Victoria University Associate Professor appointed co-director of MacDiarmid Institute
Associate Professor Justin Hodgkiss from the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences has been appointed co-director of the MacDiarmid Institute along with University of Auckland’s Associate Professor Nicola Gaston.
“The Institute has been an absolutely vital part of my career since I arrived at Victoria University in 2009,” says Associate Professor Hodgkiss. “It has given me so many opportunities in the lab and beyond, and as co-director I am thrilled to be able to bring those opportunities to other scientists and develop some really ambitious new research projects.”
Hosted on the Victoria University campus, the MacDiarmid Institute is a national network of leading scientists that create high-tech solutions to problems like climate change. Since the Institute was founded in 2002, it has spun out 14 new companies and delivered graduates to others, including New Zealand’s aerospace lab, RocketLab.
Associate Professors Hodgkiss and Gaston will lead a team of nearly 80 top scientists from around New Zealand, along with close to 200 PhD and postdoctoral researchers.
“The MacDiarmid Institute undertakes collaborative, interdisciplinary materials science research that could deliver solutions to some of our biggest problems,” says Associate Professor Hodgkiss. “I’m very proud of what the Institute has achieved so far, and we’re just getting started.”
Associate Professor Hodgkiss is a long-standing member of both the Victoria University staff and the MacDiarmid Institute research team. His major focus is on solar energy and biosensors. You can read more about his work here.