PHANZA Secretary
c/o Manatū Taonga/MCH
PO Box 5364
Wellington 6140
New Zealand
© PHANZA 2025
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Posted on October 28 2025
Guosheng Xie 谢国升 is from Guangdong, China. He studied ancient Chinese history in Chengdu and Shanghai for seven years. With a strong interest in Pacific history, he applied for the doctoral program at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. His doctoral research examines the historical development of Chinese labour and enterprise in Aotearoa New Zealand from the 1860s
Posted on September 27 2025
Alice Houston-Page completed her BA(Hons) at the University of Otago Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka in 2023. Her Honours dissertation focused on the anti-nuclear activism of an Ōtepoti women’s group in the 1960s. The group produced a petition protesting French nuclear testing in Oceania that ultimately received over 13,000 signatures from New Zealand women. Alice has a particular interest in post-war histories
Posted on September 27 2025
Mark Pacey completed a degree from Massey University in 2017 with a double major in History and Defence Studies. He has had an interest in military history since childhood and specialises in the Pacific theatre of World War Two. While studying at university, Pacey published his first book “Grand Pharmacies”, a history of pharmacies in the Hastings and Havelock North
Posted on January 30 2025
I am a self-employed registered architect (FNZIA) with over 20 years’ experience delivering a range of building projects across the Waikato and surrounding areas. More recently my work has been in the design and documentation of multi-level, medium- density residential housing. I have experience teaching at tertiary level at Wintec (2006), Unitec (2015), and Open Polytechnic (2015-16). I have researched
Posted on May 28 2024
Samantha Owens is a freelance music historian based in Karori, Wellington. She has published widely on the performance cultures and practices of Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, 1850–1950, as well as on the music history of early modern Europe, 1660–1760. Her monograph, The Well-Travelled Musician: John Sigismond Cousser and Musical Exchange in Baroque Europe (Boydell Press, 2017), was funded by an
Posted on March 15 2024
I am the Director of Arque Research, a specialist research consulting company that helps businesses, institutions and cultural organisations use history to connect with staff, customers, stakeholders and communities. I have skills, knowledge and experience gained over a 30-year career spanning academic and applied research, journalism and marketing, and university teaching and postgraduate supervision. My expertise includes legal history, urban
Posted on September 20 2023
I am Elizabeth (Libby). I’ve completed my MA and PhD in History at Te Herenga Waka Victoria – University of Wellington. In 2024 I received a Judith Binney Writing Award which I am using to adapt my PhD thesis, ‘Women Contracting in Law c. 1840–1920: Gender and Settler Colonialism in the Courts of Aotearoa New Zealand’, for publication. I have
Posted on July 12 2023
I completed my PhD in History at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington in 2025. My research explored the growth of rock climbing in Aotearoa from 1960 to 2020, using oral history as a key research method. I received a 2026 Judith Binney Writing Award to convert my thesis into a book. I have worked as an oral
Posted on April 24 2022
When I tell people that I am a genealogist, one of the first questions is how far back have you got? For me it’s not how far back I have got, but what I have discovered about my family and the connections; like the moment of touching the document that my five x great grandparents had signed in the early
Posted on September 21 2021
Art History Ph.D. Montana Reference & Anthology Award (2007) Society of Authors Best Non-Fiction Award (2007) Member NZ Conservator of Cultural Materials Area of expertise: Early NZ-made furniture, 19th-century design, cabinet making, manufacturing, domestic interiors, furniture retailing, image reproduction, printing, copyright infringement. Furniture restorer, conservator, heritage building interiors. Author: Furniture of the New Zealand Colonial Era 1830-1900 (2006); Patterns –
Posted on September 21 2021
I am an Auckland-based writer and researcher with a background in book writing and publishing, specialising in New Zealand history. I have a BA in History and a Master of Creative Writing with First Class Honours from Auckland University. Over the past 25 years, I have published a range of books for children and adults, many with a focus on
Posted on September 21 2021
Independent Scholar, working on a place-based and cross-cultural history of the 1885 tour of New Zealand by Mary Clement Leavitt, world missionary for the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (see work in progress at hollingsworth.wordpress.com). Women’s history offers an interesting lens by which to view mainstream narratives, and critical inquiry provides new insights into our everyday stories of news and community-based
Posted on September 21 2021
I grew up in Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland and New Plymouth, and studied English and Greek at the University of Auckland, graduating with an MA in Middle English. Later I worked at the Parliamentary Library, and as a law librarian in Wellington and London. I now live in Wellington. I write fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry, primarily for children and young
Posted on September 21 2021
Paul Diamond (Ngāti Hauā, Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) is Curator, Māori at the Alexander Turnbull Library. He is the author of A Fire in Your Belly: Māori leaders speak (Huia, 2003), Makereti: Taking Māori to the world (Random House, 2007) and Savaged to Suit: Māori and cartooning in New Zealand (Fraser Books, 2018). He has previously worked as an oral historian
Posted on September 21 2021
Queen’s Service Medal Qualifications: M.A. (Hons), Dip.Ed, Dip.Teaching, Dip. Recreation and Sport. Author of 37 books on the social and industrial history of the Buller and West Coast regions. Teacher for many years, now retired. Involved in many local institutions and Associations.
Posted on September 21 2021
Having completed a BA (History and Education) in 1999 and a BA Honours (History) in 2005, at the University of Auckland, and worked in the disability sector for a number of years, I went back to university on a doctoral scholarship. In 2009, I completed my PhD, ‘Assessing Gender in the Construction of Scottish Identity c.1286-c.1586’, which was conferred in