Reach for the stars

Media Release
February 24, 2009

Reach for the stars

You don’t usually associate top sportspeople with astrophysics, but University of Waikato student Craig Armstrong is determined to excel in both. Last year, he played hockey for the Cambridge University Men’s Blues (first team), and while at Cambridge he completed what’s probably the hardest maths course in the world in preparation for his doctoral studies in astrophysics.

With the Certificate of Advanced Studies in Mathematics (CASM) under his belt, Armstrong is now back in New Zealand, and for the second time he’s been named one of about 50 new Hillary Scholars at the University of Waikato.

The Sir Edmund Hillary Scholarship Programme, offered since 2005, awards scholarships to academic high achievers who show significant leadership qualities and also excel in sport or in the creative and performing arts. The prestigious scholarships provide full university course fees while studying at Waikato, comprehensive support for the recipients’ academic, sporting and/or arts activities, and additional support in leadership and personal development.

Each Hillary Scholar is coached and mentored to help them to balance their sporting and performing arts activities with the demands of their academic programme. Sports players are provided with a personal coach and manager through the university’s partnership arrangements with individual sporting codes. Creative and performing arts scholars are mentored and tutored by experts in their fields.

“Waikato is much more accommodating to top athletes,” says Armstrong, who as an undergraduate was among the first-ever intake of Hillary Scholars. “I couldn’t give hockey a decent go if I’d stayed in Cambridge – and it would be that much harder to play for the New Zealand team.”

While at Waikato, Armstrong will be playing for Fraser Tech as goalie, under the coaching directorship of Hymie Gill, a former Black Stick with extensive coaching experience in Europe and New Zealand.

Armstrong has his sights set on making the New Zealand team for the 2012 London Olympics, but before then he hopes to have completed his doctorate in the Department of Mathematics.

His research involves creating a computer model of what happens in a solar flare, and he’s being supervised by Professor Ian Craig and Dr Yuri Litvinenko, an authority on particle acceleration in solar flares.

“It’s the best of both worlds,” he says. “My two supervisors are world experts in this field, and here I’ve basically got daily access to them – that just wouldn’t be possible at Cambridge.”

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