Keynote Speakers
Helen Bostock, University of Queensland, Australia
Professor Helen Bostock is a marine geologist at the University of Queensland, specialising in sedimentology and micropaleontology to assess paleoceanographic changes. She has worked in industry, government and academia over the last 25 years on a wide range of questions from marine resources to anthropogenic pollution. Most of her research focusses on ocean-climate interactions in the Southwest Pacific, leading and participating in 14 open ocean research voyages from the tropics to Antarctica.
Dan Hikuroa (Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato-Tainui, Ngaati Whanaunga, Pākehā), University of Auckland, New Zealand
Dan Hikuroa (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngaati Whanaunga, Ngāti Mahuta, Pākehā) is a father, surfer, paddle-boarder, gardener, loves the taiao and is an Associate Professor in Māori Studies, Waipapa Taumata Rau-University of Auckland. Dan is an established world expert on weaving indigenous knowledge and science to realise the dreams of the communities he works with. Dan has been spearheading alternative ways of undertaking development and assessing sustainability, including braiding indigenous knowledge and epistemologies with science and into policies, assessment frameworks and decision-support tools. Dan is UNESCO New Zealand Commissioner for Culture, member of Pou Herenga, Māori Advisory to the Climate Change Commission, has key roles within New Zealand’s Centres of Research Excellence, advises national and regional government, communities and philanthropic trusts, member of several significant international research teams and formerly AGU Council. He is member of Ngā Ara Whetū, Te Pūtahi o Pūtaiao and Te Ao Mārama, Research Centres at Waipapa Taumata Rau -University of Auckland.
Jamie Howarth, Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington
Jamie is an Associate Professor in Earth Science at Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington. His research uses sedimentary records to increase our understanding of high magnitude, low frequency events and how landscapes respond to them over timeframes beyond human observation. His current research activity is focused on large earthquakes, specifically: the earthquake behaviour of, and hazard posed by, Aotearoa-New Zealand's plate boundary faults, and the hazardscape generated by these earthquakes.
Kyoko Kataoka, Niigata University, Japan
Kyoko Kataoka is a professor in Volcanic Sedimentology and Natural Hazard Science at Niigata University, and an associate member of the Science Council of Japan. Her research covers a wide range of "volcanic" fluvial, lacustrine, and marine environments, and encompasses diverse mass flow hazards-including lahars, volcanogenic floods, debris avalanches, and volcaniclastic turbidity currents-and their long-term impact on sedimentary systems. With 25 years of experience studying volcanoes and volcaniclastic successions in Japan and other continents, her interdisciplinary research combines sedimentology, volcanology, geomorphology, and geo-archaeology to understand both modern and ancient volcanic systems. She has led several projects on hazard assessment relating to mass flow phenomena during and after recent volcanic disasters, including the 2014 Mt Ontake eruption and the 2018 Mt Kusatsu-Shirane eruption in Japan. She has also worked as an advisory board member for volcanic hazard evacuation planning for local communities, putting her research into practice in real-world contexts.