Nikki Wright
The Art of Pollinator Paths
Supervisor: Tim Corballis
Secondary supervisor: Susan Ballard
Postgraduate students
Meet our postgraduate students working towards their degrees in the School of Science in Society.
Master of Science students
Nikki Wright is a journalist and community engagement professional with a focus on collaborative art-nature initiatives. Her thesis uses a practice-based art approach to explore our relationships with insect pollinators in suburban life. Nikki is director of Nature Through Arts Collective and recipient of the Lydia Wevers Scholarship in New Zealand Studies, supported by The Stout Trust.
LinkedIn: Nikki Wright
PhD students
Rageshree Bhattacharyya
Fortified Foods in Urban India: The Social, The Scientific, and The Everyday Of Contemporary Indian Diets
Supervisor: Nayantara Sheoran Appleton
Secondary supervisor: Corinna Howland, Bryony James
Rageshree holds an undergraduate and a Master's degree in Sociology from India. Her doctoral project, which is funded through the Wellington Doctoral Scholarship, aims to study the growing techno-scientific developments in the domain of food and eating in India. Her primary research interests include gender, caste, labour, sociology of food, Science and Technology Studies and Discard Studies.
LinkedIn: Rageshree Bhattacharyya
April Boland
Don't Push Me, I'm Close to the Edge: Flat Earth Adherence in Aotearoa
Supervisor: Rebecca Priestley
Secondary supervisor: Richard Arnold
April Angela Boland has come to Science in Society from a Theatre and Religious Studies background. She is writing her PhD on Flat Earth adherence in Aotearoa, and is the recipient of both the Wellington Doctoral Scholarship and funding from Te Pūnaha Matatini.
LinkedIn: April Boland
Daniel Chia Matallana
Supervisor: Tim Corballis
Secondary supervisor: Grant Morris
Daniel is a lawyer from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana with an LLM in International Law and Politics from the University of Canterbury. His PhD investigates the jurisprudential imaginaries of Science Fiction to interrogate the juridical paradigms that inform the Western legal tradition.
LinkedIn: Daniel Chia
Ciaran Doolin
Supervisor: James Beattie
Secondary supervisor: James Renwick
Ciaran is a historian of science. His thesis examines the development of meteorology and climatology in Aotearoa up until 1939 by following the career of Edward Kidson. Ciaran is also a meteorologist at MetService and has been a lecturer on the Master of Meteorology programme at Te Herenga Waka.
Dipayan Dutta
Creative Practices in Environmental Activism: Exploring Case Studies from the Aravalli Region, India
Supervisor: Tim Corballis
Secondary supervisor: Courtney Addison
Dipayan is a Google-certified Project Manager with a background in Comparative Literature. His research interests include digital ethnography, cultural anthropology, environmental humanities and STS (Science and Technology Studies). He is a recipient of the Wellington Doctoral Scholarship and works at the Antarctic Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington.
LinkedIn: Dipayan Dutta
Zoë Heine
Storying Sea Rise
Supervisor: Rebecca Priestley
Secondary supervisor: Tim Corballis, Richard Levy
Zoë is an interdisciplinary researcher. Her thesis explores different approaches to storytelling about sea-level rise in Aotearoa. Her PhD was funded through the NZ SeaRise project.
Andreja Phillips
Science and community in the web of Marlborough's podocarp forests
Supervisor: Courtney Addison
Secondary supervisor: Amanda Thomas
Andreja Phillips (MA Environmental anthropology, University of Zurich) is conducting interdisciplinary research located at the interface of environmental humanities and environmental anthropology. Her ethnographic research focuses on human-plant relations and practices of care in the context of podocarp forest restoration.
Jessica Rohde
Supervisor: Rhian Salmon
Secondary supervisor: Kathryn Sutherland, Alex Beattie
Jessica is researching how evaluation can be made more accessible, feasible, and practice-able for science communicators. Funded by the Wellington Doctoral Scholarship and Te Pūnaha Matatini. Communication Advisor for the Science Communication Trainers Network. M.S in Aquatic and Fishery Science from the University of Washington.
LinkedIn: Jessica Rohde
Vandana Singh
On a Rock and in a Hard Place: Women Scientists in Remote, Extreme, and Physically Challenging Spaces
Supervisor: Rebecca Priestley
Secondary supervisor: Nayantara Sheoran Appleton
Vandana is a forester by training, tree-hugger by instinct, policy-wonk, a novelist. Her thesis analyses women scientists working in extreme environments. She is interested in communicating science, feminist history of science and feminist STS. She holds an MSc from Oxford, and an MA from JNU. Her debut novel is So All Is Peace (Penguin, 2019).
Max Soar
‘Following the Science’: Far-Right Knowledge, Postfascism, and Hegemony in Aotearoa New Zealand During COVID-19
Supervisor: Tim Corballis
Secondary supervisor: Courtney Addison
Submitted May 2024
Kristin Wilson
Supervisor: Rebecca Priestley
Secondary supervisor: Fraser Morgan
Kristin's research interests include understanding and modelling complex social-ecological systems. Her thesis, which investigates the complexity of balance in Antarctica, is supported by Te Pūnaha Matatinithe, the Aotearoa New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence for complex systems.
LinkedIn: Kristin Wilson
Find out more
If you are interested in studing a PhD or Master of Science with the School of Science in Society, please contact:
