Otago awards 2007 Distinguished Research Medal

30 August 2007

Otago awards 2007 Distinguished Research Medal

Leading marine chemist Professor Keith Hunter is this year’s Distinguished Research Medal recipient – the University of Otago’s highest research honour.

Professor Keith Hunter is an internationally-recognised researcher in the field of marine chemistry, with specific research interests in sea and fresh water trace metals, ocean carbon dioxide concentrations and isotopic analysis.

Vice-Chancellor Professor David Skegg says that Professor Hunter is one of Otago’s ablest scientists and a team player. “That has meant that he and his associates have been able to achieve important advances.”

Professor Hunter says he is flattered and overwhelmed at receiving the medal. “It’s very pleasing to be honoured in this way by my colleagues at the University. However, I must say that all of my research has involved other people – post-graduate students and post-doctoral fellows – and I consider that this award belongs just as much to them as it does to me.”

Honours already assigned to Professor Hunter include being a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and a member of its Academy Council. He is a Fellow and past president of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry. Internationally, Professor Hunter is the New Zealand Delegate to the United Nations Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research and is a member of the American Geophysical Union and the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography. He serves on the editorial boards of five international science journals and is associate editor of Marine Chemistry.

Professor Hunter’s career in chemistry started with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Auckland. He was then awarded a Rutherford Scholarship, entitling him to undertake his PhD studies at any university in the Commonwealth. He chose the University of East Anglia – a relatively new university but home to Professor Peter Liss – an academic whose work interested Professor Hunter.

“I had been working in traditional chemistry and was bored and wanted to do something different. One of my lecturers said ‘why don’t you get interested in marine chemistry?’. I hadn’t even heard of it and no one was doing it – so it seemed obvious I should give it a go, even though I knew nothing about it. I wrote a letter to Peter Liss and he sent a nice response. I can see now that if a Rutherford Scholar wrote to you, you would send a nice reply!”

After his PhD, Professor Hunter travelled to France on a Royal Society European Exchange Postdoctoral Fellowship, where he worked in the French Atomic Exchange Centre for a year.

When a job came up at Otago in 1979, he took the opportunity to return to New Zealand, but not without taking on board some advice from a respected French colleague, Dr Roger Chesselet: “I don’t want to see you working on the stuff you’re working on now. Try and do something different.”

Professor Hunter has referred back to that piece of advice several times during the past 28 years and it probably accounts for why colleagues describe him as a “born risk taker”, when it comes to his willingness to investigate new areas within his overall field of interest. “Actually, I have to stop myself from getting interested in new areas.”

So, on his arrival to Otago, he turned his attention to metals in sea water – specifically biologically-active metals (that is, metals known to be important for plant and animal growth). “We knew these metals were important but we did not know how that importance manifested in the ocean. In 1980, we developed new methods for measuring metals in seawater and needed a special lab – one that precluded any contaminants.

“We managed to get the money to build this ‘clean’ lab – the first of its kind in New Zealand – and it’s paid itself off 10 times over in the money from research contracts.”

Another significant area of Professor Hunter’s research is carbon dioxide in the ocean. “In the early 90s, I took on some ‘teaching-informed research’. In my third-year chemistry class, I was using carbon dioxide as an example of chemistry in action in the sea and realised I wanted to know more about it.”

The third main thread of his research arises from the earlier trace element work. Through the Community Trust of Otago National Centre for Trace Element Analysis, the University of Otago has New Zealand’s first such centre, giving it a distinct advantage. “We can tell the origin of materials by looking at their isotopic make up. An example of this is studying the ear bone of trout. We can tell what stream they were born in, how long they spent out at sea and what river they came back to.”

Professor Hunter says he increasingly values the importance of the people he works with – not just for their company but the greater results that can be achieved.

An example of this is Professor Hunter’s 10 years of collaborative work with NIWA plankton physiologist Dr Philip Boyd (who is also an Honorary Professor of Chemistry). “Together, we’ve been very productive – more productive than had we been working separately.

“And then there are the students. Everyone is different. It’s like being a parent – I feel like I’ve had 70 children or grandchildren. On one hand, you help them when they have difficulties with their work and then you have the tremendous buzz when you see them out being successful in the world.”

Professor Hunter will receive the Distinguished Research Medal and deliver a lecture later this year.

ENDS

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