MESA Committee

The MESA committee for 2012-2013 has the following members:

Alex Barker (Victoria University of Wellington) – Chair

Emerging scientists in NZ are spatially scattered across the country. Alex wants to cultivate and nurture connections between these people so that we can share skills, equipment, ideas, funny stories, and bad jokes.

Alex’s research uses ultrafast laser spectroscopy to understand new materials for use in plastic solar cells and other low cost applications.

Moritz Banholzer (Victoria University Wellington)

Moritz is a PhD student at Victoria University in Wellington working on the synthesis of iron nanoparticles for cancer therapy. Previously he worked in quantum optics and biophysics in Germany. His interests lie with any biomedical application of nanomaterials, feel free to contact him on any of those matters. Also he is an advocate of open source software and happy to share any thoughts and experiences on that as well. Currently Moritz is organizing one of the next MESA workshops on EM microscopy.

Yiwen Pei (University of Auckland)

Yiwen’s goal is to seek oppotunities for young scientists from different fields interact together and to promote research commericalisation.

Brad Mansel (Massey University)

Brad is representing Palmerston North for MESA. Gelled bio-polymer networks and microrheology are his current research interests. Feel free to contact him about soft materials research or to converse if one is ever stuck in sunny Palmy.

Dr. Luigi Sasso (University of Canterbury)

Luigi’s key words are multidisciplinarity and internationality, interested in the role of MESA and the MacDiarmid Institute in the global research world. His scientific interests are biological nanostructures, electrochemistry, and the (bio)sensor field.

Andrea Kolb (Victoria University Wellington)

Please talk to Andrea if you want to become a FutureinTech ambassador, want to communicate a scientific topic to non-scientists, need a hand when organising a workshop at VUW and/or need technical equipment at VUW.

Chris Larsen (University of Otago)

Chris is studying towards a PhD in Chemistry. His research interests are the synthesis of photoactive materials and the study of their photophysical properties. He is currently involved in trying to get break the “isolation” of the University of Otago MacDiarmid students by bringing seminars and workshops to Dunedin as well as increasing Otago memberships.

Rosa Hughes-Currie (University of Canterbury)

Rosa is doing her PhD in physics at UC and looking at photo luminescence spectroscopy of rare-earth doped semiconductor crystals. Her goal is to increase the general scientific knowledge and well-being of emerging scientists by helping MESA organize events that build relationships between different fields.

Brendan Darby (Victoria University of Wellington).

A PhD student in the Raman Spectroscopy lab in Wellington, Brendan’s research focuses on investigating the fundamental aspects of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) and how this technique can be used to reveal interesting information about molecules at the nano scale. He hopes to use his commercial experience to bridge the gap for students between academia and industry.

Akshita Wason (University of Canterbury)

Akshita’s goal as a MESA committee member is to help foster a general spirit of entrepreneurship and help people from diverse fields interact. Alongside helping out organising workshops and encouraging students to participate in MESA activities.

Leah Graham (Victoria University)

Leah is a PhD student in the Nanoparticle and Quantum Dot Research Group at Victoria University. Her research focuses on using solution phase chemical techniques to synthesise very uniform nanoparticles with superb control over their size and shape; for applications in catalysis. Her background is in Process Engineering and her interests are in energy production and efficiency. Her goal is to increase the general interest and knowledge of scientists between the different scientific disciplines.

Elf Eldridge (Industrial Research Limited)

Elf is an active figure in the Wellington science communication field. He represents MESA via his blog “Just So Science” at Sciblogs. Elf is also responsible for the MESA outreach programme, a list of experiments and demonstrations of nanoscience that can be done by teachers and students easily and cheaply. As communications support, Elf assists in the upkeep of the MESA website and any communication with the public or industry that MESA engages in. Elf also assists in organising, recording and posting of MESA workshops and seminars. Elf and fellow MESA committee member, Ben Mallet, are involved with building relationships between science students and industry to facilitate jobs and are in the process of bringing the Chiasma model for this to Wellington in 2012. He’s also responsible for the large cardboard cut-out of the 2012 MESA chair that was present at the 2011 symposium. He has also been known to work with/for: Te Ropu Awhina, Kiwispace, World Space Week Association,  FutureinTech, Cafe Scientifique, Carter Observatory, and the Wellington Branch of the Royal Society.