Kia ora,
I’m delighted to share some successes of our members and fellows that demonstrate the quality and impact of New Zealand’s chemists.
Richard Hartshorn (Canterbury Branch) has been awarded the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies (FACS) Distinguished Contribution to Chemical Education Award. This international accolade marks his sustained excellence in chemical education to university students and, through outreach, to high-school students, and in leadership including as an author of the IUPAC Nomenclature Guides in inorganic and organic chemistry and other teaching resources, and as the Secretary-General of IUPAC. Richard presented a seminar at the Asian Chemical Congress in Istanbul, Turkey earlier this month and will receive his award there.
Congratulations also to NZIC colleagues Owen Catchpole (Wellington Branch), Gary Evans (Wellington Branch) and Paul Kilmartin (Auckland Branch) who were elected as Fellows of the Royal Society Te Apārangi. This honour recognises their distinguished expertise in their fields of chemistry. You can find their citations here
The Chemical Education Trust (CET, https://nzic.org.nz/cet) provides grants for laboratory equipment and other chemical education tools such as molecular models to high schools. The CET is a subsidiary of NZIC and is funded by donations. A big thank you to Gordon Rewcastle (Auckland Branch) for his dedication in chairing the CET Board for the past nine years. Gordon is retiring from this role and Michele Prinsep (Waikato Branch) is stepping into this position. The Board also consists of Ian Brown and Suzanne Boniface (both Wellington Branch) and we are looking to appoint another Board member.
NZIC is a constituent organisation of the Royal Society Te Apārangi. Michael Mucalo (Past President) and I have been representing NZIC in constituent organisation meetings and engaging in the forward-looking self-review of Te Apārangi which is considering how to implement the vision for New Zealand’s knowledge-embracing society. Many of our (NZIC) priorities are shared by the other member societies, including interest in the ongoing changes to the high-school curriculum and NCEA, a desire to build a sustainable, flourishing, knowledge-based society and concerns regarding disinformation about science and health issues. We will continue to press into the discussions about these challenges and welcome interest from our members in participating.
NZIC benefits financially from members publishing in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. and the Asian Chemical Editorial Society (ACES)/Wiley journals Chemistry – an Asian Journal, Asian Journal of Organic Chemistry and Chem NanoMat. Do consider submitting research articles to these quality international journals.
Nāku noa, nā,
Joanne Harvey, FNZIC, FRSC
