Distinguished Alumni Awards 2025

Every two years, Te Herenga Waka awards the brightest and boldest innovators, visionaries, and community connectors from within its 140,000 alumni.

Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University’s Distinguished Alumni Award winners for 2025 showcase how their study at the creative, scientific, and political centre of New Zealand continues to help them shape a better world.

The five winners are trailblazers and leaders whose diverse work—from inspiring performing arts students to fostering peace, from pioneering science to uniting us through laughter—exemplifies the University's core values of kaitiakitanga, manaatikanga, whanaungatanga, akoranga, and whai mātauranga.

The Distinguished Alumni Awards were presented at an event in Wellington in September 2025.

For 2025, five exceptional alumni have been named as winners:

David Harland, BA 1983

Dr David Harland is a diplomat and the executive director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), a Geneva-based foundation that specialises in the mediation of armed conflict.

He previously worked for the United Nations, including in Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti and Timor Leste, and he wrote the UN Secretary-General’s landmark report on the fall of Srebrenica.

David serves on the UN Secretary-General’s high-level advisory board on mediation. He has degrees from Harvard University, Tufts University, Beijing University and Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.

Read David Harland's life’s work for peace

Tanea Heke, BA 1995

Tanea Heke MNZM is an actor, director and producer of theatre, and has been Tumuaki/Director of Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School since 2019.

As an actor, Tanea has starred in several theatre, film and television productions over the years, including the film Cousins by Briar Grace Smith. She co-founded Hāpai Productions, a mana wahine, kaupapa Māori theatre company in 2013.

She is an artist Trustee on The Arts Foundation—Te Tumu Toi and was the 2020 recipient of the Creative New Zealand Ngā Tohu Hautūtanga Auaha Toi Making a Difference Award. She was named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year Honours List 2022.

Read how Tanea Heke is nurturing Aotearoa's next generation of acting talent

Dai Henwood, BA 1999

Dai Henwood ONZM has been performing comedy for over 25 years, beginning in Wellington at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, where he studied theatre and film.

Well recognised for his appearances on 7 Days, Dai has also hosted the NZ Music Awards, Family Feud, Dancing with the Stars, and Lego Masters New Zealand. He has won numerous awards for comedy, including Best Male Comedian at the NZ Comedy Guild Awards nine times.

In 2024, he published the bestselling book Life of Dai, as well as the documentary Live and Let Dai, both of which share his journey with stage four cancer. He was named an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours.

Read how Dai Henwood became an icon of Aotearoa comedy

Ratu Mataira, BSc (Hons) 2017, PhD 2022

Physicist Dr Ratu Mataira is on a mission to harness the power of the sun, right here in Te Whanganui-a-tara Wellington.

Ratu completed his PhD in Applied Superconductivity at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. By the end of his PhD, he had set the bar as the most prodigious student to graduate from the Robinson Research Institute, the world leader in such technologies.

The 33-year-old leads OpenStar Technologies, a Wellington-based start-up building a 'levitated dipole' fusion reactor prototype. Multi-national groups have been trying to achieve this same goal for decades, with massive teams and enormous budgets.

Read about Ratu Mataira and the race for clean energy

Vincent O’Malley, PhD 2004

Dr Vincent O’Malley FRHistS FRSNZ is an award-winning Wellington writer and historian who has authored many bestselling and acclaimed works on Aotearoa New Zealand history, including The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800-2000 (2016) and The New Zealand Wars/Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa (2019).

His book Voices from the New Zealand Wars/He Reo nō ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa won the general non-fiction prize at the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. In the same year, he received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Non-Fiction.

In 2023, he was awarded the Humanities Aronui Medal by the Royal Society Te Apārangi and was a semi-finalist for Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year.

Read Vincent O’Malley’s mission to illuminate Aotearoa’s past