Three Te Herenga Waka professors have been elected as Ngā Ahurei Fellows of the Academy of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.
Professor Averil Coxhead, Professor Bing Xue, and Professor Eric Le Ru are among the 21 new Fellows elected to the Academy in recognition of their research and scholarship.
Professor Averil Coxhead
Linguistics expert Professor Coxhead (Te Kura Tātari Reo—School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies) has been elected in recognition of her contribution to learning and teaching specialised vocabulary and languages.
The Royal Society credits Professor Coxhead’s research with translating approaches for language acquisition into “real-world contexts”.
“By studying the vocabulary and grammar needed to succeed in academic study—or specialised professional fields such as trades, aviation, or rugby refereeing—she has been able to support learners with practical tools, such as comprehensive word lists and textbooks,” it says.
She has also collaborated on successful online tools to test language and assess vocabulary knowledge.
Professor Bing Xue
Computer scientist Professor Xue (Te Kura Mātai Pūkaha, Pūrorohiko—School of Engineering and Computer Science) has been elected to the Academy in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the field of artificial intelligence.
The Royal Society describes Professor Xue as “an international leader of evolutionary machine learning”.
“Her work on evolutionary image analysis changed the traditional ways of addressing machine-learning tasks. She has successfully applied these advances to primary industry, climate change, health, and biomedical applications,” it says.
Professor Xue was the first female professor, as well as the first professor of AI, in the University’s Engineering faculty.
Professor Eric Le Ru
Professor Le Ru (Te Wānanga Matū—School of Chemical and Physical Sciences) has been elected to the Academy in recognition of his fundamental discoveries in how light interacts with nanoparticles.
A physicist who specialises in nano-photonics and plasmonics, Professor Le Ru’s discoveries have “revolutionised understanding of how light interacts with nanoparticles and helped transform the way scientists study molecular interactions and materials at the nanoscale,” the Royal Society says.
His research has enabled individual molecules to be detected and analysed using Raman spectroscopy, which was previously not considered possible. He also co-developed the bi-analyte surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) technique that is now considered the “gold standard” to prove single-molecule sensitivity.