Dr Rebecca Priestley wins Prime Minister’s Prize
Dr Rebecca Priestley wins Prime Minister’s Prize – fourth for Te Pūnaha Matatini
Te Pūnaha
Matatini investigator Dr Rebecca Priestley has been
announced as the winner of the 2016 Prime Minister’s
Science Communication Prize.
Dr Priestley is a
senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington in the
Science in Society Group. She has been an Associate
Investigator in Te Pūnaha Matatini since the Centre was
established in 2015.
Te Pūnaha Matatini is one of
ten national Centres of Research Excellence. Its research
focuses on the science of complex systems and networks, and
applies this to study problems in society, the environment,
and the economy. Dr Priestley co-leads a project in the
Centre that studies public engagement by
researchers.
“Dr Priestley is unique amongst New
Zealand’s science communicators”, says Prof Shaun Hendy,
Director of Te Pūnaha Matatini. “She is not only an
accomplished science writer and journalist, she also has
academic standing as one of New Zealand’s leading
historians of science and has undertaken pioneering work in
the study of science’s engagement with
society.”
She received the $100,000 prize from
the Prime Minister at an event in Wellington today, joining
Te Pūnaha Matatini’s Dr Michelle Dickinson, Dr Siouxsie
Wiles and Prof Hendy, as previous winners of the
prize.
“We’ve placed public engagement and
communication of our research at the heart of our mission”
added Hendy, “and so it should be no surprise that Te
Pūnaha Matatini has become the meeting place for New
Zealand’s leading science communicators.”
Some
of Dr Priestley’s prize money will be used to establish
New Zealand’s first fund to support science journalism. Te
Pūnaha Matatini will also contribute to this
fund.
“As newsrooms shrink, it is getting harder
for the media to cover science,” says Hendy. “For
science engagement to work well, journalists need to be able
to take the time to cover science stories critically. We
hope this fund will help sustain independent science
journalism in New Zealand.”