University graduates awarded Woolf Fisher Scholarships

Three Waipapa Taumata Rau graduates are the recipients of 2022 Woolf Fisher Scholarships.

Administered by Universities New Zealand – Te Pōkai Tara and worth around $70,000 a year for up to four years, a Woolf Fisher Scholarship is one of the most prestigious available to New Zealand students. It supports recipients to undertake postgraduate research at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Recipients are chosen for their outstanding academic ability, integrity, leadership and boldness of vision, their exceptional zeal, keenness and capacity for work, and their commitment to Aotearoa New Zealand.

Cameron Ryall (Faculty of Science), Sita Clark (Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences), and Nina de Jong (Faculty of Science) aim to transform New Zealanders’ lives with groundbreaking research into Parkinson’s disease, cochlear implants for people with hearing loss, and the best ways to regenerate native forests.

Cameron Ryall, will be studying for a PhD in Clinical Neurosciences, focusing on Parkinson’s Disease. He is looking forward to gaining skills he can bring back to New Zealand, including bioinformatics and network analysis, which he has already been studying.

“I want to continue developing these skills to apply a unique lens on biomedicine and neuroscience. Computational analysis of biomedical data is the future of medical science and will define precision medicine development. Being on the forefront of technology is important to me – machine learning and computational biology will usher in the next era of precision medicine and I want New Zealand to be a part of it,” he said.

Cameron also wants to continue his involvement in New Zealand’s not-for-profit sector, having been a co-director of Youth Philanthropy New Zealand and now preparing to take a governing role with the organisation.

“The scientific community in New Zealand is sustained by the charities and institutions that provide funding and resources that facilitate research. Developing these institutions or founding new ones is a goal of mine to advance New Zealand’s scientific contributions.”

Cameron is currently completing a Bachelor of Biomedical Science with Honours at Waipapa Taumata Rau, the University of Auckland, having received a Bachelor of Science from the University. He was awarded a 2022 University of Auckland Honours Scholarship and is a lead tutor in undergraduate teaching labs.

Sita Clark will be studying for a PhD in Clinical Neurosciences, researching cochlear implants, a life-transforming technology for patients with severe to profound hearing loss.

“Hearing is fundamental to achieving human connection. Together with vision and touch, it enables communication and interaction with one’s community and environment,” she said. “Nearly 20 percent of all New Zealanders are affected by hearing loss, with higher rates in males, Māori and the elderly. If left untreated, hearing loss is associated with increased rates of social isolation, dementia, cognitive decline and depression.

“Through my PhD and subsequent clinical practice, I hope to increase the research and awareness of cochlear implant surgery in New Zealand, to help stimulate increased government funding through our public health system and ensure equitable access to this transformative surgery nationwide.”

As well as her first-class honours degree, Sita has a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Auckland. While here, she was awarded two Blues Awards for Service and Leadership and was one of the top achievers in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, receiving numerous research scholarships and a Distinguished Graduate Award on completion of her studies. She is currently a junior doctor at Auckland City Hospital.

Nina de Jong will be studying for a PhD in Plant Sciences, researching successional theory and its potential application in regenerating New Zealand forests

“Understanding the successional trajectory of a plant assemblage requires untangling which environmental influences are most important for different species’ performance and linking this to species’ functional traits,” said the New Zealand Dutch–Samoan.

“Current restoration practices in New Zealand, and in many regions internationally, are only loosely based on ecological understandings of how forests regenerate. Incomplete knowledges of long-term forest responses under different land-use legacies make a difficult task of accurately predicting successional trajectories at a specific site.

As a result, our restoration practices are vulnerable to inefficient techniques, unsuitable species choices and wasted resources. These lead to poor outcomes and compromise the immense effort that communities take to care for land.

“Conscientious, collaborative and well-designed ecological research has much to contribute towards environmental justice, and as Indigenous peoples worldwide have long recognised, social and environmental justice are the same issue.”

As well as her first-class honours degree, Nina has as Bachelor of Science, where she was a high achiever consistently receiving ‘first in class’ awards and other prizes and scholarships.

She was a founding member and lead editor of the University’s Scientific magazine, in which students write about their research and scientific topics that interest them. Eminent British scientist, broadcaster and writer Professor Brian Cox has described the magazine as a superb example of excellent science communication.

For more information visit Universities New Zealand