Who is the NZGS__________________
About the New Zealand Geographical Society
Our history
The New Zealand Geographical Society promotes and stimulates the study of Geography within Aotearoa New Zealand and seeks to communicate this work locally, nationally and globally. As one of the country’s most enduring scholarly associations, celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2019, the society has continually encouraged generations of geographers at both secondary and tertiary levels across the country. Facilitating lifelong learning and study is one of its core aims. It was founded in Wellington in August 1944, when the Canterbury and Wellington Geographical Associations joined to form the national body. It was officially incorporated on 6 November 1944.
A close relationship is maintained with the Institute of Australian Geographers. Joint NZGS/IAG conferences are regularly held on both sides of the Tasman Sea. NZ Geographical Society is also a member of the International Geographical Union via its membership of The Royal Society of New Zealand.
MEET THE EXECUTIVE MEMBERS OF NZGS
Executive Committee
Our Executive committee is made up of members from universities, schools and organisations across Aotearoa New Zealand. Committee members collectively guide the direction of the organisation, realising the aims and objectives of the society’s constitution, facilitating connections with international organisations, and supporting our membership. In general, the term of appointment for committee members ranges from two to four years.
A/Prof Kelly Dombroski
President
Professor Kelly Dombroski is the President of the New Zealand Geographical Society and a Professor of Geography at Massey University. Her research focuses on community development and diverse economies in the Asia-Pacific region. She is also known for her contributions to feminist geography and community economies. She is a founding board member of the Community Economies Institute, and has held various governance and leadership positions in academic and community settings. Professor Dombroski is a co-editor of the best-selling textbook, Introducing Human Geographies. She holds a PhD from Western Sydney University and has received several awards for her teaching and research. She has published widely in geography, planning, development and gender studies, including The Handbook of Diverse Economies (with JK Gibson-Graham) and Caring for Life: A postdevelopment politics of infant hygiene (University of Minnesota Press) . She is associate editor for both Asia Pacific Viewpoint and New Zealand Geographer.
A/Prof Sophie Bond
Past President
From Ōtepoti Dunedin, having grown up and studied there. A/Prof Bond has previously worked in Geography schools at the University of Glasgow (Scotland) and Victoria University of Wellington before arriving back in Ōtepoti to take up her current position at the University of Otago’s Te Ihowhenua/School of Geography in 2013. Her research and teaching is diverse, spanning environmental politics, resource conflicts, climate justice, and social justice. She is keenly aware of global and local socio-environmental challenges and seeks to create change through her research and teaching and is passionate about the ability of geography as a discipline to achieve this.
Dr Erena Le Heron
Secretary
Erena Le Heron is a kaimātai matawhenua/geographer, who works as an independent researcher collaborating on a diverse range of research projects. Her research interests are connected through a focus on narrative and relationality. She seeks to make visible the assembled and storied nature of environment, economy and culture. Her work contributes to developments that focus on reimagining, reassembling and remediating economy-environment relations that are fit-for-places.
Angus Dowell
Treasurer
Angus is an PhD Candidate and economic geographer in Auckland University's School of Environment. His research examines the relationship between cloud technology services (artificial intelligence, machine learning, data security) and the state. Angus is interested in how the practice of government is changing from state-cloudtech integration and what this means for the way the state responds collectively to social and environmental challenges.
Dr Aisling Gallagher
Managing Co-Editor, New Zealand Geographer
Originally from Ireland, Aisling moved to Aotearoa after completing her doctoral studies at the University of Bristol, UK in 2010. Since then she has worked in the geography programme at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, Massey University and is based on the Palmerston North campus. With interests in social and economic geography, her work focuses on the unequal dynamics of care-giving across the lifecourse with a specific interest childcare. Her current research examines the impacts of atypical and precarious labour for how families manage their work/care lives in Aotearoa.
A/Prof Tom Baker
Managing Co-Editor, New Zealand Geographer
Tom is an Associate Professor of Human Geography at the University of Auckland. Raised and educated in Newcastle, Australia, he moved to Tāmaki Makaurau in 2015. Spanning urban, political and economic geography, Tom's research focuses on the making, implementation and geography of public policy. He has been an elected councillor of Royal Society Te Apārangi, and an editor of the International Journal of Housing Policy and New Zealand Geographer.
Mary Robinson
Chair of the New Zealand Board of Geography Teachers
Mary is the Chair of the Board of Geography Teachers and is excited to join the NZGS Executive Committee. She completed a Master's in Geography at the University of Auckland, majoring in physical geography. Mary is an experienced New Zealand secondary school teacher and has worked in various types of schools across the country. Currently, she serves as a kaiārahi (advisor) for Geography teachers nationwide. Mary loves working with teachers to help them improve their pedagogical practice. She also works with trainee teachers as they embark on their new career choices. When she is not thinking about geography in school, she enjoys traveling, visiting beaches or tranquil forests, or reading and watching movies and documentaries set in interesting locations—all of which are geography-related!
Dr Helen Fitt
Membership Officer
Helen has a diverse disciplinary background with a first degree including economics, a second in development studies, and a third in geography. She has worked in University departments including geography, tourism, and environmental management, and is currently a lecturer in Population Health at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka | the University of Otago’s Christchurch campus. Helen’s research interests centre on transport and mobilities (which are fundamentally geographical, integral to tourism, environmentally impactful, and key to people’s health and wellbeing and their ability to participate fully in social, economic, and cultural life). Helen enjoys nudging a little bit of social and geographical theory into research and teaching, but also quite likes getting outside tramping, skiing, and swimming.
Dr Cadey Korson
Communications Officer
An Instructor in Geography in the STEM Division at St Clair County Community College, Port Huron, Michigan, USA. Cadey holds a Ph.D. in geography from Kent State University, USA. Her research interests include geography education and filmmaking, cultural geography, Indigenous placemaking and governance in small islands.
Prof Lynda Johnston
International Geographical Union Representative
Served as Vice President (2016-2017) and President (2018 - 2019) and is currently the Past President (2020-2021) and International Geographical Union (IGU) New Zealand Representative for NZGS. Lynda has also held the role of Chair of the Gender and Geography Commission of the IGU (2016 - 2020). As a Professor of Geography and Assistant Vice Chancellor at the University of Waikato, Lynda's research focuses on the challenges and complexities of social inequalities and justice. Their latest sole authored book - Gender Variant Geographies: Transforming Gender, Sex and Place (2019, Routledge) - explores where gender variant people feel in and / or out of place. For many years Lynda has researched gendered geographies (in gyms, cities, leisure spaces) and geographies of sexualities (in homes, rural places, gay pride festivals, sporting spaces). This research highlights the exclusionary ways in which various forms of discrimination and marginalisation – such as sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia – shape people’s everyday lives, structure the resources available to them and influence who they become. Lynda's research is relevant for community groups, teachers, and scholars who engage in debates about social justice, equality, and embodied difference.
Heather Paterson-Shallard
Early Career Researchers Network Representative
A doctoral student in the School of Environment at The University of Auckland/ Waipapa Taumata Rau. Heather is a human geographer interested in society-environmental interactions, environmental governance, and policy. Her research focuses on natural resource governance, with particular interest in institutional structures, the multi-scalar nature of decision-making processes, and collaborative management approaches.
Ben Lilly
Early Career Researchers Network Representative
Ben is a PhD student with the University of Waikato | Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato, studying geographies of sexuality. His research examines how compulsory sexuality operates at different scales in New Zealand. Ben is interested in the implications compulsory sexuality has for sexual minorities, particularly asexuality, and intersectionality with other identity groups.
Prof Robin Kearns
Geographic Board Representative
A Professor of Geography and current Head of the School of Environment at the University of Auckland. His doctoral study took him to Canada supported by a Commonwealth Scholarship where he examined the inner city experience of impoverished psychiatric patients. In the three decades since, he has maintained an interest in the links between health and place and is an editor of the Elsevier journal of the same name. Robin has collaborated with a wide range of geographers and others with funding from agencies such as the Health Research Council of NZ and the NZ National Science Challenges. He is a qualitative methodologist with particular interests in experiential and observational approaches. His current research centres on islands communities, the cultural politics of naming places, place attachment and home environments. Robin’s most recent book is the co-edited Blue Space, Health and Wellbeing: Hydrophilia Unbounded (Routledge, 2019). Robin spent his childhood in England and rural Northland, has lived in Auckland most of his life and, since 2019, resides on Waiheke Island. He is the NZGS nominee on the board Nga Pou o Taunaha o Aotearoa which educates and officiates on place names in New Zealand. When not working, he is a lover of wild places, birds and plant life, live music, poetry and a varied mix of good company and solitude.
President Lex Chalmers
Chair Lynda Johnston
Email lynda.johnston@waikato.ac.nz
Secretary Richard Calderwood
Email richard.calderwood@waikato.ac.nz
Treasurer Claire Gibson
Branch Representative on the NZBoGT Christian Richardson
Postal address
c/o Professor Lynda Johnston
Geography Programme
University of Waikato
Private Bag 3105
Hamilton 3240
Co-chairs Mirjam Schindler and Brendon Blue
Emails: mirjam.schindler@vuw.ac.nz and brendon.blue@vuw.ac.nz
Treasurer Marcela Palomino-Schalscha
Postgraduate Representative Goklou Giyahchi
Branch Representative on the NZBoGT Julie Struthers
New Zealand Geographical Society
Email: admin@nzgs.co.nz
