The University of Canterbury is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was founded in 1873 as Canterbury College, the first constituent college of the University of New Zealand. It is New Zealand's second-oldest university, after the University of Otago, which was founded four years earlier, in 1869.
Zhao Xue is a Chinese chess player. She is the 24th Chinese person to achieve the title of Grandmaster. Zhao was a member of the gold medal-winning Chinese team at the Women's Chess Olympiad in 2002, 2004 and 2016, and at the Women's World Team Chess Championship in 2007, 2009 and 2011. She has competed in the Women's World Chess Championship in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2018, reaching the semifinals in 2010.
Nana Dzagnidze is a Georgian chess player. She was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2008. Dzagnidze was a member of the gold medal-winning Georgian team in the Women's Chess Olympiad in 2008 and European women's individual champion in 2017.
Roger Lawrence Kerr, a public policy and business leader, was the executive director of the New Zealand Business Roundtable, a free-market think-tank based in Wellington, New Zealand.
Nadezhda Anatolyevna Kosintseva is a Russian chess grandmaster. She was a member of the gold medal-winning Russian team in the Women's Chess Olympiads of 2010 and 2012, and in the Women's European Team Chess Championships of 2007, 2009 and 2011.
Joel Hayward is a New Zealand-born British scholar, academic and writer. He has been listed in the 2023 and 2024 editions of The World's 500 Most Influential Muslims. He has been the Dean of the Royal Air Force College Cranwell and is now the Chief Executive of the Cambridge Muslim College in the United Kingdom.
Gawain Christopher Bernard Jones is an English chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2007. He won the British Chess Championship in 2012 and 2017. He competed in the FIDE World Cup in 2013, 2017 and 2019.
Harika Dronavalli is an Indian chess player who holds the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM). She has won three bronze medals in the Women's World Chess Championship, in 2012, 2015 and 2017. Harika was honored with the Arjuna Award for the year 2007–08 by the government of India. In 2016, she won the FIDE Women's Grand Prix event at Chengdu, China and rose up from world no. 11 to world no. 5 in FIDE women's ranking. In 2019, she was awarded the Padma Shri for her contributions towards the field of sports.
Yuriy Hryhorovych Kryvoruchko is a Ukrainian chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2006. Kryvoruchko was Ukrainian champion in 2013. He competed in the FIDE World Cup in 2009 and 2013.
Benjamin Martin is a New Zealand chess player and mathematician. He was awarded the title International Master (IM) by FIDE in 1996.
Kıvanç Haznedaroğlu is a Turkish chess Grandmaster and a FIDE trainer. As of the July 2013 FIDE rating list, he is ranked among active players number 1,798 in the world and number twelve in Turkey. He earned the title of Grandmaster (GM) on 18 October 2009. He studied Hydrogeology at Hacettepe University in Ankara.
Vivian Joyce Smith is a New Zealand chess player. She has represented New Zealand in fifteen Chess Olympiads, and won the New Zealand Women's Chess Championship a record ten times. She is a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to chess, and holds the title of Woman FIDE Master (WFM).
Vernon Albert Small is a New Zealand chess International Master (IM). He represented New Zealand in eight Chess Olympiads from 1976 to 1992. Previously a journalist for Fairfax Media, Small is now a press secretary to Cabinet minister David Parker.
Giang Thu Nguyen is a Vietnamese-Australian chess player and mathematician. She is a senior lecturer in Applied Mathematics at the University of Adelaide. In chess, she is a Woman FIDE Master (WFM), and has represented Australia in seven Chess Olympiads. She has won the South Australian women's championship four times, and the South Australian (open) championship once.
Biljana N. Dekić is a chess Woman International Master who has represented Australia in eleven Chess Olympiads.
Mark Fredrick Noble is a New Zealand chess and lawn bowls player. He was awarded the title of International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster (GM) in 2010, the first New Zealand player to be awarded this title.
Ann Brower is an environmental geographer from New Zealand. A survivor of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, she successfully lobbied for a law change to the Building Act, which was passed in 2016 as the Brower Amendment. Brower was promoted to full professor at the University of Canterbury in December 2021. In 2022 she won the Charles Fleming Award for Environmental Achievement.
Melissa Greeff is a South African-Canadian chess Woman Grandmaster (WGM). She earned the WGM title in 2009.
Shohreh Bayat is an Iranian chess arbiter based in England. She was chief arbiter of the Women's World Chess Championship 2020. Bayat is an International Arbiter for FIDE. She was awarded an International Women of Courage Award in 2021.
V. Varshini, is an Indian female chess player. FIDE awarded her the title of woman grandmaster in September 2019.
