RESEARCH, INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO
5
a large part to Dr Round. The International
Atomic Energy Agency has adopted the
ACPESM programme. “What we’ve achieved
is exciting and rewarding – we know what we
do matters to a lot of people.” And that’s what
attracts physics students to the job.
“It’s challenging, pays well, it’s a secure job
and it helps people.”
Every three years Dr Round tracks down
every clinical medical physicist position in
Australia and New Zealand to find out how
A TWO-YEAR project mapping the
physical, chemical and microbial diversity
of 1000 geothermal features in the central
North Island will provide a unique resource
telling New Zealand’s geothermal story.
The 1000 Springs Project is part
way through the mammoth task of
sampling and analysing the geothermal
features and loading the data onto a
publicly available website.
It’s a joint project between the
University
of Waikato
and
GNS
Science and Professor Craig Cary from the
University’s Thermophile Research Unit
says many other interested groups have
also been involved. “We’ve got DoC,
Fish and Game, many iwi, councils,
landowners, anyone who has an interest in
geothermal features.”
He says while New Zealanders value the
country’s geothermal features, “we know very
little about them, what is in them and how
best to manage this resource”.
“There are more than 3000 features in
the North Island and only a handful have
been looked at.”
The chemicals in the pools are all
different, the PH levels range from extreme
acid to alkaline, and temperatures from warm
tap water to 95
°C
.
The project will provide a “unique metric”
of information about each surveyed feature to
enable the best management measures to be
put in place. “Nothing like this has ever been
undertaken before,” Professor Cary says.“We’ll
carry out the survey, analyse the chemistry,
extract the DNA, look at the bacteria living
there under different conditions, the different
thermophiles, and extremophiles living at the
edge of biology. At a genetic level, we’ll find
out who’s there and what they are doing.”
Along with providing a massive amount of
scientific data, an app is being developed by
University of Waikato computer science senior
lecturer Dr Annika Hinze which will tell the
story of each site.
“Ultimately it will provide a medium
to value these systems, backed up with hard
data,” Professor Cary says.
The central North Island provides a wide
variety of geothermal features. “We‘ve gotmud
pools, dirty pools, clear pools, flowing pools,
and springs.” He says there is “real interest” in
the project from a biological perspective but
also from commercial organisations hoping
to use the database to search for organisms
which may be commercially useful.
“Commercially, some could be very
valuable,” he says.
The research team has applied for
funding from MBIE for Phase Two of the
project, which will expand its reach to
include genome level surveys and to “fill in
the gaps”.
“We’d like to include the whole country
and the Kermadecs as well,” he says.
The latest information from the
1000 Springs project is available at
DR NADINE BALLAM knows what it’s like to
come from the poor side of town. Growing up in
a single-parent household, money was tight and
that determined some of the courses she took at
school. “I couldn’t do photography for example,
because I had to have a sophisticated camera,
it was pre-digital, and there’s no way we could
afford that.”
Dr Ballam saw out her school years
without much enthusiasm and it was to be 12
years before she picked up university “and ran
with it”. Her PhD looks at the lives of gifted
and talented young people from low socio-
economic backgrounds.
“My focus was risk and resilience and
the literature suggested that giftedness is a
protection against negative life outcomes, and
poverty is a risk or hindrance to success in that it
increases the likelihood of adverse outcomes, but
my research was not so clear cut.”
Dr Ballam surveyed 93 people aged between
17 and 27, then interviewed eight. Respondents
were a cultural mix including, Māori, Pasifika,
Pākehā, Asian and Indian.
“Some had self-identified that they were
gifted even before they started school, but
mostly, if their parents hadn’t already picked it
up, they were identified at primary school.”
She says there is no set definition for gifted
and talented although the Ministry of Education
does provide guidelines, so schools had different
criteria for identification and how they dealt
with these children.
For her own interviews, Dr Ballam identified
people who were not only gifted academically,
but who also excelled at sport, leadership or in
the creative or performing arts.
What she found was that, despite knowing
their talents could take them places, their
giftedness brought a lot of pressure to succeed.
The respondents felt pressure from others and
put pressure on themselves, sometimes to the
point of burnout. One Māori male said while he
was encouraged by family and teachers, “it was
kinda like a ‘do it for your people kind of thing’…
when you fail you fail on behalf of everyone that
you represent”.
“Fear of failure was a big driver – 75% of
respondents felt pressure to perform and fear
of failure,” says Dr Ballam. “But they also were
aware that their talents could enable them
to break the poverty cycle and change their
circumstances.”
And while a lack of money hindered access
to resources, the majority of respondents found
their experience of adversity promoted resilience.
Identity was one of the key themes from
Dr Ballam’s research – giftedness had impacted
positively on the participants’ sense of identity
(personal well-being) and self-worth.
"Their talent gave them confidence, knowing
they could do things that others could not and
that in turn often gave them confidence to try
new things. "
Overall, Dr Ballam says, while money and
resources were important in their lives, more
valuable to them were the relationships. “It was
about relationships and connections, where
people who could open doors for them and help
to set up networks.”
So while gifted young people facing
socioeconomic constraints face challenges
developing their gifts and talents, those
challenges are mostly physical.
“I think we need to think about what
broader support these particular young people
should be given. Perhaps rather than trying to
fix those limitations the focus needs to extend
to the more intrinsic aspects, on supporting
and empowering these people to develop a
strong and secure sense of their own identity.”
The students Dr Ballam interviewed are now
studying or following diverse careers, in business,
law, the arts and professional sport. She hopes
her research will spur more debate.
Smart kids from
the wrong side
of the tracks
Collecting the stories
from 1000 springs
Keeping the machinery running
medical physics and three years clinical training.
“I was working in New Zealand on a training
programme and found out there was someone
in Australia, John Drew, doing exactly the
same thing. We got together and developed the
programme. We worked blindingly fast and in a
little more than six months had a programme up
and running.”
The Australasian College of Physical
ScientistsandEngineersinMedicine(ACPSEM)
was formed and Dr Round, a former president,
currently chairs its Professional Standards Board.
He says Australia “shovelled in millions”
to set the programme up and run it properly,
rolling out first in New Zealand in 2003 at
Canterbury University and in Australia the
following year.
The organisation used to be amateur and
run by volunteers. Their first office was the old
morgue at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital,
but these days ACPESM owns premises in
Sydney, employs eight staff, has a turnover of
millions and continues to expand – thanks in
THERE’S a worldwide shortage of medical
physicists, despite good numbers of people keen
to do the job. The trouble is, hospitals can be
reluctant to take on and train new registrars.
There were just three positions available in
NewZealand this year.There were 38 applicants.
Medical physicists keep the hi-tech machinery
running correctly and safely in hospitals’
radiation oncology units to make sure the
correct doses are administered time after time.
They also work in nuclear physics and radiology.
It’s a field where machines and technology are
changing all the time.
New Zealand and Australia have one of the
best medical physicist training schemes in the
world. Associate Professor Howell Round from
the School of Engineering at the University
of Waikato was one of the key developers of
the training and accreditation programme for
Australasia’s medical physicists.
There are 100 people across New Zealand
andAustralia training at anyone time.Tobecome
a medical physicist requires a masters degree in
many there are and what they’re doing. This
survey helps to register trends and to forecast
how many physicists each country is going to
need going into the future.
“It’s very, very useful for lobbying
governments,” he says. Dr Round has also taken
on the job of chairperson of the Professional
Development Committee of the Asia Oceania
Federation of Organisations forMedical Physics.
“We’re working with countries as diverse as
Korea, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. It’s a big area
with huge contrasts, in culture and facilities.
“Korea has extensive resources; Afghanistan
is working on rebuilding and extending its
radiation oncology services, and the situation
in Tajikistan is horrendous – they have nearly
eight million people, one radiation oncology
centre with two machines for the whole
country,” Dr Round says.
“We have to develop programmes that
ensure safe and appropriate operations that cover
staffing
levels,
continuing
professional
development, and certification and licensing of
medical physicists.
“It’s not a field where you can make mistakes.”
DR NADINE BALLAM
HOT SPRING: Sampling at Inferno Crater,
Waimangu.
