The NZGS Post/Graduate Network has been initiated to strengthen the Geography discipline, build future capacity, and enhance the experience, skills and feelings of belonging among Geography post/graduates across New Zealand universities.

We aim to develop a support network where students can discuss, share and learn about issues that directly affect them.

To develop the Network’s capacity and generate fellowship, we aim to hold regular postgraduate workshops, theme-based webinars through the access grid, and national workshops at the biennial NZGS Conference.

Visit the Network on Facebook.

National Representatives

Amanda Thomas, Co-representative

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University of Auckland

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Kat is embarking on a BSc Honours in Physical Geography, specialising in geomorphology.  Her research interests include landform generation and destruction by fluid dynamics.

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Marc has recently finished his MSc in Geography, with plans to start a PhD in 2013. His Masters thesis examines the relationships between information and environmental values in freshwater planning, and creating new spaces for deliberation about freshwater knowledge. He has a strong interest in the politics of biophysical science and disciplinary debates in geography

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Bill is doing a PhD in Geography, examining the influence of Ken Cumberland's 'Landmarks' TV series in New Zealand, and exploring contemporary prospects for cultivating geographical imagination through new media.

University of Waikato

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Cherie is doing a PhD in Geography at the University of Waikato, and her thesis examines the ways in which love and romance develop and evolve within the virtual environments of online games like World of Warcraft. Cherie also works as an editorial assistant for Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography.

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Gail is currently beginning the second year of her PhD. thesis in Critical Human Geography.  Her thesis examines the spaces of emotion and affect within the experiences of relocated Christchurch earthquake survivors.  Gail aims to create dialogues between disaster scholarship and contemporary theoretical explorations of emotion and affect, as well as, influence disaster response and recovery policies.

Massey University

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Simon is undertaking a PhD at Massey University in Physical Geography within the Institute of Natural Resources in conjunction with Landcare Research Ltd. His research is focused around employing a ‘sediment fingerprinting’ technique in the Manawatu Catchment whereby fine sediment can be traced from their erosion sources and differentiated based on geochemical signatures. This will allow identification of key land areas, types of erosion processes and land uses that contribute fine sediment into the river catchment. His previous MSc work focused on developing a GIS coupled water budget for high resolution spatial and temporal analysis of water resources in the Horowhenua, New Zealand.

Victoria University

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Amanda is a doing a PhD in Human Geography, looking at how discourses around "nature" intersect with a water storage project in the Hurunui catchment, Canterbury​. She is also interested in activism that challenges the neoliberalisation of New Zealand's universities.

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Gradon is currently doing a PhD in Human Geography, looking at various forms of everyday urban activism which hint at a post-capitalist politics. He also lectures part-time at the Open Polytechnic in Social Sciences.

University of Canterbury

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Joanne is doing a PhD at the University of Canterbury with the Geography and Accounting and Information Systems Departments.  Her research explores organisational recovery and resilience following the Canterbury earthquakes.  She is examining the way in which an organisation’s relationship to its local context and its social network structure shape its recovery trajectory and ability to adapt to new post-earthquake contexts.

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Colette Starheim is a PhD candidate in the University of Canterbury's Department of Geography. Her research focuses on understanding the evolution of flow and deposition processes during and after debris-flow and lahar events. To explore these sediment dynamics, her study incorporates innovative geophysical tools (e.g. ground-penetrating radar, anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility, and structure-from-motion) with traditional geomorphological techniques.

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Lincoln University

Nick Kirk
Nick is a PhD candidate at Lincoln University studying water governance in the Canterbury region. Before starting his PhD he authored articles on climate change mitigation, common-pool resource governance of fisheries and collaborative approaches to water planning. He has an interest in human, environmental and economic geographies, with a particular focus on how power interacts with and shapes space and place.

University of Otago

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Jerram is a PhD student at the University of Otago. His research explores the post-conflict reconstruction of rural livelihoods in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone.

Past Postgraduate Representatives

Ruth Markham-Short, Lincoln University

John Appleby, Massey University

Jean Beetham

Peter Chamberlain, Lincoln University

Jonathan Conway, University of Otago

Megan Collins

Sarah Edwards, Lincoln University

Claire Gregory, University of Auckland

Jessica Keppel, University of Waikato

Arash Moghad

Marcela Palomino-Schalscha, Victoria University

Ben Payne, University of Otago

Colin Simpson

Jane Richardson, Massey University