Royal Society Te Apārangi Canterbury Branch News
The Canterbury branch, in partnership with Royal Society Te Apārangi and the Prime Minister’s Science Prizes Secretariat, hosted Dr Samuel Mehr, the 2023 Te Puiaki Kaipūtaiao Maea, Prime Minister’s MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize winner.
Samuel won the 2023 Te Puiaki Kaipūtaiao Maea, Prime Minister’s MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize for his work on the cognitive science of how humans perceive and produce music. Samuel uses cutting-edge tools and theories from data science, evolutionary anthropology, psychology, linguistics and music studies.
Approximately 100 people attended the talk held on Wednesday 14 August at the Ara City Campus.
Dr Samuel Mehr explained how music was a basic function of human activity that spans all cultures, and how research shows that people, from all different cultures, seem to have the same experiences when engaged with music.
Visit the Music Lab to participate in the research.
The next talk in Christchurch will be on Thursday 19 September at 6.00pm at the University of Otago, Christchurch campus. The talk will be given by Professor Parry Guilford FRSNZ and Associate Professor Karyn Paringatai. At the start of May they won the Prime Minister’s Science Prize which was awarded for an innovative partnership between members of the McLeod whānau and their community, cancer geneticists from the University of Otago and clinicians from Tauranga Hospital.
Together they identified a genetic mutation (in the CDH1 gene) which was causing members of the McLeod whānau to die from stomach cancer at a young age.