Associate Professor Susanna Trnka
Anthropology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

The hub’s team leader, is a social and medical anthropologist with expertise in the politics of health, embodiment, and subjectivity. Her work on Covid-19 focuses on NZ state-citizen relations, public understandings of proximity and contagion, the social dynamics of ‘bubbles,’ and youth mental health.

 

Other Members:

Ms. Miriama Aoake (Ngāti Raukawa,Ngāti Mahuta,Tainui)
MA Student, Anthropology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Miriama is currently conducting MA research in Social Anthropology under the supervision of Hub Team Leader, Assoc. Prof. Susanna Trnka and Prof. Tracey McIntosh. Ms. Aoake’s project, “Pandemaurium: Māori Responses to State Management of a Pandemic” is an examination of Māori perspectives on and debates over the government’s handling of Covid-19.

 

Dr. Maria Armoudian
Senior Lecturer, Politics, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Armoudian provides perspective from communications, in particular, research on misinformation surrounding Covid-19. Will also engage in linking the activities of the hub to BigQ/Public Interest media.

 

Dr. Heather Battles
Lecturer, Anthropology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Biological anthropologist with expertise in infectious disease; history of epidemics; historical demography; and historical epidemiology, including research on the social history and mortality patterns in the epidemic emergence of poliomyelitis in the early 20th century (Canada and New
Zealand), most recently in terms of the relationship between the First World War and New Zealand’s 1916 polio epidemic and its aftermath.

 

Prof.Linda Bryder
Professor, History, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Prof. Bryder is a specialist on social history of health and medicine, with a particular emphasis on twentieth-century Britain and New Zealand. This includes research on past pandemics, namely influenza and tuberculosis.

 

Dr. Louisa Buckingham
Senior Lecturer, Applied Language Studies and Linguistics, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr Buckingham worked on two projects related to the pandemic. The first was a co-authored study that investigated the process of adaptation to emergency remote teaching as experienced by a private language school in Auckland and the elderly Chinese-heritage students. The second co-authored study was a corpus-linguistic comparative analysis of academic/scientific and media discourse on the pandemic.

 

Dr. Andrew Chen
Research Fellow, Koi Tū: Center for Informed Futures, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

With respect to Covid-19, Dr. Chen focuses on research with respect to Covid-19. This research focuses on digital contact tracing in Aotearoa and overseas, data privacy and ethics, and monitoring public policy interventions around the world.

 

Prof. Tim Dare
Professor, Philosophy, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Prof. Dare is providing a perspective on the ethical and legal issues raised by digital responses to Covid-19 (e.g, digital contact tracing and disease modelling) and the ethics of immunisation development and use.

 

Dr Edmond Fehoko
PhD in Public Health – Auckland University of Technology

Edmond is a public health sociologist and a Postdoctoral Fellow based in the School of Māori and Pacific Studies, University of Auckland. His current research explores how COVID-19 is impacting the lives of Pacific peoples, with a specific focus on online addictive behaviours, cultural practices and mental health and wellbeing

 

Dr. Jesse Grayman
Senior Lecturer, Development Studies, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Grayman is a medical anthropologist and epidemiologist. He currently leads a small MBIE-funded project titled ‘The Role of Faith-Based Institutions in Auckland’s Disaster Resilience During and After Covid-19. Jesse liaises with the ‘Healthy People, Healthy Communities, Healthy Societies’ research hub in the Faculty of Arts, and coordinates the Pandemics Hub reading group.

 

Dr. Lara Greaves (Ngāti Kuri, Ngāpuhi)
Lecturer, Politics and International Relations, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Greaves focuses on her expertise in New Zealand Politics, Māori Politics and Public Policy, engaged in survey research on political attitudes and well-being during Covid-19.

 

Dr. Pauline Herbst
Research Fellow, Social Sciences, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Pauline Herbst is the host of the podcast Pandemics Reflected, a series of conversations with members of the research hub Pandemics: Past, Present, Future about how their lives and research intersected during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Dr. Phyllis Herda
Senior Lecturer, Anthropology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Herda specializes on the 1918 influenza pandemic, in particular its impact on the Pacific.

 

Dr. Karen Huang
Senior Lecturer, Chinese, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Huang specializes on research focusing on the pandemic-prevention discourses in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

 

Associate Professor Stephen Hoadley
Politics and International Relations, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

A/P Hoadley’s research focuses on the geopolitical consequences of pandemics (Covid-19 and previous pandemics), and their impacts on international security, trade, human rights, and the US-China rivalry.

 

Dr. Monique Jonas

Monique Jonas is an ethical theorist based in the School of Population Health. Her research encompasses a wide range of practical and theoretical ethical issues related to health. She has particular interests in relationships between the family and the state and the ethics of advice-giving.

 

Professor Robin Kearns

Robin Kearns has been a pioneer in the growing field of health geography that has increasingly embraced the wider contexts of health, health services and wellbeing. He has worked at different scales including the home, neighbourhood and community. His most recent collaborative book is  Blue Space, Health and Wellbeing: Hydrophilia Unbounded. (Routledge, 2019).

 

Prof. Jamie King
John and Marylyn Mayo Chair in Health Law and Professor of Law

Dr. King is a legal and health policy scholar whose research examines healthcare systems, markets, and regulatory oversight. Her work related to Covid-19 examines the vulnerabilities in domestic health systems exposed by the pandemic, as well as the tensions between individuals and the state over autonomy and the good of collective groups.

 

Prof. Bernadette Luciano
Professor and Head of School, School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Prof. Luciano is contributing a perspective from the arts, anchored in ongoing research on identity, gender, migration, and trans-nationalism as represented in Italian cinema and literature.

 

 

 

 

Associate Professor Steve Matthewman

A/P Matthewman is a sociologist of disaster. He is conducting research on the causes and consequences of pandemics. He is one of the leaders of the Social Futures research hub in the Faculty of Arts.

Dr. Rochelle Lee Menzies (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Ngāti Kahungunu)
Research Fellow, Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures

Dr. Menzies is a Postdoctoral fellow and the Koi Tū representative on the hub. Her expertise lies in Kaupapa Māori research and health research and she is examining Māori perspectives on pandemics. Her area of interest around pandemic research relates to Māori impacts, responses, preparedness and knowledge around pandemics and similar crises.

 

Associate Professor Gregory Minissale 
Art History, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

A/P Minissale is interested in multi-cultural approaches to stress management. He led a research team that established that landscape artworks lower physiological stress markers. These artworks should mitigate feelings of claustrophobia and social isolation that are particularly damaging to mental health in lockdown situations.

 

Mr. Luca Muir
MA (pending), Anthropology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Luca has completed his MA research in Social Anthropology under the supervision of Hub Team Leader, Assoc. Prof. Susanna Trnka and Dr. Christine Dureau. Mr. Muir’s project, “The Digital Age: Youth, Disability, and Mental Health” in part is an examination of disabled youths perspectives on the Covid-19 pandemic. He is a producer of the Pandemics Reflected podcast.

 

Prof. Tim Mulgan
Philosophy, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Prof. Mulgan’s research expertise lies in moral philosophy and ethics, in particular our obligations to future people, in relation to Covid-19.

 

Dr. Ellen Nakamura
Senior Lecturer, Japanese, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Namakura is a historian interested in the social history of doctors and early modern Japanese health, currently working (with Laura Moretti at the University of Cambridge) on an examination of pandemics in early modern Japan.

 

Ms. Elke Nash
Professional Teaching Fellow, Classics and Ancient History, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Ms. Nash is studying Covid-19 through the lens of Greek antiquity, with research focusing on the notion of ‘the essential’ for individuals and communities.

 

Prof. Andreas Neef
Professor, Development Studies, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Prof. Neef conducts research on how pandemics influence global/regional migration patterns and how pandemics intersect with other drivers/inhibitors of migration, such as climate change. Together with Dr Jesse Hession Grayman, he examines the role of faith-based institutions in Auckland’s disaster resilience during and after Covid-19. He also supervises postgraduate research into the experiences of international students at the University of Auckland during Covid-19.

 

Dr. Nicole Perry
Senior Lecturer, School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Perry’s research expertise focuses on German colonies in the South Pacific. She is working on a comparative project examining how the Spanish Influenza of 1918 was written about and transmitted in German travel writing and diaries in 1918 with how Covid- 19 is represented in blogs and other new media. Nicole Perry is currently a co-operations partner in Corona Fictions. On Viral Narratives in Times of Pandemics, funded by the FWF (Austrian Science Fund) out of Graz, Austria.

 

Dr. Justin Pigot
Professional Teaching Fellow, Classics and Ancient History, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Pigot’s research expertise is focused on later Roman and early Byzantine history and religion. Currently providing a historical perspective on the global reaction to Covid-19, through comparison with popular conceptualizations of the First Plague Pandemic (Justinianic Plague 541–9).

 

Associate Professor Walescka Pino-Ojeda
School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics/New Zealand Center for Latin American Studies, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

A/P Pino-Ojeda is the representative from New Zealand Center for Latin American Studies. She is researching the role of neoliberalism in Latin America (with a focus on Chile) and how this has affected models of leadership and accessibility to social services and primary resources, (e.g. water).

 

Mr. Brodie Quinn
MA Student, Anthropology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Brodie is currently conducting MA research in Social Anthropology under the supervision of Hub Team Leader, Assoc. Prof. Susanna Trnka and Dr. Christine Dureau. Brodie’s COVID-19 research has involved conducting expansive interviews on people’s experiences of lockdowns, “bubbles,” and their subjective wellbeing during the pandemic.

 

Mr. Stefano Riela
Research Fellow, European Institute, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Mr. Riela examines if and how Covid-19 has strengthened solidarity among EU countries with a focus on intra-EU trade for health-related goods, EU budget and other tools (eg. revised ESM), ECB policy.

 

Professor Lisa Samuels
Professor, English and Drama, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Prof. Samuel is working on the interstices of creative actions and critical approaches to political identities, alterities and feeling bodies, imagined and enacted forms of permission and resistance, during states of emergency.

 

Ms. Bethany Sanders
Summer Scholar, Graduate of Global Studies, The University of Auckland.

Current participation in research around historical touchstones of Covid-19 in Aotearoa in comparison to previous epidemics using the analysis of public media pieces published in New Zealand. This research is conducted under the supervision of Dr Heather Battles.

 

Ms. Imogen Spray (she/her)
Doctoral Candidate, Anthropology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Ms. Spray is exploring young people’s everyday experiences and perceptions of mental wellbeing in Aotearoa/New Zealand through a high school ethnography.

 

Associate Professor Marek Tesar
Faculty of Education, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

A/P Tesar’s research expertise focuses on children’s agency and lived experience, research focus on children’s perceptions of Covid-19.

 

Ms. Anthonia Ginika Uzoigwe
Doctoral Candidate, Sociology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Ms. Uzoigwe is examining the impact of Covid-19 in New Zealand on disadvantaged groups, such as
students, in terms of food insecurity and inequities in healthy eating.

 

Ms. Sanchita Vyas
Summer Scholar, BA(Hons) in Anthropology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Ms Vyas is currently researching New Zealanders’ lived experiences of time during the COVID-19 lockdown, and comparing these experiences to the temporalities that play out in science fiction representations of pandemics on-screen.

 

Dr. Danping Wang
Senior Lecturer, Chinese, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Wang research expertise focuses on emergency curriculum construction and pandemic pedagogy innovation in language teaching and learning.

 

Ms Xiaolu Wang
Doctoral Candidate, Film/Tv and Media, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Wang’s research expertise focuses on gender and subjectivity in China, with current research on Chinese media representations of women’s responses to Covid-19.

 

Dr. Chris Wilson
Senior Lecturer, Politics and International Relations, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Wilson examines the response of New Zealand’s far right to Covid-19, focusing on pandemic-related conspiracies and tensions and right-wing radicalization.

 

Dr Bingjuan Xiong
Lecturer, Media and Communications, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Xiong is a specialist on citizenship and state-people relationships in Chinese public discourse. With respect to Covid-19, she is working on how government official discourses (both in China and NZ) of the pandemic intersects with nationalism and gender, as well as exploring effective communication strategies for communicating with the public about the pandemic.