Veronika Meduna

Last updated

Veronika Meduna is a science journalist and broadcaster who was the founding New Zealand editor of The Conversation.

Contents

Early life

Meduna was born in Czechoslovakia and spent her childhood there before moving with her family to Germany.[ citation needed ]

Career

Meduna trained and worked as a microbiologist before moving into science journalism. She is best known as the long-serving producer and presenter of the Our Changing World science show on Radio New Zealand, producing and presenting hundreds of episodes of the show.

Scientific work

Between 1988 and 1990, she was a research assistant at the University of Konstanz in the "Microbial Ecology Working Group" and subsequently, until 1992, as a scientist at the Konstanz-based Bio System GmbH. There, she dealt with soil microbiology, investigated, among other things, the potential of earth microbes for the purification of contaminated soil and developed a technique for the biological removal of pollutants. In 1992, Meduna held two positions as a research associate: On the one hand, she was involved in the extraction and refining of algentoxins at the University of Bremen (now known as the Center for Environmental Research and Sustainable Technologies) and also contributed to a study that was to assess the environmental factors responsible for the planting of the algal bloom . In addition, she participated in the Department of Zoology, Wildlife Management at the University of Otago, on a comprehensive observation of New Zealand seabirds on the Otago Peninsula.

Journalistic work

She joined Radio New Zealand in 1999 as a science reporter covering the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification before hosting Our Changing World. Alongside her broadcast career, Meduna has been an award winning science writer, contributing to publications such as the New Zealand Listener, [1] New Zealand Geographic and New Scientist.

She left RNZ in 2016 [2] as part of a major restructure at the broadcaster and worked as a freelance journalist before joining The Conversation in May 2017. [3]

She spent time at Oxford University as a Chevening David Low Fellow. [4]

Meduna won the Elsie Locke Award for non-fiction at the 2009 LIANZA awards and was shortlisted for the 2013 Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize. [5]

Personal life

She lives and works in Wellington, New Zealand.

Selected works

Related Research Articles

Radio broadcasting began in New Zealand in 1922, and is now dominated by almost thirty radio networks and station groups. The Government has dominated broadcasting since 1925, but through privatisation and deregulation has allowed commercial talk and music stations to reach large audiences. New Zealand also has several radio stations serving Māori tribes, Pacific Island communities, ethnic minorities, evangelical Christians and special interests.

Ernest Marsden British physicist

Sir Ernest Marsden was an English-New Zealand physicist. He is recognised internationally for his contributions to science while working under Ernest Rutherford, which led to the discovery of new theories on the structure of the atom. In Marsden's later work in New Zealand, he became a significant member of the scientific community, while maintaining close links to the United Kingdom.

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research New Zealand research institute

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research or NIWA, is a Crown Research Institute of New Zealand. Established in 1992, NIWA conducts research across a broad range of disciplines in the environmental sciences. It also maintains nationally and, in some cases, internationally important environmental monitoring networks, databases, and collections.

Royal Society Te Apārangi Academy of sciences, New Zealand

The Royal Society Te Apārangi is an independent, statutory not-for-profit body in New Zealand providing funding and policy advice in the fields of sciences and the humanities.

The following lists events that happened during 1895 in New Zealand.

The following lists events that happened during 1894 in New Zealand.

The following lists events that happened during 1848 in New Zealand.

Vida Mary Stout was a New Zealand limnographer and academic administrator. She was the first woman to be Dean of Science at a New Zealand university.

Nicola Gaston is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Auckland and Co-Director of the MacDiarmid Institute, New Zealand. She was previously a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at Victoria University of Wellington and has been a Principal Investigator at the MacDiarmid Institute since 2010. Her research interests include understanding how and why the properties of clusters of atoms, such as their melting points, depend on size and electronic structure. For example, adding an extra atom of gallium to a cluster can change its melting point by 100 Kelvins.

Nancy Bertler Antarctic researcher

Nancy Bertler is an Antarctic researcher, who has led major initiatives to investigate climate history using Antarctic ice cores, and best known for her leadership of the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution Programme (RICE). She is an associate professor at the Antarctic Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.

Pat Langhorne Scottish professor and Antarctic sea ice researcher

Patricia Jean Langhorne is an Antarctic sea ice researcher. She is a Professor in the physics department at the University of Otago, New Zealand. She was previously head of department (2012–2015). She now leads the sea ice observation component of one of New Zealand’s National Science Challenges – the Deep South.

Rebecca Priestley is a New Zealand academic, science historian, and writer. She is an Associate Professor in Science in Society at Victoria University of Wellington.

The Prime Minister's Science Prizes are awarded yearly by the Prime Minister of New Zealand. They were first awarded in 2009 in order to raise the profile and prestige of science among New Zealanders. The 2016 awards were presented in early 2017.

Pamela Young first New Zealand woman to live and work in Antarctica

Pamela Margaret Young was the first New Zealand woman to live and work in Antarctica. In 1969–70, she worked at Cape Bird as field assistant to her husband Euan, a biologist, and was among the first six women to fly to the South Pole. She wrote a book about her trip. The Young Peaks in Antarctica are named after her.

Ann Chapman New Zealand limnologist

Margaret Ann Chapman was a limnologist, one of the first New Zealand women scientists to visit Antarctica, and the first woman to lead a scientific expedition to Antarctica. Lake Chapman, in Antarctica's Ross Dependency, was named for Chapman. Chapman spent most of her teaching career at the University of Waikato.

Agnieszka Fryckowska is a New Zealand meteorologist and Antarctic base manager who has worked with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). Fryckowska has spent five winters in Antarctica. She is currently training to be a pilot in Northumberland. She is a recipient of the Polar Medal.

Anna Jackson is a New Zealand poet, fiction and non-fiction writer and an academic who grew up in Auckland and now lives in Wellington. Her writing has appeared in journals and anthologies, and she has published several collections of poetry. She has received a number of awards for her work, including a 1999 Louis Johnson New writers’ Bursary, the 2001 Waikato University Writer in Residence, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship in 2015, and in 2016 she was selected for the Residency Programme at the Michael King Writers’ Centre in 2017.

Laurence Fearnley is a short story writer, novelist and non-fiction writer. Several of her books have been shortlisted for or have won awards, both in New Zealand and overseas, including The Hut Builder, which won the fiction category of the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards. She has also been the recipient of a number of writing awards and residencies including the Robert Burns Fellowship, the Janet Frame Memorial Award and the Artists to Antarctica Programme. She lives in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Gabby OConnor

Gabby O'Connor is an Australian Installation Artist based in Wellington, New Zealand.

Natalie Robinson, an Antarctic researcher, is based at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand. She led the final two K131 Science Events on the sea ice of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.

References

  1. Noted. "Science on Ice by Veronika Meduna – review - The Listener". Noted. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  2. "Paying tribute to a science reporting star". 29 July 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  3. "'The Conversation' Website Appoints NZ Editor Veronika Meduna". Scoop News. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  4. "Veronika Meduna". Radio New Zealand. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  5. "Science on Ice: Discovering the Secrets of Antarctica - The University of Auckland". www.press.auckland.ac.nz. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  6. Veronika,, Meduna,. Towards a warmer world : what climate change will mean for New Zealand's future. Wellington, New Zealand. ISBN   9780908321735. OCLC   930367343.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  7. Veronika., Meduna, (2012). Science on ice : discovering the secrets of Antarctica. Auckland, N.Z.: Auckland University Press. ISBN   9781869405830. OCLC   767879443.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  8. Meduna, Veronika; Priestley, Rebecca (2008). Atoms, Dinosaurs & DNA: 68 Great New Zealand Scientists. Random House New Zealand. ISBN   9781869419547.