We wanted to do something special for you for the last episode of Season 3, so we collaborated with ESR (The Institute of Environmental Science and Research) and MBIE (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment) to bring you an episode. Unfortunately, James wasn't available, so producer Thabi took the reigns and interviewed Dr Joanne Hewitt, Wellingtonian of the Year nominee and Senior Scientist in the Enteric, Environmental and Food Virology/ Norovirus Reference Lab about wastewater testing and how poo potentially saved thousands of lives during the (ongoing) Covid-19 pandemic. A big thank you to Alex Maplseden and Nicola Mutch from MBIE and ESR respectfully for helping make this happen. Here's a bit more information about how this episode and research came about.

ESR’s wastewater programme has been made possible by the Ministry of Health and with funding administered by Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). A big shout out to ESR’s awesome team of wastewater scientists, and to all the incredible wastewater collectors and council staff around New Zealand for their enormous and ongoing support.

Check out the covid in wastewater dashboard for your community - https://www.esr.cri.nz/

PhD: Unpacked is a podcast that exists to make impactful academic research more accessible, and understandable for you. We find PhD theses that were published in Aotearoa New Zealand in the last five years, do the heavy-duty reading, meet with the authors, have a sit-down interview, and condense their work into a more easily consumable format- short, succinct podcast episodes.

#phd #podcast #nzpodcast #education #educationpodcast #leftwing #liberal #covid #wastewater #testing #unwell #science #technology #nzscience #research #mbie #poo

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PhD: Unpacked is produced by Coalesce Ltd, an independent media company based in Aotearoa New Zealand.

contactcoalescenz@gmail.com

Dr. Leua Iosefa joins us to unpack the growing relevance of culture to criminality and culpability, as New Zealand’s population diversity expands. Diversity brings different cultures and cultural practices that are currenty criminalised. How will our laws adapt?

If you’d like to read more, here’s a link to the PhD: https://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/17014

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For any questions, qualms or queries, reach out to the PhD: Unpacked team through phdunpacked@gmail.com, or @phdunpacked on Instagram.

This podcast is brought to you by Coalesce - a storytelling network from Aotearoa.

Dr. Lee Saing Te joins us to unpack climate-change compassion fatigue, and the gap between knowledge and action.

If you’d like to read more, here’s a link to the PhD: https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/items/78a82edf-e31b-4e8e-a834-9e66a988d46d

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For any questions, qualms or queries, reach out to the PhD: Unpacked team through phdunpacked@gmail.com, or @phdunpacked on Instagram.

This podcast is brought to you by Coalesce - a storytelling network from Aotearoa.