2012 Distinguished Alumni
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2012 Distinguished Alumni Awards.
Professor Charles Alcock is the Director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the world’s largest and most diverse centre for the study of the universe. Professor Alcock, whose primary research interests are massive compact halo objects, comets and asteroids, received the US Department of Energy’s Ernest O. Lawrence Award for Physics in 1996 and the Beatrice M. Tinsley Award of the American Astronomical Society in 2000. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2001 and to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2006.
Don McGlashan is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated song-writers, with five entries in the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA)’s 100 best New Zealand songs of all time and two APRA Silver Scroll Awards. Don was singer and main songwriter in The Mutton Birds, based in London from 1995 and touring all over the world until 1999. Parallel with his song-writing and performing career, Don has written music extensively for film and television, including Jane Campion’s “An Angel at My Table”, the drama series “Street Legal” and Toa Fraser’s film, “No 2”.
Dr Mark Sagar is the winner of two consecutive Academy Awards. Dr Sagar won a Scientific and Engineering Oscar in 2010 for developing a system used to create the realistic appearance of digital characters in Spiderman 2 and subsequent films and again, in 2011, for his pioneering facial motion capture solutions used in King Kong, Avatar and other blockbusters. Mark’s PhD research at The University of Auckland was a landmark study in how to develop an anatomically correct virtual eye and realistic models of biomechanically simulated anatomy.
Dame Robin White is one of this country’s greatest visual artists. A full-time painter and print-maker since 1972, she is recognised as a key figure in the development of the New Zealand “regionalist” style. Her work often depicts people in rural landscapes and is a blend of Pakeha, Māori and Pacific influences. In 1982 she and her family went to Kiribati to work with the Baha’i community, where they remained for 17 years. Dame Robin’s works are included in many major public collections and she has represented New Zealand at numerous international exhibitions.
Emeritus Professor Ranginui Walker of the Whakatohea tribe of Opotiki was Professor of Māori Studies from 1993-1997 and Pro-Vice Chancellor (Māori) from 1996-1997 at The University of Auckland. He has advocated extensively in the area of education and has published numerous books and articles, including the ground breaking Ka Whawhai tonu Matou: Struggle without End. Professor Walker was appointed to the Waitangi Tribunal in 2003. In 2007 he was awarded a Tohu o te Maramatanga Research Excellence Award and in 2009 he received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Non-Fiction.
Dr Privahini Bradoo is the Co-Founder and CEO of BioMine, a green mining startup aimed at recycling metals sustainably and economically from electronic wastes. Dr Bradoo recently represented BioMine on the Obama Administration task force on e-waste and won the Harvard Alumni New Venture of 2011 Award. While at The University of Auckland, she helped found Spark and Chiasma, two initiatives focused on promoting entrepreneurship in New Zealand. She was named in 2011 by Unlimited magazine as one of NZ's top ten business influencers and was a speaker at the TEDx Auckland conference.
