of $2500.

The full list of this year’s winners follows:

Overall Winner:

John Watt (Victoria University of Wellington), ‘Palladium Nanoparticles for Catalysis’.  John also won the Future Science and Technologies category.

Overall Runner-Up: 

Amy Whitehead (University of Canterbury, Christchurch), ‘Conservation triage – tools for effectively managing threatened species’. Amy also won the Understanding Planet Earth category.

Winner Adding Value to Nature: (sponsored by the Massey University)

Richard Espley, (University of Auckland and Plant and Food Research, Auckland), ‘Fruit Colour Dissected’.
Ø  Runner-up Adding Value to Nature::

Kerstin Burridge, (Victoria University of Wellington), ‘Golden Fleece – Gold Nanoparticles as Colourfast Colourants for High Value Textiles’.
Winner Advancing Human Health and Wellbeing: (sponsored by the Health Research Council of New Zealand)

Carlene Starck, (Massey University, Palmerston North), ‘Getting Wasted on Myostatin – Amyloid Fibril Formation by the Myostatin Precursor Protein and Implications for Sporadic Inclusion Body Myositis’.
Ø  Runner-up Advancing Human Health and Wellbeing:

Dr Nathan Kerr, (University of Auckland), ‘Gap Junctions- Thieves of Sight’.
Winner Future Science and Technologies: (sponsored by Industrial Research Limited)

John Watt (see above under overall winner)

Ø  Runner-up Future Science and Technologies: Tobi Vaudrey, (University of Auckland), ‘Dynamic Vision for Driver Assistance’.

 Winner Science and Our Society: (sponsored by the University of Auckland and Auckland UniServices)

Matthew Gerrie, (Victoria University of Wellington), ‘The Eyes Have It: Using Eye Movements to Examine Eyewitness Identification’.

Ø  Runner-up Science and Our Society: Petra Hoggarth, (University of Canterbury, Christchurch), ‘Older Drivers – Keeping the Car Keys’.

Winner Understanding Planet Earth:

Amy Whitehead, (see above under overall runner-up)

Ø  Runner-up Understanding Planet Earth:

Dr Jason Tylianakis, (University of Canterbury, Christchurch), ‘Interacting Species in a Changing World’.

Winner Commercialisation Award

Richard Espley, (University of Auckland and Plant and Food Research, Auckland), ‘Fruit Colour Dissected’. Richard’s entry was in the Adding Value to Nature category.

Winner Masters Level Award: (sponsored by the Royal Society of New Zealand)

Mickey Fan, (University of Otago), ‘The role of Cerebral Blood Flow in the Control of Respiration; Implication in the Development of Central Sleep Apnoea’. Mickey’s entry was in the Advancing Human Health and Wellbeing category.

ends

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