Applications will be assessed by a small, cross-disciplinary Advisory Board, made up of academic staff from all divisions of the University with established research reputations on New Zealand conservation issues. The Board reserves the right not to grant the Award should no suitable applicant be available, or when there are insufficient funds available in any given year.
The Diane Campbell-Hunt Memorial Award was established in 2010 with funds raised following the tragic death of Diane Campbell-Hunt in an accident on Mount Taranaki in October 2008.
Diane Campbell-Hunt was a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography, funded by a Tertiary Education Commission Top Achiever Doctoral scholarship. She had completed two-thirds of her PhD programme at the time of her death. Her project looked at the long-term sustainability of fenced sanctuaries in New Zealand in a multi-disciplinary analysis: ecological, economic, social, and governmental.
The intent of this award is to support research on any topic that will contribute to fostering the conservation of New Zealand's plants and animals and the communities they form, including also the social processes involved in conservation, e.g. political, legal, economic and management, and to have the research communicated to a general audience.
Applicants must:
be enrolled and confirmed in a PhD programme or the thesis component of a Master's research programme in any Department or School at the University of Otago
have written a peer-reviewed academic paper that has been accepted for publication in a journal or for presentation at a conference, or a book chapter that has been accepted for publication in a volume of academic peer-reviewed research, which contributes to New Zealand conservation (as defined above), and in which they are the lead author
not have previously been granted the Award
