Invited Speakers

We are pleased to announce the following invited speakers for NZIP 2023...


Jodie Bradby  - Keynote

The Australian National University  

Jodie Bradby is Head of the Department of Materials Physics at the Research School of Physics at the Australian National University (ANU).  She is a condensed matter physicist who works with high-pressures to create new materials in carbon, silicon, and germanium. She is a vocal supporter of women in STEM and is the undergraduate laboratory coordinator for Physics at ANU. 

Jodie was awarded her PhD from ANU 2003 before completing a postdoc in the USA as part of an American-Australian Education Fellowship. She returned to the ANU and established a group working on phase transformations in Group 14 elements. She has held a series of Australian Research Council (ARC) Fellowships and in 2019-20 was the President of the Australian Institute of Physics.



Amita Deb  - Keynote

University of Otago

Amita Deb a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Otago. He obtained his doctorate degree from the University of Oxford in Atomic and Laser Physics. Following a brief period of working in the US, he came to Otago Physics as a member in the Light and Matter Group. 

He is an experimental physicist specialising in Atomic, molecular and optical physics with a focus in quantum physics and quantum technologies. He works with ultracold atomic gases, especially with Bose-Einstein condensates and degenerate Fermi gases, and study how these atoms interact with each other and with light on a fundamental level. He studies atoms that are excited to high electronic states to harness strong interactions and quantum optical nonlinearities. These experimental platforms are currently at the heart of quantum simulations, quantum optics, quantum computing, and quantum-enhanced sensing. These are the fields where his broad research interests lie. His work has been published in top-ranked journals like Science, Physical Review Letters and Nature Communications, and he holds several patents. 




Stuart Farmer  - Virtual Keynote

Institute of Physics Scotland

Since 2019 Stuart has been the Institute of Physics Scotland’s Learning and Skills Manager.  Prior to this he taught physics in Scottish secondary school for over 30 years, most of this leading Scotland’s largest secondary school physics department.

Throughout his career Stuart has organised and delivered a wide range of teacher professional learning activities not only in Scotland but across the rest of the UK and further afield.  He has also been involved in national curriculum and assessment developments and sat on several government advisory committees.  He is currently studying part-time for a PhD investigating the alignment of policy and practice of professional learning for Scottish teachers.  He has a particular interest in networking and professional learning for potentially isolated teachers working in relatively remote and rural locations.  In 2016 he was awarded the Bragg Medal from the Institute of Physics “For outstanding contributions to enhance both the teaching and the public image of physics, making classroom science more relevant, attractive and visible”.




Pauline Harris  - Keynote

Massey University

Associate Professor Pauline Harris is from Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Rakaipaka and Ngāti Kahungunu. She is a Lecturer at Te Pūtahi a Toi, School of Māori knowledge at Massey University. Dr Harris is an astrophysicist who has specialized in high energy neutrino production and inflationary cosmology. Dr Harris’s research currently focuses on mātauranga Māori associated with Māori astronomy, Māori calendars called maramataka aswell as climate change. Currently, Dr Harris is the Chairperson of the Society for Māori Astronomy Research and Traditions (SMART).  She is also Deputy Director Māori for the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology and the Vision Mātauranga theme leader for the Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge. As part of Dr Harris’s role in Matariki she was part of the Matariki Advisory Committee that establishment the Matariki public holiday.




Kate Wilson  - Keynote

UNSW Canberra (at the Australian Defence Force Academy)

Kate is a physicist by training but teaches introductory engineering courses in the School of Engineering and Information Technology at UNSW Canberra, where she is the Director of Undergraduate Studies. She has also designed and taught professional development courses in classroom teaching and course design for early career academics.
For the last 20 years, Kate has been doing research into student learning and student experience in physics and engineering. She has also been looking at gender equity in physics, in particular the role of assessment in maintaining the gender gap in participation in physics. As a past director of the Australian Science Olympiads Physics Program, Kate was involved in improving equity of access to that program without compromising performance at competition. She is also an author of secondary school and first year university physics textbooks, which are informed by her research. 




Mikkel Andersen  - Public Lecture Speaker

University of Otago

Mikkel has 20 years experience with research in atomic physics focused on laser manipulation of atoms. His interests range from understanding the intricate workings of the microscopic world to applying this knowledge to develop new quantum technologies.

He received his PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel for experimental work on on quantum and classical chaos of atoms trapped by laser beams. He went on to work on a state of ultra-cold matter known as Bose-Einstein condensates with Nobel Laureate Bill Phillips at the National Institute of Standards and technology in USA. After a brief spell at New York University he joined the University of Otago about 15 years ago. At Otago he set up a research programme aimed at controlling and manipulating individual atoms using laser light. This experimental platform became the foundation of his ongoing studies of few-body physics with an unprecedented level of control



Conference Organisers

Conferences & Events Ltd
PO Box 24078, Manners Street, Wellington, 6011
  +64 4 384 1511
    www.confer.co.nz
   nzip2023@confer.co.nz




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This conference is organised by Conferences & Events Ltd, Wellington, Auckland, Nelson & Nationwide.  We are a New Zealand business.