Carl Olsen
Manager, Member Engagement, REANNZ

Carl leads the engagement team at REANNZ, New Zealand’s national research and education network (NREN), establishing the strategy and member focused direction of the team’s initiatives and activities. Carl has extensive people leadership experience from his previous roles and most values supporting the organisation to continue to deliver better outcomes for REANNZ members. Carl and the team contribute to REANNZ’s role in the eResearch community, understanding the unique needs of science and data intensive research to ensure that members have access to the networking capabilities, people and resources they need.

Hannah Edwards
Communications and Marketing Manager, REANNZ

Hannah develops the external marketing and communications for REANNZ, New Zealand’s national research and education network (NREN). As a member of the engagement team she supports and coordinates engagement initiatives and activities with members and partners, spreading the word of how REANNZ members utilise the network and services to support the crucial work that they conduct. Hannah most values making connections within the research and education community in New Zealand, as well as collaborating with the international communications and marketing professionals who work together as a part of the NREN community.

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Georgina Rae

Science Engagement Manager, New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI)

Jana Makar
Communications Manager, New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI)

Based at the University of Auckland, Jana coordinates a variety of engagement initiatives and external communications to raise the profile of NeSI’s activities, impacts, and collaborations. Prior to joining NeSI, Jana worked as a communications consultant for multiple organisations in Canada’s technology, academic, and startup sectors, including Compute Canada and WestGrid (two organisations in Canada that are quite similar to NeSI). She has a degree in Communications from the University of Calgary and spent the early part of her career working as a journalist for weekly and daily newspapers in Western Canada. 

Claire Grant
Communications Manager, Genomics Aotearoa

Claire Grant is the Communications Manager for Genomics Aotearoa, responsible for promoting its research activities and contributing to improving understanding of genomics in New Zealand. She has extensive experience in communications advisory and public relations in New Zealand, and is passionate about science communication.

Mik Black
Associate Professor, University of Otago Department of Biochemistry

Mik received a BSc (Hons) in statistics from the University of Canterbury, and a MSc (mathematical statistics) and PhD (statistics) from Purdue University. After completing his PhD in 2002, Mik returned to New Zealand to work as a lecturer in the Department of Statistics at the University of Auckland.  An ongoing involvement in a number of Dunedin-based collaborative genomics projects resulted in a move to the University of Otago in 2006.  Mik’s research focuses on the development and application of statistical methods for the analysis of data from genomics experiments, with a particular emphasis on human disease.  Mik has also been heavily involved in a number of major initiatives designed to put in place sustainable national research infrastructure: New Zealand Genomics Ltd (where he was the Bioinformatics Team Leader during 2012-2013) and now Genomics Aotearoa (where he is currently the Bioinformatics lead) for genomics, and NeSI (New Zealand eScience Infrastructure) for high performance computing and eResearch.

Dr Sydney J Shep, Victoria University of Wellington

Sydney is a Reader in Book History and The Printer, Wai-te-ata Press. She focuses on the interdisciplinary study of transnational and cross-cultural book history and print culture in the contexts of the history of empire, history of technology, and the history of reading. Technological convergence is an additional platform for research and practice, bringing both historic and contemporary media into creative conversation though explorations into the digital handmade, generative computer art, and typographically-situated augmented reality experiences. Her current research focuses on big cultural data and collaborative kaupapa Māori approaches and is grounded in the theories, methods, and practices of digital humanities, spatial history, and cultural informatics. In 2014, she was awarded a Marsden Fund grant (her third) to study William Colenso and the Victorian Republic of Letters, with a focus on personal geographies and global networks. Sydney is also a practising letterpress printer, exhibiting book artist, and designer bookbinder who undertakes creative research commissions at Wai-te-ata Press

Arindam Basu, Associate Professor of Health Sciences, University of Canterbury

Arindam Basu is an Associate Professor of Health Sciences and Epidemiology at the University of Canterbury School of Health Sciences. He is a medical doctor and an Epidemiologist, and a long time Carpentries Instructor, trainer and is currently on the trainers leadership group of The Carpentries. His research interests span Epidemiology of health services utilisation patterns, and genomic-environmental correlates of diseases

Dr. Vladimir Mencl, Senior Software Engineer, REANNZ

Vlad has been supporting the New Zealand eResearch community since 2006 when he started working on the BeSTGRID project. Vlad has been involved in a number of projects, including data storage and tranfers, identity management, and high-performance computing. Vlad now works at REANNZ, where he among other projects supports Tuakiri, the New Zealand Access Federation.

Nauman Maqbool, Knowledge &  eResearch Leader, Crown Research Institute AgResearch

Nauman is a Bioinformatician by training and moved to New Zealand after doing a PhD from The University of Sydney. He has held multiple roles with AgResearch leading the Bioinformatics and wider Knowledge & Analytics teams. With a passion for eResearch, he is currently leading the effort of establishing the eResearch Platform and associated services at AgResearch in a collaborative effort with NeSI. His area of interests are data science along with data, information and knowledge management.

Anton Angelo, Digital Librarian, University of Canterbury

Anton is involved in the Library Carpentries communities, Australasian Open Access Strategy Group, ad supporting data and open publishing initiatives generally.