Alumni profile: Dr Kate Riegle van West

With a string of awards and some great media exposure, Kate Riegle van West has used her love of poi and provided some solid research into the health benefits.

Along the way, she has become an innovator, using her passion and determination to look at things in a different way.

“I can’t say I’ve ever thought I was applying an innovative or entrepreneurial mindset to my work. I am just trying to make the world a better place."

In 2016, she won the International U21 Three Minute Thesis competition, and in 2017, her research won the prestigious Future Leader Award from The Royal Society Te Apārangi Early Career Researcher Forum. Most recently, she won the Social Entrepreneurship category in the Velocity $100k Challenge 2019.

Kate attributes some of her success to not following a set way of doing things but being flexible.

“Not being committed to a particular mindset or paradigm has allowed me to pivot and progress,” says Kate.

“Being a circus performer informed my art practice, and making art informed making music, and creating art and music and circus opened the door for scientific inquiry, and science led the way to health research, and on and on,” Kate adds.

“They may seem like disparate pursuits, but they all support each other, and finding the connections between them is where all the really interesting stuff lies.”

The key, says Kate, to having an entrepreneurial mindset is “a burning passion and a burning desire to follow it".

Kate Riegle van West graduated with a PhD in Poi and Health from the University of Auckland.