The stories behind our Distinguished Alumni

Broadcaster Jack Tame hosted the Taumata ceremony, which celebrated this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award winners at Auckland’s ASB Waterfront Theatre on 2 May.

Despite the group’s diverse careers, they share many of the same qualities: striving to achieve excellence, persevering through challenges big and small, and pursuing their goals with integrity and passion. The concept of service is also a common thread, with each awardee exemplifying what it means to contribute to those around them by sharing their time, ideas, knowledge and creativity.

And, of course, they all found their start at the University of Auckland.

For renowned contemporary visual artist and 2025 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate Reuben Paterson (BFA 1997), studying at Elam School of Fine Arts in the 1990s was a transformative experience.  

“Simply being allowed to be there had a big impact on me. Making and creating, sometimes not even knowing why, just driven by a need to make … it was a huge leap from secondary school to suddenly being a full-time maker.”

Reuben’s work includes sculptures, paintings, animations and installations and is known for its signature use of glitter, which recalls a childhood spent exploring the black sands and sparkling waters of Auckland’s West Coast beaches. For more than 20 years his work has been exhibited internationally across Asia Pacific, North America, the UK and Europe – every artist’s dream.

But with global recognition came a form of contentedness: “I could feel the challenges for the practice beginning to diminish,” he explains. “In a strange way, I had become so used to discomfort that comfort itself started to feel uncomfortable.”

In 2023, seeking new ways to push his craft and allow his work to “live its biggest possible life”, he moved to New York – something he once vowed to do as a young Elam student.

“Maybe that says something about Elam. Dreams spoken there seem to have a way of finding their own path.”

University was equally pivotal for award-winning physicist and science communicator John Dudley (BSc 1987, PhD 1992), who credits the experience as the catalyst for his lengthy academic career.

“Before my PhD, I had no clear intention of working in physics as a long-term career choice. It shaped my outlook on what a scientific career could bring,” he says. An emphasis on enjoying the process of research rather than focusing on results, he adds, was especially influential.  

Another factor that resonated was the exposure to new perspectives – something John believes is “absolutely vital” for academics: “Nothing quite prepared me for the sheer breadth of ideas I encountered. Suddenly I was surrounded by experts of all kinds, not only in science.”

He encourages students today to learn as much as they can across fields, to broaden their opportunities and avoid becoming siloed.

Now a professor of physics at Marie and Louis Pasteur University in Besançon, France, John has made major contributions to the areas of ultrafast optics, supercontinuum generation and nonlinear physics. He has also led global science communication initiatives, such as the UNESCO International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies 2015, which sparked the establishment of the International Day of Light.

But while you might assume these achievements would be career highlights, it’s his role as a teacher that he finds most rewarding.

“It’s a wonderful feeling when you sense that you are changing the ways students see the world,” he says. “I see success through ‘human’ aspects: teaching and mentoring, seeing students graduate, and later following their careers as they are successful in their own lives.”

For Raelene Castle (Ngāpuhi), ONZM (BCom 1993), the group chief executive at Sport New Zealand and High Performance Sport New Zealand, success is determined by resilience.

“Success to me is leaving an organisation or team in a stronger place than you found it.”

The accomplished sports executive – whose past roles include CEO of Netball New Zealand, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and Rugby Australia – has plenty of experience taking organisations from strength to strength. As the first female CEO of an NRL team, she oversaw a significant increase in women’s membership of the Bulldogs. She later broke barriers as the first female CEO of Rugby Australia and of Sport New Zealand. 

However, achieving such success, she says, is not without difficulty.

“I’ve encountered many challenges, but that is where the real learning takes place and experience is created,” she says. “Without challenges, we wouldn’t grow. My motto is, ‘don’t make the same mistake twice’.”

Loving your work helps when navigating challenging times – something that comes easily to Raelene, whose passion for sport goes back to her childhood and includes representing the Auckland region in netball, tennis and lawn bowls.

Having used her Bachelor of Commerce to build a meaningful career, she encourages prospective students to pursue their own interests at the tertiary level.

“Find an area you’re passionate about and use that as a basis to earn a degree. Being passionate about a topic makes you curious to learn more.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Justice Ellen France, DNZM (LLB(Hons) 1982), who has presided as a judge of the Supreme Court of New Zealand since 2016. What would she say to herself as a young law student in the 1980s?

“I would tell myself how fantastic it was to have found my purpose career-wise,” she says, noting that it was her time at University that sparked what would become a lifelong love of the law.

She would also remind herself to ignore fears of failure and to take every opportunity presented to her – advice that has underpinned an extensive career spanning both legal practice and the judiciary.  

Throughout, Ellen has confronted and overcome various hurdles, including an ingrained one: her quiet disposition.

“I became a litigator over ten years after I was admitted to the bar; prior to that I had not appeared in court,” she explains. “Being naturally quiet and a bit shy, learning to project my voice and to be clear and confident when arguing a case in court as a lawyer was a challenge initially.”

She used education and observation to push forward. She acquired the help of a voice coach and dedicated time to watching more experienced lawyers present arguments until her abilities were the best they could be.

For Ellen, the ability to put the law into practice in real situations and in the service of others is ultimately what it’s all about – “remembering and serving the people affected by the court’s decisions”, she says.

Now, with four decades of legal work behind her, she is no less passionate about the law or committed to its cause than when she was a recent graduate.