Star paths continue to symbolise the aspirations
of our modern-day pathfinders.
Ngā Ara Whetū exemplifies the ethos of this flagship University of Auckland Research Centre located at Waipapa Taumata Rau.
It enables inter-institutional collaborations with schools, faculties and research centres and connects us to communities across the Pacific and globally.
Ngā Ara Whetū fosters thought leadership and mobilises innovative transdisciplinary research, outreach, stakeholder partnerships, engagement, and teaching.
It addresses theoretical and applied domains of its initiatives whilst holding and integrating the principles and values of kaitiakitanga, (proactive guardianship) manaakitanga (being generous), whanaungatanga (community) – at the centre of its kaupapa.
Executive Team
Julie Rowland
JR Rowland is an Earth scientist with research interests in geothermal energy and mineral resources, earthquakes and volcanoes. She is the Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Science.
Rod McNaughton
Rod McNaughton is a professor of entrepreneurship and academic director of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Drawing on his experience developing entrepreneurial ecosystems and helping start-ups launch and grow, Rod collaborates across the university to encourage entrepreneurship education and support student entrepreneurship, commercialisation, and university-industry engagement.
Jacqueline Beggs
Jacqueline Beggs is an ecologist in the School of Biological Sciences. She is Director of the Centre for Biodiversity and Biosecurity and is appointed to the Marsden Council.
Maria Armoudian
Maria Armoudian is a senior lecture in politics and international relations, specialising in political, environmental, and science communication, human rights and their intersections with law, governance, media, and policy. Her books include Lawyers Beyond Borders: Advancing International Human Rights through Local Laws & Courts; Kill the Messenger: The Media’s Role in the Fate of the World; and Reporting from the Danger Zone: Frontline Journalists, their Jobs and an Increasingly Perilous Future.
David Noone
David Noone is a climate scientist, with specialties in the circulation patterns of atmosphere, global and regional water cycles, exchanges and fluxes of carbon and other trace gases, links between ecosystems and climate, and evaluation of earth’s past and future climate system.
Saeid Baroutian
Saeid Baroutian is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering at the University of Auckland. His research interests and expertise centre on developing and designing novel processes for resource recovery, waste minimisation and circular economy using separation and reaction engineering concepts.
Niki Harre
Niki Harre is a community psychologist with research interests in the sustainable organisation, core human values, religion, and political activism. She coordinates a three-course sustainability module available to students in the faculties of Science and Arts at the University of Auckland.
Rachel Wolfgramm
Rachel Maunganui Wolfgramm holds positions as Associate Dean Māori, Associate Dean Pacific and Director of the Dame Mira Szászy Research Centre at the University of Auckland Business School. Rachel is of Te Aupōuri, Ngai Takoto and Whakatōhea descent and her heritage includes Vava’u Tonga, and Irish. For almost two decades, Rachel has dedicated her research and teaching to new generations of leaders committed to creating thriving social ecological communities of engagement and practice, sustainability, Mātauranga Māori, leadership, and economies of wellbeing. NOTE: Rachel is temporarily working for The Ministry of Justice.
Contact us
Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland
Auckland 1010, Aotearoa New Zealand
