Post Graduate Students' Association - PGSA

Benefits of becoming a Waikato PGSA member:

• Make contact with other postgraduate students
• Support of the executive as your voice on campus
• Form multi-disciplinary links in the university
• Keep informed of relevant issues to postgraduate students
• Free membership with the Waikato Student's Union (WSU). (Note: if you do not wish to be enrolled as a WSU member, please let us know in the comments section below)

Executive

Meet the members of our executive

President: Sam Campbell

Te Piringa - Faculty of Law

Sam is a PhD candidate at Te Piringa - Faculty of Law. His research involves the comparative study of transnational and domestic river basin governance regimes. Prior to commencing doctoral studies at the University of Waikato, Sam worked as a commercial solicitor in Australia. His research areas of interest include freshwater policy and sustainability.

Vice-President: Fai Tongdethsri

School of Social Sciences

Fai is a PhD student in Political Science. Her research topic focuses on notions of sustainability in climate change adaptation policy in Thailand. She is a Golf Scholar on the Sir Edmund Hillary Programme and as a recipient of the Step Higher Award has fundraised for the Himalayan Trust and trekked in Nepal. Through her cultural clubs, outdoor/sporting activities and volunteering work she enjoys interacting with people. Although she is of Thai ethnicity and an avid traveler, she finds NZ as her base.

Treasury: Saikrishna Srinivasan

School of Arts

Saikrishna is a PhD student in the Screen and Media Studies. He came to New Zealand in 2018, after finishing his masters in Scotland and briefly working in Hollywood movies, as a VFX artist for an year. His research is about examination of the application and assimilation of Virtual Reality in Theatre Performance. His area of research interest includes VR, animation, ways of integrating the media technologies to experiment an engaging way of storytelling.

Secretary: Kemi Mildred Hughes

Te Piringa - Faculty of Law

Kemi is currently a PhD student in Te Piringa - Faculty of Law. Her research topic focuses on investigating the influence of the United Nations at the local, regional and global levels in the mitigation and adaptation of climate change. Her other research interest areas focus on gender mainstreaming and climate change as well as the role of women in influencing climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. A keen adventurer, she enjoys interacting with people of various nationalities and learning about various cultures.

Social Media Manager: Sara Ali

School of Arts

Sara Ali is a PhD student at University of Waikato's English Department. She has been awarded PhD scholarship from Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. Her research focuses on representations of Pakistani Muslim masculinities in English fiction by Pakistani writers. Her poetry has been published in University of Waikato's literary journal Mayhem. She feels grateful that she has become friends with some of the best people from around the globe at University of Waikato.

Executive Members

Mauricio Kimura

Te Piringa - Faculty of Law

Mauricio is a trained Brazilian lawyer, spent the last 20 years in law firms and corporate legal departments, like IBM and CBS. Currently enrolled as 3rd year Ph.D. candidate at Te Piringa - Faculty of Law, researching about legal personality for Artificial Intelligent agents. Previously earned his LL.M degree from The George Washington University Law School, in Washington DC and his LL.B from Sao Bernardo do Campo School of Law, Brazil. Hobbies are running, reading and judo. Married and father of 3 little boys. Lived in US, Europe, and Japan. Fluent speaker of Portuguese and Spanish. Born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Swathi Rangarajan

School of Education

Swathi is a second-year PhD student in the School of Education. Her research investigates how higher-order questioning influences student learning in technology education. Prior to studying at the university, Swathi worked in the electrical engineering industry in India for 9 years and as a full-time teacher for 2 years. She received her Master's degree from Finland. She likes trying out a variety of activities and currently interested in board games, reading, running and learning to drive.

Penny Xie

School of Arts

Penny is a PhD student in the School of Arts. Her research investigates the second language acquisition in New Zealand in the view of a Chinese scholar. She has plenty of other research interests including teaching methodology and translation studies. Her non-academic interests include swimming and hiking.

Nhung Vu

School of Education

Nhung is a PhD candidate at the School of Education since 2017. Her research explores the perceptions of primary school teachers about using Digital Technologies to teach languages in Vietnam primary schools. Her research areas of interests include educational technologies, language learning and educational policy. As an educator and an international student at the University of Waikato, in New Zealand, she is willing to share experiences of oversea study and to help other students academically and non-academically.

Muhammad Taimur

Waikato Management School

Muhammad Taimur is a third-year Ph.D. student at the School of Accounting, Finance, and Economics. The Higher Education Commission of Pakistan funds his Ph.D. studies. His areas of academic interests are Sustainability Reporting, Corporate Social Responsibility, Business Ethics, and Business Research Methods. Currently, he is developing a Sustainability Reporting framework for the corporate sector of Pakistan. Before commencing his Ph.D., Muhammad was teaching at a state university in Pakistan. He also was a part of the Global Undergrad Exchange Program sponsored and administered by the US State Department. Other than academia and research, he is passionate about traveling, hiking, bush walks, swimming and social networking.