Nourishing knowledge: Supporting our youth, athletes and coastlines | Tauranga

Great Kiwi Research: Sharing women's discoveries

Amazing research is going on in Aotearoa New Zealand. As part of the 150th Anniversary celebrations of Royal Society Te Apārangi, we are providing an opportunity to showcase women’s research, across a broad range of disciplines.

In this session: Nourishing knowledge: Supporting our youth, athletes and coastlines. 

Women are not small men: equity of women in sport

Do we need to rethink how women train to improve their performance or fitness? Exercise Physiologist and nutritional scientist Dr Stacy Sims thinks so. In this talk, she will look at how to boost the potential of women in sport by using their own physiology to develop new methods of training instead of using the methods studied in men.

Dr Stacy Sims is a Senior Research Fellow at Waikato University's Adams High Performance Centre. Her research delves into the sex differences of heat and altitude stress, recovery, genetics and nutrition in order to moderate adaptive responses for performance. Stacy applies her research to the practice of some of New Zealand’s top elite athletes. She examines cooling and heat strategies, hydration practices and nutrition to improve sports performance and overall health. She modifies elite athletic practices to help obese and sedentary individuals improve exercise tolerance and clinical outcomes.Stacy is touted with creating the new sports nutrition niche of low carbohydrate electrolyte functional hydration. She is the author of ROAR, a comprehensive, physiology-based nutrition and training guide for active women.

Promoting belonging and wellbeing

Would an education system that invested in our students' sense of belonging and wellbeing in schools help eradicate the negative statistics surrounding those who have historically been disadvantaged by that education system?

The need to overturn the underlying racism that persistently disadvantages clearly identifiable groups over others has been highlighted by both research literature and Māori students. If we continue to promote conditions where our students’ sense of belonging and wellbeing are undermined throughout their education then we will risk failing to address the ensuing negative statistics. Mere Berryman considers the Māori metaphors of mauri ora and mana ōrite to support contexts for learning that can promote belonging and wellbeing.

Mere Berryman (Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Whare) is an Associate Professor at the University of Waikato. Her research, which combines understandings from kaupapa Māori and critical theories, aims to disrupt educational disparities for Māori in New Zealand schools. Mere has been a researcher in this area for over 20 years and has published widely in this field.

The role of the forest fringe in controlling sediment supply to mangrove forests

Many of our systems in New Zealand are regulated by the climate variations in the South Pacific, which cause the driving forces (wind, waves and rainfall) to vary with effects such as El Nino and the the Pacific Decadel Oscillation. Climate shifts therefore change the morphology in a way which depends on the orientation of our coastline relative to the prevailing weather. Recently she has focused on the role of mangroves in controlling sedimentation to estuaries, and whether sedimentation rates might keep up with sea level rise.

Associate Professor Karin Bryan conducts research on understanding the dynamics of sediments and nutrients in the coastal environments, and how these contribute to controlling state changes in the physical environments. She has been at the University of Waikato since 2001. After completing a PhD at in Oceanography at Dalhousie University in 1997, she took up an Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada International Postdoctoral Fellowship at NIWA in Hamilton. Eager for the chance to teach, she moved up the hill to the University where she has taught coastal processes to students at all levels. She is vice speaker of the International German-Funded graduate school 'INTERCOAST' which has brought many new exciting technologies and student to the Waikato and Bay of Plenty to study various aspects of the coastal environment.

Presented in partnership with the University of Waikato.

FREE PUBLIC EVENT
Views expressed at this event may not reflect those of Royal Society Te Apārangi