Rutherford Fellows have links to city

Priscilla Wehi
Priscilla Wehi
Three researchers with Dunedin links have gained Rutherford Discovery Fellowships, each valued at up to $800,000.

The researchers are Priscilla Wehi, an ecologist and conservation biologist at Landcare Research in Dunedin; University of Otago graduate Louise Bricknell; and former Otago Research Fellow Michael Knapp.

Drs Bricknell and Knapp will return to Otago University from research positions in Scotland and Wales, respectively.

Dr Bicknell will work in

the pathology department, and Dr Knapp in anatomy.

The fellowships cover salary and research costs over five years.

Louise Bicknell
Louise Bicknell
Ten of the fellowships are awarded annually, to foster the development of future leaders in science and innovation.

Dr Wehi, who grew up Dunedin, attending Arthur St School and St Hilda's Collegiate School, said gaining the fellowship had been ''really exciting'' but also ''very humbling''.

She gained her PhD at Waikato University in 2006, with her doctoral research on resource management of flax by Maori. The fellowship had given her a ''fantastic opportunity'' to undertake ''really important'' research which could ''make a difference'' for conservation.

Her research will focus on ''indigenous ecological knowledge, introduced species, and the new New Zealand environment''.

Dr Bicknell is a molecular geneticist whose long-term goal is to understand how genetic differences can alter the development and progression of disease. For her Otago PhD, she used

genetic mapping technology to identify the genetic cause of a unique severe brain and skin syndrome in a Maori family. She moved to the University of Edinburgh in 2008 to research the genetics of a group of rare monogenic syndromes, primordial dwarfism.

Michael Knapp
Michael Knapp
Several research publications then led to her gaining a Medical Research Scotland fellowship as a Senior Research Fellow to continue her research. Dr Knapp, who won an early career award for distinction in research at Otago in 2012, will take a genomic approach to the ''evolution and conservation'' of New Zealand birds.

New Zealand birds were unique and a ''key element'' of the country's natural heritage, he said.

Dr Knapp's research will cover four projects, including the evolution of island gigantism and other specific adaptations in Haast's Eagle.

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