18 Annual Directory 2017 Dr Bruce MacDonald Dr Bruce MacDonald leads the robotics laboratory at the University of Auckland and is well known for his work on designing intelligent health robots that improve the quality of people’s lives, particularly in caring for the elderly. His health robots even provide companionship alongside more important tasks like medication reminders. This renown earned him a place as a speaker at Medtech Outreach Project’s free public panel discussion in Auckland on robotics as one of the fastest growing technology areas and the application of robotics in surgery, rehabilitation and community care. The panel included professor Rob Shepherd, director of the Bionics Institute and head of the medical bionics department at the University of Melbourne. He was instrumental in the development and clinical translation of Cochlear’s bionic ear and his team is now working on a bionic eye – Bionic Vision Australia – as part of an Australia-wide collaboration. The founder of Rex Bionics, Richard Little, talked about the company’s robotic legs that assist people with mobility impairments and rehabilitation therapy. Little is also looking at robotic technology that can be implemented at home for stroke rehabilitation. Macdonald completed a BE (first class) and PhD at the University of Canterbury’s electrical engineering department. After working with NZ Electricity for three years and spending a year at the DSIR in Wellington he moved to Canada and spent a decade in the University of Calgary’s computer science department. His long-term goal is to design intelligent robotic assistants that improve the quality of people’s lives. Bryony James Bryony James is deputy dean of the faculty of engineering and a professor in chemical materials engineering at the University of Auckland. From her earliest days she liked, as all engineers do, to dissemble and reassemble. So it’s not surprising that she ended up doing a materials science degree at the University of Bath followed by a PhD in materials engineering at the University of Auckland before running the university’s research centre for surface and material science. In this role James carved out a niche for herself in the study of food structure and composition, which has included work for ‘Transforming the Dairy Value Chain Primary Growth Partnership’ programme, a seven-year $170 million innovation programme led by commercial partners, including DairyNZ and Fonterra, and partnered by the Ministry of Primary Industries. The programme aims to enable the creation of new dairy products, increase on-farm productivity, reduce environmental impacts, and improve agricultural education. She supervises projects that examine how the structuring of dairy products can lead to certain functionalities and products. “It’s very much about structuring various dairy foods, like mozzarella, to look at how they might perform through processing, and the bit I was contributing to was the structural analysis expertise from the scanning electron microscope,” she says. She believes this work is vital for the dairy industry to maximise value-add product opportunities. She feels that into the future knowledge gained at the fundamental level will be used to put the “consumer front and centre of the conversation”. “It’s a shift in philosophy as much as anything and controlling the structure controls the end product,” she says. “No one knows exactly what that end product may look like - the path ahead offers a great deal of redirection and diversification.” Chris Ballantyne Chris Ballantyne is the strategic and national lead for transport planning and advisory services at AECOM NZ. With nearly 20 years’ experience, his focus is on providing long-term strategic advice by understanding the client’s desired outcome and the infrastructure response required to achieve it. His high level of technical knowledge within the transport sector, focused on the interactions between land use and transport planning, is an asset. In addition he creates and implements innovative multi-modal transport solutions that deliver a wider range of sustainable outcomes. Through his awareness of the importance of regional and local strategies and comprehensive understanding of the policy environment, the Land Transport Management Act’s objectives and requirements, government policy statements and New Zealand Transport Agency process and funding requirements, he is able to lead projects through to successful delivery and meet local and national requirements. Specific examples of successful projects over the past year include the Transport for Urban Growth Programme Business Case, the Auckland Transport Alignment Project and the Additional Waitemata Harbour Crossing. He is successful through strong and open leadership coupled with technical skills and a willingness to listen to, develop and use new ideas. Darren Harpur Aduro Biopolymers chief executive Darren Harpur is passionate about convincing companies it’s worthwhile to use bioplastics instead of polyethylene, polypropylene and other common plastics. The company stands by its principles by making injection mouldable plastic pellets out of an inedible protein source discarded by beef and lamb processors rather than oil. It also continuously researches and develops sustainable alternatives to the oil-based plastics that are used every day. Harpur elaborates that the main criterion in the market is price and that this is where the company’s product Novatein resin, made from bloodmeal from the beef and lamb processing sectors, is price competitive. This is a result of the raw materials being by-products that have already been through the expensive and energy-intensive industrial process. He warns though that Novatein is not suitable for everything, and that Novatein pellets have useful properties that make certain product applications more attractive than others. "The advantage of Novatein though is its non-toxicity and biodegradability within a few months, making it ideal for short-term use," concludes Harpur. WHO'S WHO
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