Veronika Meduna

Veronika Meduna CF is a scientist, science journalist and broadcaster who was the founding New Zealand editor of The Conversation.

Early life

Meduna was born in Czechoslovakia and spent her childhood there before moving with her family to Germany.

Career

Meduna trained and worked as a microbiologist before moving into science journalism. She is best known as the long-serving producer and presenter of the Our Changing World science show on Radio New Zealand, producing and presenting hundreds of episodes of the show.

Science

Between 1988 and 1990, she was a research assistant at the University of Konstanz in the "Microbial Ecology Working Group" and subsequently, until 1992, as a scientist at the Konstanz-based Bio System GmbH. There, she dealt with soil microbiology, investigated, among other things, the potential of earth microbes for the purification of contaminated soil and developed a technique for the biological removal of pollutants. In 1992, Meduna held two positions as a research associate: On the one hand, she was involved in the extraction and refining of algentoxins at the University of Bremen (now known as the Center for Environmental Research and Sustainable Technologies) and also contributed to a study that was to assess the environmental factors responsible for the planting of the algal bloom. In addition, she participated in the Department of Zoology, Wildlife Management at the University of Otago, on a comprehensive observation of New Zealand seabirds on the Otago Peninsula.

Journalism

She joined Radio New Zealand in 1999 as a science reporter covering the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification before hosting Our Changing World. Alongside her broadcast career, Meduna has been an award winning science writer, contributing to publications such as the New Zealand Listener,[1] New Zealand Geographic and New Scientist.

She left RNZ in 2016[2] as part of a major restructure at the broadcaster and worked as a freelance journalist before joining The Conversation in May 2017.[3]

She spent time at Oxford University as a Chevening David Low Fellow.[4]

Meduna won the Elsie Locke Award for Non-Fiction at the 2009 LIANZA awards and was shortlisted for the 2013 Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize.[5] In 2021, Meduna was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to travel to Micronesia, Melanesia and Australia, to carry out research for a book on the settlement of the Pacific.[6]

Personal life

She lives and works in Wellington, New Zealand.

Selected works
  • Towards a Warmer: What Climate Change Will Mean For New Zealand's Future World, Meduna, V (2015), Wellington, New Zealand, Bridget Williams Books[7]
  • Science on Ice: Discovering the Secrets of Antarctica, Meduna, V (2013), Auckland, New Zealand, Auckland University Press[8]
  • Atoms, Dinosaurs and DNA: 68 Great New Zealand Scientists, Meduna, V, Priestley, R (2008) Auckland, New Zealand, Random House[9]

References
  1. Noted. "Science on Ice by Veronika Meduna – review - The Listener". Noted. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  2. "Paying tribute to a science reporting star". 29 July 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  3. "'The Conversation' Website Appoints NZ Editor Veronika Meduna". Scoop News. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  4. "Veronika Meduna". Radio New Zealand. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  5. "Science on Ice: Discovering the Secrets of Antarctica - The University of Auckland". www.press.auckland.ac.nz. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  6. "Winston Churchill Memorial Trust 2021 fellowships and their research reports". Department of Internal Affairs. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  7. Veronika, Meduna (2015). Towards a warmer world : what climate change will mean for New Zealand's future. Wellington, New Zealand. ISBN 9780908321735. OCLC 930367343.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. Veronika., Meduna (2012). Science on ice : discovering the secrets of Antarctica. Auckland, N.Z.: Auckland University Press. ISBN 9781869405830. OCLC 767879443.
  9. Meduna, Veronika; Priestley, Rebecca (2008). Atoms, Dinosaurs & DNA: 68 Great New Zealand Scientists. Random House New Zealand. ISBN 9781869419547.
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