Maunuhanga Travel Grant Recipients
Each year, we award travel grants to help researchers further their professional development. Hear from these recipients below.
2026 Recipients
Dr Angus Chapman
School of Psychological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington
“Thanks to the Maunuhanga Travel Grant, I was able to attend the joint meeting of the Asia-Pacific Conference on Vision and Australasian Experimental Psychology held at the University of Auckland in July. My oral presentation was on the effects of attention on the representational geometry of visual features. This work was carried out during my postdoc at Boston University, so the conference provided a great opportunity to share research from my time overseas while connecting with and building relationships with other early-career researchers from Australia and New Zealand.”
Dr Kaitlin Buick
Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, Wellington
“With the generous support of the Maunuhanga Travel Award, I was able to attend the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology NZ branch meeting in Palmerston North. This conference provided many opportunities to expand my network and get involved in the NZ immunology community, especially by being part of the organising committee. It was a valuable experience to share my work, connect with others and hear about the different immunology research happening around Aotearoa and Australia.”
Dr El Mestel
School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington
“I am immensely grateful for the support of this year’s Maunuhanga travel grant for my trip to attend the 2026 EGU General Assembly and JpGU-AGU Joint Meeting. These were the first international conferences that I have ever attended, and it was fantastic to present my work on Aotearoa’s caldera volcanoes to an international audience and to connect with many existing collaborators, as well as build new connections”
Dr Hannah Boswell
Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, Wellington
“I attended the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology NZ branch meeting in Palmerston North because of the generous support of the Maunuhanga Travel Grant. I was able to give an oral presentation of my research, which focuses on immune responses in the lung during an influenza infection. The conference gave me a fantastic opportunity to share ideas and connect with the wider community of New Zealand immunologists.”
Dr Olivia Burn
Dr Liz McKibben
Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, Wellington
“Thanks to a travel grant from Maunuhanga–Wellington postdoctoral society, I was able to attend the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology (ANZSI) NZ branch meeting in Palmerston North, where I presented my research on mRNA vaccine therapies for liver cancer.
It was a fantastic opportunity to share our progress, get feedback from some of New Zealand's leading immunologists, and help shape the future direction of the project.”
2025 Recipients
Dr Abigail Sharrock
School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington
“I was incredibly grateful to receive support to attend the 2025 Synthetic Biology Australasia Conference in Wellington, where I presented my postdoctoral research on engineering bacterial enzymes for medical applications. This was my first time attending this conference, and it was an amazing opportunity to meet others in the field, hear about emerging research, and build invaluable connections across Australasia.”
Dr Ria Te Uira Holmes
Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington
“I was exceptionally privileged to attend a workshop at Corpus Christi, Oxford University. In the workshop I presented with my colleague Dr Carwyn Jones on Māori legal instruments. I was grateful to participate in kōrero with Indigenous academics from around the world, and to explore different ways Indigenous legal History can be lovingly excavated, understood and shared. Attendance at this workshop has formed ongoing relationships across the world and I am currently working on a chapter which we be published alongside other participants.”
Dr Liz McKibben
School of Health, Victoria University of Wellington
“Attending the Critical Autoethnography Conference was one of the most rewarding scholarly experiences I’ve had. Bringing together an international community of researchers and artists, the conference fostered a rich exchange of ideas, creativity, and critical reflection. At its core, the conference was about hope, and about finding hope in creative storytelling, performance, and courageous inquiry. I left with a renewed sense of the importance of research that is critical, imaginative, and willing to blur disciplinary boundaries in pursuit of a more compassionate world.”
Dr Sarah Sczelecki
School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington
“With the generous support of the Maunuhanga Travel Award, I was able to attend the annual Australia New Zealand Society of Extracellular Vesicles (ANZSEV) meeting in Te Whanganui-a-Tara in November 2025. My abstract was selected for an oral presentation, and it was the first time presenting at an extracellular vesicle (EV)-focused conference. This meeting was fantastic and one of the best conferences I have been fortunate enough to attend. I made valuable connections with Australasian EV researchers, including many ECRs, learned about advancing methodologies in the field and gained ideas for future research projects.”