Congratulations to our students presenting on the Colloquium stage

5 September 2024 - Summer Wright is our student communicator of the year.

In a presentation of her innovative research exploring differences between consumers from Singapore and Aotearoa, Summer wowed this year’s judges of the Ansley Te Hiwi Student Communicator Award. 

In an entertaining account of her interview techniques and findings, the PhD student showcased her research into critical consumer perceptions of Māori food and beverage messaging, explaining that cultural and social contexts can make a big difference in how consumers perceive marketing on indigenous imagery and text on products.

She was one of 53 students who took to Massey University’s Sir Geoffrey Peren building auditorium stage on Wednesday and Thursday last week, providing 3- or 10-minute presentations as a part of this year’s Riddet Institute Student Colloquium. Almost all the presentations were from researchers involved in the Riddet Institute’s Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) food research projects, Food Structure Design, Future Proteins and Nutrition and Health, with an additional four students presenting on Sustainable Nutrition.  

Summer came first in the 10-minute competition, with Vitor Geniselli da Silva second, presenting his research on the infant microbiota.

In the 3-minute competition, our winners were first: Manfred Goh with his entertaining presentation on amino acid absorption, and second: Ayşenur Arslan speaking on protein fermentation in the human colon. An honourable mention prize went to Shien Ping Ong for her research presentation on milk consumption in older women.

(From left to right: Shien Ping Ong, Vitor Geniselli da Silva, Ayşenur Arslan, and Manfred Goh)