Hannah is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the VUW School of Biological Sciences. Her research is primarily focused on generating and screening large metagenomic libraries with the aim of discovering novel enzymes for biotechnological applications. Her previous research focused on re-purposing the FDA-approved, anthelmintic drug, niclosamide as a novel antibacterial therapy.

Hannah joined the committee in 2024.

Nikita has become a part of Maunuhanga Committee in 2023. He is committed to forging a clearer career path for postdocs at Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington.

He is holding a position of Postdoctoral Fellow in Law at the New Zealand Centre of International Economic Law (NZCIEL). The primary focus of his research is examining data barriers in international trade, international intellectual property, and the regulation of technology. He also co-teaches various courses at the Faculty of Law and professional development courses with the NZCIEL.

Rose is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Ferrier Research Institute, carrying out multidisciplinary research to understand and characterise biosynthetic pathways in fungi. Her research requires skills across bioinformatics, synthetic and molecular biology, analytical chemistry and natural product chemistry.

Rose joined the committee in 2025.

Abby is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the VUW School of Biological Sciences. Her research is focused on the development of improved methods of targeted cellular ablation for both cancer gene therapy and degenerative disease modelling, and design of next-generation gene delivery vectors to support cancer therapies.

Abby joined the committee in 2024 and is looking forward to becoming a more active member of the Wellington Early Career Researcher Community.

Felix is a Research Fellow in the VUW School of Engineering and Computer Science. His research focuses on integrating artificial intelligence with cross-disciplinary domains to empower scientific innovations and applications. He previously applied AI for designing robust microphone arrays to enhance speech capture technology. His current project is about deploying web applications on multi-clouds with AI-designed heuristics to optimise cost efficiency and response times.

Felix joined the committee in 2024.

Khushbu is a Lecturer in Commercial Law at the School of Accounting and Commercial Law. Her research focuses on intellectual property rights and drug regulations. As a part of Maunuhanga, Khushbu aims to foster inclusive dialogue among post-doctoral peers. She is committed to building a supportive community where members can collaborate and enhance their industry skills.

Josie is a Research Scientist at Callaghan Innovation. She is interested in various areas of applied microbiology and biotechnology, though the majority of her research has focused on understanding and controlling the causal agent of kauri dieback disease. In her current role, her focus is on microbiology, fermentation, & bioprocessing.

Josie joined the committee in 2025.

Olivia is a research fellow at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research. Her research focuses on developing a novel mRNA vaccine platform designed to generate liver-targeted immune responses, with the goal of improving treatment outcomes for liver cancer.

Olivia joined the committee in 2025.

Muhammad is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the VUW School of Chemical and Physical Sciences. His research is focused on halogen bonding (X-bonding) in ionic liquids (ILs). He is computationally investigating the nature of X-bonds and chemically modifying IL ions to enhance the presence of X-bonding. Ionic liquids can be chemically engineered to possess targeted properties that enhance application performance.

Muhammad joined the committee in August 2025 and is looking forward to becoming a more active member of the Wellington Early Career Researcher Community.

Danae is a Lecturer in Occupational Health and Safety in the VUW School of Health.