They are: Professor Charlotte Macdonald from the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations; Professor Mengjie Zhang from the School of Engineering and Computer Science; Professor Tony Ward from the School of Psychology; Professor Miriam Meyerhoff from the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies; and Professor Noam Greenberg from the School of Mathematics and Statistics.
Fellows have to be nominated and the nominations are then assessed against a number of criteria by a discipline-based evaluation panel. Victoria academics make up five of the 16 new fellows.
Provost Professor Wendy Larner, who is the incoming president of the Royal Society, says the University is proud to see its leading academics recognised for their contributions in this way.
“It is fantastic to see the Victoria fellows coming from across a range of disciplines. It is a real testament to our research strength across the board.”
Professor Macdonald says it feels like a special honour to become a fellow of the Royal Society in the organisation’s 150th year.
“It underlines the centrality of knowledge in the life of Aoteraroa New Zealand. Thinking and research have been as important to people here as digging for wealth in gold, oil or dairy.”
Becoming a fellow also has special significance for Professor Meyerhoff, who as a child spent many school holidays in the Royal Society offices while her mother, Mary Cresswell, was editor of the Journal of the Royal Society.
"I'm pretty chuffed. There is another family connection as my stepfather, Max Cresswell, is also a Fellow," Professor Meyerhoff says.
Professor Charlotte Macdonald’s research focuses on 19th colonies and empires, New Zealand history, gender and women's history, the cultural history of bodies and modernity, sport and spectating. Read more at: https://www.victoria.ac.nz/hppi/about/staff/charlotte-macdonald
Professor Mengjie Zhang’s research focuses on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data/data mining, particularly evolutionary computation and learning, genetic programming, large scale feature selection and big dimensionality reduction, intelligent computer vision and image processing, planning/scheduling and combinatorial optimisation, and deep learning and transfer learning. Read more about his research here: https://www.victoria.ac.nz/engineering/about/staff/mengjie-zhang
Professor Tony Ward’s current research projects include explanation and inquiry in research and practice; normative issues in forensic and clinical practice including restorative justice and therapeutic jurisprudence; and change processes in the psychopathology and forensic/correctional domains. Read more here: https://www.victoria.ac.nz/psyc/about/staff/tony-ward
Professor Miriam Meyerhoff’s current research focuses on language variation and change, language contact, Vanuatu languages, and language and gender. Read more here: https://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/miriam-meyerhoff
Professor Noam Greenberg’s research interests include computability theory, algorithmic randomness, reverse mathematics, higher recursion theory, computable model theory, and set theory. Read more here: https://www.victoria.ac.nz/sms/about/staff/noam-greenberg