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Kia ora koutou,
We are writing this as we wrap up yet another challenging year, but with fond memories of our recent (finally in-person!) annual research wānanga at Te Rau Karamu Marae at Massey University (Wellington). We thoroughly enjoyed connecting and sharing with many of our research colleagues and agency partners over those two days in November.
This year we were also excited to partner with the DEVORA research whānau to co-host a DEVORA X RNC2 annual forum at Waipapa Taumata Rau the University of Auckland in October. Much information was shared; one highlight for the DEVORA team was hearing from our NIUPATCH researchers from Massey University who shared their insights into ensuring relevant disaster preparedness and awareness for Pacific communities in Tāmaki Makaurau.
This year saw us travelling internationally again, and this was highlighted by the attendance at the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in September in Brisbane, Australia. Connecting our research globally as well as regionally and locally is important, and the conference provided a special opportunity to reconnect.
Most recently, Sylvia and Kelvin Tapuke were invited by Hawaiian colleagues to explore and discuss indigenous issues and experiences around volcanic phenomena and hazard management in Hawaii, sparked by the eruption of Mauna Loa. They will have much to share in the new year.
Despite the ongoing challenges related to the pandemic, our RNC2 Urban theme researchers have displayed incredible resilience and we are proud of their adaptive response. Exciting research has continued across the many funded and aligned strands, and we are as always delighted to present an update of their work in this newsletter.
We thank everyone for their continued efforts, support, and interest in the Urban theme and look forward to moving into our final year of the programme, where we focus on wrapping up research strands, developing translational outputs, and thinking to the future.
We wish you all a safe and rejuvenating break over the summer.
Jan and David
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Whitiwhiti Kōrero (Engaging and learning)
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Research Updates from Urban Theme Researchers
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DEVORA X RNC Joint Forum Highlights
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Whitiwhiti Kōrero
(Engaging and learning)
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On 6th November, prior to the RNC2 Urban Theme Annual Research Wānanga 2022, some of our core researchers and stakeholders were fortunate to take part in a half-day Whitiwhiti Kōrero (Engaging and Learning discussion) focussed on culturally responsive leadership. A few of us even experienced foraging guided by Chef Joe McLeod in the Ōtari-Wilton's Bush ("one of Māori's supermarkets" according to Joe) in the early morning :)
Engaging with communities has always been one of our central visions – and we did what communities do together: Cook, Eat, and Chat.
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Following the pōwhiri and kai at the gorgeous Te Rau Karamu Marae at Massey University (Wellington), more than 20 members of the Urban whānau started to prepare a hāngī together. We had the privilege of being guided by THE Chef Joe McLeod, who has had more than 50 years’ experience in professional cooking around the world, and has now dedicated himself to reviving, protecting, and promoting Māori food culture and returning that mātauranga to whānau, hapū, and marae.
We were then guided by the tikanga advisor and marae taurima Kurt Smith-Komene on a walk around the campus and war memorial area (Pukeahu), learning about the history of the area, and acknowledging Parihaka and its links to Pukeahu. David Johnston also shared his knowledge of the area.
Most of us already knew each other through work, but we also took time to get to know one another on a much deeper level; we shared laughter and tears, and it was beautiful when people start truly engaging and showing their real selves. We explored pepeha and our connections with guidance from Sylvia and Kelvin Tapuke; remembering where we are from and our connections to Place got us thinking about who we are and who we want to be.
Finally, it was time to enjoy our hāngī together!! We had waited for 5 hours, and it was fabulous. Most of us slept on the marae that night which was precious.
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Here's a video about us making hāngī together! It's a must watch :)
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Research updates from
Urban Theme Researchers
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On 7th November, we were joined by other participants after they were officially welcomed onto Te Rau Karamu Marae. We were then treated to a varied programme of research presentations from both our core researchers and innovation and collaboration hub researchers.
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After the welcome tea in the wharekai, a hustling day full of research presentations started by Jan Lindsay and David Johnston re-introducing the goals and visions of Urban Theme and beyond.
Six PhD candidates within Urban Theme and six hub recipients shared their fantastic work. The presentation slides will be shared in the order of the programme under the three workstreams: Smart Resilient Cities, Inclusive Urban Communities, and Pathways to Urban Resilience. Let's dive in!
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Smart Resilient Cities
This project explores how emerging technology can be harnessed
in our cities in pre-event recovery planning and
post-event response and recovery operations
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Marion Tan came from the Philipines, studied in the UK, and finished her PhD and Post-Doc at the Joint Centre for Disaster Research (JCDR), now she’s a lecturer at Massey University. Her research is on how technologies can be used to understand and help people in preparing and responding to disasters, so she does a lot of engagement work.
Presentation title: CRISiSLab Challenge: a different approach to ‘Seismometer-in-Schools’
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Chanthujan Chandrakumar and CRISiSLab interns/RAs
Chanthujan Chandrakumar is a PhD candidate at Joint Centre for Disaster Research at Massey University. Chanthujan’s research will concentrate on developing citizen-led, self-aligning and self-healing IoT-embedded systems that foster low-cost earthquake early warning applications in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Ben Hong and Zade Viggers were the winners of the inaugural CRISiSLab Challenge 2021 and they completed a summer internship with CRISiSLab to develop an integrated web-based sensor map. Joined by Jeff Lin, the three young talents now work as research assistants at CRISiSLab with Chanthujan.
Presentation Title: A community-engaged earthquake early warning network for Aotearoa New Zealand
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Alex Kirby is a PhD Candidate in structural engineering at the University of Auckland, with a focus on Machine Learning and Damage Detection in Post-Earthquake damaged areas. Other fun/amazing facts about Alex are that he has an Honours GPA of 8.7/9; he is a keen Football Player and a regular blood donor with the NZ Blood Service.
Presentation Title: Building instrumentation for dynamic model updating
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Carolyne Nel is a Climate Risk and Systems Analyst at Urban Intelligence from Christchurch; a researcher and tutor in Civil Engineering at the University of Canterbury. She's passionate about improving the interface between academia and the everyday person and providing innovative ways to present technical information and complex data. Carolyne came on behalf of one of our hub recipients Tom Logan.
Presentation Title: Integrated planning: Finding co-benefits for sustainability, resilience, and equity
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Inclusive Urban Communities
This project focuses on how to most effectively build resilience
through fostering the inclusion of diverse urban dwellers
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Loïc Le Dé is the Lead of Inclusive Urban Communities and a Senior Lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology. Loïc’s research focuses on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). His research aims to bridge the knowledge and action gaps between local communities and external aid agencies. He used to work in Pacific Island Region as a humanitarian coordinator at charity organizations like Oxfam and UNICEF. Over the past 12 years, his work has focused mainly on the Pacific Region, working on the development of participatory tools for disaster risk management, transnational community support in disaster, community-based disaster response, and sustainable recovery post-disaster.
Presentation Title: Inclusion through participation in disaster risk reduction
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Louise Baumann is a PhD candidate in UoA. Originally from France, she studied in Paris and London, and now lives in Whāngarei after coming to New Zealand. Louise believes that disasters do not affect all communities and societies equally. Social factors such as gender identity, age, physical and mental health status, occupation, marital status, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion or immigration status may influence potential loss, injury or death in the face of hazards. Her research is on what role policy plays and how to foster inclusion in the strategies. She was in Copenhagen at a conference at that time, so the presentation is pre-recorded.
Presentation Title: Protection, Gender and Inclusion? A feminist approach to disaster risk reduction and disaster law
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Steve Ronoh is from Kenya and has been in New Zealand for more than a decade. Steve worked as a high school teacher before coming to New Zealand. He finished his PhD in Disaster Risk Reduction in UoA, and now he’s a manager at the New Zealand Red Cross for National Education and Performance.
Presentation Title: Good and Ready New Zealand: Perspectives from Auckland volunteers
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Te Kerekere Roycroft is a PhD candidate conducting Māori Studies in UoA and she recently passed her PhD confirmation. Congratulations!! Te Kerekere has degrees of Bachelor's and Master's in Landscape Architecture. She also has a Bachelor of Applied Science that she did extramurally through Massey while working full-time as an amenity horticulturist. Her project centres around how a specific whanaunga perceive their resilience within urban contexts, and how tūrangawaewae contributes to perceptions of resilience, and how senses of tūrangawaewae have been built and maintained.
Presentation Title: Tangata Whenua Urban Landscapes
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Jenny Lee-Morgan was a Professor of Māori Research, a founding Director of Ngā Wai a Te Tūī and Indigenous Research Centre at Unitec, and is the director of a Māori study organisation called Raukati Ltd. Initially a secondary school teacher, Jenny became a teacher educator and kaupapa Māori researcher in education with a focus on Māori pedagogy and methodology.
Presentation Title: Marae Ora, Kāinga Ora
(Only showing part of the slides due to privacy issues)
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Kaye-Maree Dunn is the Director of Making Everything Achievable. She is a social impact and technology entrepreneur. She has worked in the realm of Māori and Community development for over 20 years. Kay-Maree did a TED Talk in Auckland and please check it out.
Presentation Title: Social Media - a tool, a taonga or a curse?
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Pathways to Urban Resilience
This project is to explore new and effective methods for transferring knowledge between our research programmes
and the policies and practices of risk governance
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Niupatch stands for Navigate In Unity: Pacific Approaches to Community-Humanitarianism. It’s also a play on words: Niu means coconut in Samoan and is also phonetically similar to "something new". Founded by Siautu Alefaio-Tugia, Niupatch aims to bridge the gap between academia and everyday realities through different ways of research that engage Pasifika communities, to create safe spaces for empowering people to grow and thrive. The team has PhD candidates Petra Satele and Matt Luani, community connector Kotalo Leau and influencer Marlon Naepi.
Presentation Title: The Urban Resilience Podcast – Stories of Pacific Resilience
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Holly Faulkner is a PhD candidate in Canterbury. Her project is co-funded by the Determining Volcanic Risk in Auckland (DEVORA) research programme. Holly will utilise volcanic eruption scenarios developed by DEVORA, assess the ability of the current structures to deal with an Auckland Volcanic Field eruption and consider how such structures could be further developed to increase their resilience. This is a pre-recorded presentation since Holly was overseas at the time.
Presentation Title: Governing Disaster Recovery in Aotearoa New Zealand – An Auckland Volcanic Field case study
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DEVORA X RNC Joint Forum Highlights
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On 25-26 October, the DEVORA X RNC Joint Forum took place at the University of Auckland focusing on topics of Fresh perspectives on Auckland's hazardscape, Understanding our volcanoes, Assessing and managing our hazards, and Engaging our diverse communities. Here're some of the snapshots from our RNC side. The programme can be found here if you're interested.
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Happy holidays!
See you in 2023!
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Thank you for reading our newsletter, and hope you enjoyed it!
If you have any feedback, or stories and events to share in the next issue, please send them through to Alicia Cui. |
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