Farewell to Professor Donna Rose Addis

Professor Addis will also join the Rotman Research Institute, which is internationally renowned for expertise in aging and cognition.

Professor Addis was Associate Director of the Centre for Brain Research from March 2016, however, her involvement with the Centre stretched back to its formation with Professor Addis’ as the Principal Investigator of the Memory Lab.

Professor Addis’ Memory Lab used neuroimaging, neuropsychological and cognitive methods to investigate how we remember the past and imagine our future and how memory supports imagination, creativity and sense of identity.

Professor Addis’ farewell was marked by the School of Psychology with a Symposium to celebrate her amazing contributions during her time at the University of Auckland.

Guest speakers at the Symposium included: Associate Professor Lynette Tippett, Dr Reece Roberts, Distinguished Professor Sir Richard Faull and students in the Memory Lab. Everyone spoke about the enormous influence Professor Addis had on them and their colleagues and the positive and impactful way she related to people in all of her communities.

Professor Addis went to Aorere College in Auckland where she was New Zealand’s top all-round scholar of Pasific Island descent. She did her PhD at University of Toronto with a Commonwealth Scholarship. In 2009 Addis won a Prime Minister’s Science Prize and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2017.