First Terry Healy Memorial Award Recipients Announced

First Terry Healy Memorial Award Recipients Announced

The first two recipients of the Terry Healy Memorial Award have been announced, with Andi Ramli and Stephen Hunt both receiving $750 to help them attend international conferences.

The University of Waikato postgraduate students, from the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, are the first to benefit from the Award, which was established following the death of Professor Healy in 2010.

Prof Healy was New Zealand’s pre-eminent coastal scientist, with expertise in the areas of coastal erosion, sedimentation and hazard management. He used his skills and knowledge to help with port and marina developments around New Zealand and was held in such high regard he has had a barge at Pine Harbour Marina in Auckland named after him.

His widow Judy says while some may consider a barge an unusual memorial, “it would have appealed to Terry’s Irish sense of humour”.

“Terry had very strong links with Pine Harbour and having a barge named after him is very appropriate and he would see it as an honour,” she says.

He would be just as happy, Judy says, to see the first monies distributed from the Award fund, which was launched following Prof Healy’s death.

“It was his philosophy to get all his postgraduate students to attend international conferences, either here or overseas. He believed that was part of their education, having contact with these people they had read about in their studies. I remember helping him with a Coastal Marine Conference in Rotorua and just to see the young ones engaging with well-known experts was a fantastic experience,” she says.

The fund, which was boosted by an anonymous $50,000 donation, currently sits at $96,000, University fundraising manager Sharon Roux says.

“A lot of the donations to the fund were made by Terry’s colleagues both from New Zealand and overseas,” she says.

Andi will use her Award to attend the Asia Pacific Coastal Conference in Bali in September while Stephen will attend and present his work at the Coastal Dynamics Conference on Bordeaux, France, in June.

“It’s just good experience really, to share your work outside of New Zealand. It’s really cool.”

ENDS

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