Media Release
The University of Auckland
1 February 2013
Seventeen Academics Promoted To Professors
Seventeen associate professors at The University of Auckland have been promoted to professor.
Promotion to professor is a mark of distinction. It recognises professional and academic eminence at an international
level.
“We are proud to acknowledge these fine academic leaders, and proud that our university and its students benefit from
such a wealth of knowledge, perspectives and experience. The quality of the applications and the achievements of the
candidates were highly impressive,” says Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon.
The new professors hail from the Faculties of Arts (4), Creative Arts and Industries (1), Engineering (3), Medical and
Health Sciences (4), and Science (5).
Professor Frederick Kroon (Department of Philosophy) has research interests in mathematical and philosophical logic, the
philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of fiction. His work is published
extensively in books and journals, among them some of the most prestigious English-language journals in philosophy, such
as the Philosophical Review, the Journal of Philosophy, Nous, Ethics, and Philosophical Studies. Much of his recent work
has resulted from invitations to contribute to essay collections for publishers such as Oxford University Press, for
whom he is currently completing a book on language and pretence. For the past 15 years he has also been an editor (more
recently an author) for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Professor Kroon has served as Head of the Philosophy
Department, and has chaired the University’s Human Participants Ethics Committee. He is currently the Associate Dean
(Postgraduate) for the Faculty of Arts.
Graduating from the University of Otago with BA, MA First Class Hons, and PhD in Anthropology in the 1970’s, Professor
Julie Park (Department of Anthropology) received academic appointment to the University of Auckland in 1993. Her
research interests include medical anthropology in New Zealand and Polynesia, transnationalism, and New Zealand
anthropology. She is currently working with colleagues on projects funded by the Health Research Council of NZ (HRC) and
Marsden Fund respectively, on Pacific health, and on moral reasoning at the intersection of reproductive technologies
and genetic difference in New Zealand. A book, co-edited with Dr Susanna Trnka and Dr Christine Dureau, Senses and
Citizenship: Embodying Political Life (Routledge) is due out in April. Amongst significant publication of journal
articles, books and monographs, Professor Park’s publications include “Whakapapa in anthropological research on
tuberculosis in the Pacific” (Sites, 2011); “Tuberculosis and syndemics: Implications for Pacific health in New Zealand”
(Social Science & Medicine, 2009); and Ladies a Plate (Auckland University Press, 1991). Professor Park’s current teaching and graduate
supervisions include Medical Anthropology, Ethnographic Research Methods, and New Zealand ethnography.
Professor Laurence Simmons (Film Television and Media Studies) was co-founder of the Department of Film, Television and
Media Studies at the University of Auckland in 1992, employed full-time in the Department 2005, and appointed Head of
Department in 2010. He has three main research and publication interests: contemporary art and film; Italian Renaissance
culture and Italian film; and critical theory (including film, media and television theory) and visual culture. His
publications include a book on contemporary New Zealand painting and photography, The Image Always Has the Last Word
(Dunmore, 2002), a volume on Freud’s papers on aesthetics, Freud’s Italian Journey (Rodopi, 2005), Rethinking New
Zealand: Essays and Interviews on Intellectuals and Public Culture (Auckland University Press, 2006) and Tuhituhi:
William Hodges, Cook’s Painter in the South Pacific (Otago University Press, 2011). Professor Simmons has been awarded
two Creative New Zealand grants, a Senior Fulbright Fellowship and Visiting Scholar awards at the Universities of UCLA
Santa Barbara, Australian National University and the University of Cambridge.
Professor Joanne Wilkes (Department of English) was educated at Sydney and Oxford Universities and specialises in
Romantic and Victorian Literature. Her 1999 book, Lord Byron and Madame de Staël: Born for Opposition, won two
international prizes. Her most recent critical study, Women Reviewing Women in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Ashgate,
2010) examined how women literary critics responded to novelists such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot.
Professor Wilkes also has a long record as an editor of women’s writing, beginning with Geraldine Jewsbury’s 1848 novel,
The Half Sisters (1994, revised 1998). She went on to edit for Pickering & Chatto Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton in 2005, and has recently been involved in editing / co-editing for the same
publisher, three volumes of the literary criticism of Margaret Oliphant (1828-97). She has been active too in service at
Departmental, Faculty and University levels, and is currently Head of the English Department.
Professor Michael Parekowhai (Elam School of Fine Arts) is one of New Zealand's most important contemporary art
practitioners. His work is held in all significant public and private collections throughout New Zealand and Australia,
as well as in permanent collections across the Asia-Pacific region and Europe. He has an extensive exhibition history,
including the Venice Biennale (2011); the Asia Pacific Triennial (2006-2007); the Gwangju Biennale (2004); and the
Sydney Biennale (2002). Professor Parekowhai received an Arts Foundation Laureate Award in 2001 and was awarded the
Premier of Queensland Sculpture Commission in 2012.
Professor Grant Covic (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering) heads power electronics research at The
University of Auckland and co-leads the inter-operability sub-team within the SAE J2954 wireless charging standard for
electric vehicles. He graduated from the University BE (Hons) PhD and was appointed as a full time lecturer in 1992, a
senior lecturer in 2000, and associate professor in 2007 within Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 2010 he
co-founded (with Professor John Boys), a new global start-up company “HaloIPT” focusing on electric vehicle (EV)
wireless charging infrastructure. Today his research and consulting interests include power electronics, electric
vehicle battery charging and inductive (contact-less) power transfer (IPT).
Professor Jason Ingham (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering), did his BE (Hons) and ME (Dist) at The
University of Auckland, followed by a PhD at the University of California at San Diego where he investigated the seismic
response of elevated concrete freeway frames. Professor Ingham joined The University of Auckland as a staff member in
1995 and undertook a University of Auckland MBA in 2004. In that same year he was awarded a $3.75M research grant to
investigate and develop guidelines for seismic assessment and retrofit of earthquake prone buildings. This project led
to The University of Auckland being admitted to the Natural Hazards Research Platform in 2010 with Professor Ingham
subsequently receiving further grants linked with reporting the damage to unreinforced masonry buildings in the
Canterbury Earthquakes and research recommendations arising from the earthquakes. Currently Professor Ingham is also the
President of the New Zealand Concrete Society.
Professor Poul Michael Fønss Nielsen (Auckland Bioengineering Institute, Department of Engineering Science, and Liggins
Institute) is a Principal investigator in the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, an academic member of the Department of
Engineering Science, and an Honorary Professor of the Liggins Institute. Professor Nielsen’s research focuses on using
novel instrumentation, detailed computational models, and quantitative descriptions of physical processes to gain a
better understanding of human physiology. Many of his projects couple mathematical modelling with innovative
instrumentation to improve our ability to understand and interpret measurements of complex biological systems, subject
to the constraints of well-understood physical conservation and balance laws.
Professor Frank Bloomfield (Liggins Institute and Department of Paediatrics: Child and Youth Health) completed his
clinical training as a neonatologist in England, Canada and New Zealand and studied for his PhD at The University of
Auckland. After a postdoctoral placement at the University of Toronto in Canada, he returned to join the staff of The
University of Auckland. Professor Bloomfield practises clinically at National Women's Health, Auckland City Hospital,
and heads the LiFePATH research group at the Liggins Institute. He leads a large multidisciplinary research group of
scientists, clinicians, research nurses, technicians and administrators in a programme focusing on fetal and neonatal
nutrition, growth and development. He is well-known internationally for his research on development of the fetal
hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the developmental consequences of altered intrauterine growth and is currently
President of the Perinatal Society of New Zealand and President-Elect of the Perinatal Society of Australia and New
Zealand.
Professor Simon Malpas (Department of Physiology, School of Medical Sciences, and Auckland Bioengineering Institute),
investigates the role of the central nervous system in the development of cardiovascular disease, with a specific focus
on the sympathetic nervous system. His research team has developed a range of platform technologies for the wireless
monitoring of physiological signals. This research was commercialised in 2005 through the spin-out company Telemetry
Research, which maintains a strong research and development programme in collaboration with the Auckland Bioengineering
Institute. More recently the company merged with Millar Instruments and Professor Malpas is Chief Scientific Officer for
the company. He is a graduate of Victoria University and The University of Otago and did postdoctoral research in Japan,
the United Kingdom and Australia before returning to New Zealand in 1996 to an academic position in the Department of
Physiology.
Professor Phillippa Poole (Department of Medicine) has a BSc in Mathematics and MBChB from The University of Auckland
and is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. She gained an MD (Auckland) in 2012. Professor Poole
has contributed strongly to the development of medical education throughout Australia and New Zealand. She is now Head
of the Department of Medicine, and combines her clinical academic position in the department with her work as a
specialist general physician with Auckland District Health Board. Her strong and continuing commitment to the health of
New Zealanders is shown in her research interests, which span two distinct areas. One is in the management of chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease and the other is in medical education and development of an appropriate medical workforce
for NZ, which was the topic of her MD research and has been a continuing theme in her career.
Professor Susan Stott (Department of Surgery) completed her MBChB at The University of Auckland, became a Fellow of the
Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1989, and was awarded a Fellowship of the Australasian Faculty of
Rehabilitative Medicine in 2004. Professor Stott joined the University staff in 1997 after working in the United States
and completing her PhD at the University of Southern California. She divides her time between the Department of Surgery
and Starship Children’s Hospital, where she is a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon and Clinical Director of the Paediatric
Orthopaedic Department. She is a Board Member of the Health Research Council of New Zealand and a member of the HRC
Ethics Committee. Professor Stott’s research is on the impact of acquired neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy
on musculoskeletal function and walking ability in childhood. She is working with colleagues from Auckland
Bioengineering Institute to develop musculoskeletal models to better understand the changes in muscle and joint function
in children with neurological and other physical disabilities.
Professor James Curran (Department of Statistics) is a world leading researcher in forensic statistics, in particular
statistical analysis of trace evidence, forensic genetics and expert systems for evidence evaluation. He consults with
forensic agencies in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom and is involved with the production of expert
systems software for the interpretation of evidence. His work has influenced forensic operations internationally, and he
has developed several major commercial software packages that allow people without his level of statistical expertise to
evaluate forensic evidence. In addition to his focus on forensic statistics, Professor Curran also has strong interests
in statistical computing and automation projects. Professor Curran earned his BSc and MSc in mathematics and PhD in
statistics from The University of Auckland. He is currently a director of the University’s Bioinformatics Institute and
President of the New Zealand Statistical Association.
Professor Alexei Drummond (Department of Computer Science) describes himself as an evolutionary biologist who relies
heavily on computational science to model complex biological processes. His research interests are centred around
probabilistic models of molecular evolution and population genetics, using evolutionary methods to study everything from
the spread of HIV to the expansion of languages. Professor Drummond completed his BSc and PhD at The University of
Auckland and spent three years at the University of Oxford before returning here. He is the developer of open-source
scientific software package BEAST, used by scientists around the world for the analysis of molecular sequences, and
wrote the prototype for the award winning software package Geneious. He is the founding scientist and Director of
Biomatters, a bioinformatics software company. Since returning to New Zealand Professor Drummond has been principal
investigator on two Marsden Grants and recently was awarded a Rutherford Fellowship.
Professor Andrew Jeffs (Leigh Marine Laboratory) is an expert in aquaculture and marine biotechnology, industries that
have been rapidly growing in New Zealand. His research interests are broad, ranging from applied projects working
closely with the seafood industry to more esoteric marine ecological issues related to aquaculture. He undertakes
consultancy in these areas for international companies and government agencies. Professor Jeffs has played a major role
in the emergence of research describing the ecological significance of underwater sound in the marine environment, and
has developed novel underwater equipment to advance the field. He is also a leader in the ecology and aquaculture of
spiny lobsters, and studies a wide variety of commercially important species. Professor Jeffs earned his BSc and MSc in
zoology and his PhD in marine biology from The University of Auckland. Before joining the University as a member of
academic staff, he was General Manager for Aquaculture and Marine Biotechnology at NIWA.
Professor Paul Kench (School of Environment) is a coastal geomorphologist and a leading scholar in coral reef and reef
island geomorphology. Internationally, he has developed a unique research programme focused on understanding the
environmental controls on the formation and future stability of low-lying coral reef islands located throughout the
Pacific and Indian Oceans. His work has made a major contribution to global debates concerning the vulnerability and
physical stability of small island nations. In New Zealand, his research focuses on coastal morphodynamics and processes
on gravel beach systems, shore platform processes and medium-scale coastal change. Professor Kench completed his BA and
MA at The University of Auckland, and earned his PhD from the University of New South Wales. He has held academic
positions at the Universities of Melbourne, Waikato and Auckland and this year will take up the role of Head of School
of Environment.
Professor André Nies’ (Department of Computer Science) primary interest is in computation and its connections to
mathematics. Much of his work is in computability, a subfield of mathematical logic, which gives a theoretical
background for applications such as analysing the limits of current computers. Over the last decade he has studied the
interaction between computability and randomness, and more recently he has focused on the connection between randomness
and effective analysis. Professor Nies studied at Universität Heidelberg, and has held academic positions at the
Universities of Wisconsin at Madison, Cornell University for a semester each, and the University of Chicago for five
years. He joined The University of Auckland in 2002, and has since won two Marsden grants as a principal investigator.
Professor Nies’ research is internationally renowned and he is one of only three New Zealand-based mathematicians to be
invited to speak at the International Congress of Mathematicians. His book Computability and Randomness appeared in 2009
with Oxford University Press.
Ends.