Dominic Alessio

Associate Professor at Richmond The American International University in London. A former Canadian Commonwealth Scholar to New Zealand, his research within New Zealand Studies focuses on late nineteenth/early twentieth century science fiction and utopian literature, gender, visual culture and tourism.

His publications on these topics have appeared in Women's History Review, Foundation, The Journal of Imperial and Post-Colonial Historical Studies, ARIEL, and the Journal of New Zealand Literature. He is Vice-Chair of the New Zealand Studies Association, a member of the Advisory Board for the CNZS Bulletin of New Zealand Studies, and was recently appointed Visiting Research Fellow in the Division of Media, English and Culture, School of the Arts, at the University of Northampton (2006-2009). His book on early New Zealand science fiction was published with the University of Nebraska Press in 2008, and he is currently working on another book looking at utopianism and national identity in New Zealand.
alessid@richmond.ac.uk

Kezia Barker

Lecturer in Science and Environmental Studies, School of Continuing Education, Birkbeck, University of London. Her research within New Zealand Studies focuses on environmental politics, particularly biosecurity policy and the management of invasive species, and environmental history, particularly gardening practices. She completed her PhD, entitled ‘Cultivating Biosecurity: Governance, Citizenship and Gardening in Aotearoa New Zealand’ in the Department of Geography, UCL, and lectured on the ‘Geographies of Nature’ in the School of Geography, University of Southampton. Kezia is the postgraduate representative on the RGS Social and Cultural Geography Research Group, organising an annual reading weekend for social and cultural geographers. She is editorial assistant for the Locating Technoscience Online Reader, designed to support teaching and research at the interface between Geography and Science and Technology Studies (STS).

Kezia has published aspects of her research on New Zealand’s biosecurity regime within the journal Environment and Planning A; a chapter in the edited book ‘Geographies of Insecurity and the War on Terror’; and within the New Zealand Institute for Biosecurity’s publication Protect. She has presented aspects of this research at the Royal Geographical Society and Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) Annual Conference in 2006, 2007 and 2008, where she co-organised and co-chaired two sessions on ‘The Cultural Geographies of Native and Non-Native Species'. She also presented at the Institute for Biosecurity NETS Conference in Christchurch in 2005. Kezia is currently developing a comparative research proposal on the significance of ‘passive surveillance’ by the general public within biosecurity practice in New Zealand, the UK and The Galápagos Islands.
k.barker@bbk.ac.uk

Ian Conrich

Senior Lecturer and Director of the Centre for New Zealand Studies, at Birkbeck, University of London. His research within New Zealand Studies includes a particular focus on film, magic lantern slides and stereoviews, cultural studies, visual culture and material culture, and early forms of tourism. He was recently the 2005 MacGeorge Visiting Scholar at the University of Melbourne, and 2005-6 was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University in the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, where he researched Victorian and Edwardian images of the Maori. He is an Editor of the CNZS Bulletin of New Zealand Studies, Associate Editor of Film and Philosophy, an Editorial Board member of the Journal of British Cinema and Television, an advisory board member of Studies in Australasian Cinema and Interactive Media, Regional Coordinator for England for the Asian Cinema Studies Society, Series Editor of 'Studies in New Zealand Culture', and Chair of the New Zealand Studies Association. For 2008, Ian was the Air New Zealand New Zealander of the Year.

He has written for Sight and Sound, and the BBC and is Guest Editor of a special issue of Post Script on Australian and New Zealand cinema, and a consultant for the Harvard Review, for a special issue on New Zealand literature. The author of New Zealand Film – A Guide (2008, in Polish) and the forthcoming books New Zealand Cinema and New Zealand Filmmakers in Conversation, he is an editor or co-editor of a further eleven books, including New Zealand - A Pastoral Paradise? (2000), The Technique of Terror: The Cinema of John Carpenter (2004), Film's Musical Moments (2006), New Zealand Filmmakers (2007), Contemporary New Zealand Cinema (2008), and the forthcoming New Zealand Fictions: Literature and Film, New Zealand, France and the Pacific, and The Cinema of New Zealand (in Polish). He has also contributed to more than 50 books and journals and spoken on New Zealand film and culture at universities in Canada, France, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, South Africa, China, Singapore, Samoa, Australia, and the USA.
ian@ianconrich.co.uk

Rachael Morgan

A New Zealand composer, Rachael gained her Masters of Music from Victoria University, Wellington. She is the 2008 recipient of the Edwin Carr Foundation Scholarship, the aim of which is professional development for New Zealand composers in Europe. Based in the UK she is continuing her studies with a range of composers here and in Italy and Germany.

With a strong interest in New Zealand music, Rachael co-produced, with Jack Body, Emerging Composers, the seventh CD in Waiteata Music Press's collection, and has contributed articles on New Zealand composers to Canzona. Her works have received performances by Okta, Gate Seven, the Auckland Academy Orchestra, the Tudor Consort and leading New Zealand soloists. Musikhochshule Lubeck also included idiosyncrasies in the Neue Musik Aus Neuseeland festival, 2006. Further pieces have been workshopped by Stroma, the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra and the Nelson Composers Workshop. Current projects include a commission from 175East. She is Media and Communications Officer for the NZSA.
rachaelmorgan1@yahoo.co.nz