University of Auckland home to World Class New Zealander
Professor Peter Hunter received a World Class New Zealander award at a gala dinner in Auckland on 1st April 2009.
Professor Hunter is director of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, a large scale research institute at The University of Auckland. Seven awards were presented by Kea New Zealand and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to the country's greatest "tall poppies", for giving their time, knowledge and skills to help New Zealand companies and industries succeed internationally. The KEA award is actually named after a cheeky parrot that lives in the mountains in the South Island of New Zealand (it can undo the straps on your pack to extract food or strip the rubber out of a car windscreen to remove the glass!).
Professor Hunter won the award for the category of "Research, Science, Technology and Academia". Professor Hunter is best-known for his pioneering mathematical modelling of the human heart. He also heads the Institute's flagship Human Physiome Project, an international network of researchers developing mathematical models of all aspects of human physiology. He is also a fellow of London's prestigious Royal Society. For more information on the event please click here.