Electric Power Engineering Centre

My work focuses on the transition to resilient, low-carbon renewable energy systems. I am interested in how electricity networks, transport, renewable energy, energy markets, community needs and public policy interact to shape New Zealand's energy future. My goal is to connect research, industry and government to accelerate practical energy transitions that deliver economic, environmental and social value.

 

I am the Director of the Electric Power Engineering Centre (EPECentre), where my role centers on translational engineering — taking rigorous academic research and scaling it into hardware, infrastructure, and commercial platforms that solve real-world resilience problems.

EPECentre is New Zealand's premiere research centre dedicated to studying electric power, electrification, renewable energy, and the energy transition.  The centre covers the techno-socio-economic spectrum, with a diversity of topics including;

• The electric power system
• Community energy
• Distributed energy systems
• Renewable energy, including wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy and hydro energy
• Systems design and integration
• Flexible energy services
• Energy storage
• Zero-carbon transportation system
• Energy policy

EPECentre is industry and community facing, being initiated at the request of the energy sector in 2002.  Much of our research is performed under commercial sensitivities and our outputs are non-indexed publications.

Professor Natalia Chaban focuses her interdisciplinary research on cognitive and semiotic aspects of political and media discourses, image and perceptions studies within the EU and IR contexts, and public diplomacy and political communication. Her international recognition is demonstrated by consistent leadership of large multicultural, multinational research teams with direct engagement and outcomes for policymakers. A leader of a number of transnational research projects supported by the European Commission, EU member states, and NATO, Natalia widely publishes including articles in high impact journals such as the Journal of Common Market Studies, Cooperation and Conflict, Journal of European Integration, Foreign Policy Analysis, Mobilities, Comparative European Politics. Having researched Ukraine since independence, she focuses her research on how the current war has impacted communication, expectations, and attitudes internationally, specializing in crisis, youth, cultural, and heritage aspects in EU-Ukraine public diplomacy. Natalia's new research interests include science diplomacy, TechPlomacy, and digital diplomacy in the contexts of increasingly geopolitical world and its securitisation, as well as the role of emotions in shaping international perceptions and expectations.

Her 2024 award of the Royal Society of New Zealand Mason Durie Medal recognises Professor Chaban as the nation’s pre-eminent social scientist with outstanding contribution which has originated in a New Zealand environment and had an international impact.  In 2025, the UC Council awarded Professor Chaban UC Research Medal in recognition of her sustained excellence in research, teaching, and innovation. In 2024, she was awarded the UC Faculty of Arts Research Award in Humanities, Social Sciences or Creative Arts. Professor Chaban is a twice awarded Jean Monnet Chair (in 2011 and 2018), a highly competitive, prestigious title awarded by the European Union to selected leading researchers in recognition of research and teaching contribution to the field of EU integration studies in the world.

Professor Chaban is a director of UC research centre Public Diplomacy and Political Communication Forum.  She is the President, Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand; fouding co-editor, peer-reviewed Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies (now with Scopus, Q2), and a member of editorial boards of Journal of European Integration, European Security, European Foreign Affairs Review, Media, War and Conflict, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, and Cognition, Communication, Discourse.

Visiting Professor, Vienna Diplomatic Academy, Austria (2025-present)

Visiting Professor, College of Europe at Natolin, Warsaw, Poland (2023-present)

Visiting Professor, Sciences Po Grenoble, France (2024)

Visiting Professor, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania (2019-2022)

Adjunct Professor, Cherkasy National University, Ukraine (2014-present)

In 2023-2026, Professor Chaban leads Work Package 5 "Strategic Communication" (30 researchers) within Jean Monnet Policy Network “Challenges and Opportunities for EU Heritage Diplomacy in Ukraine” (HER-UKR).  The Network, supported by the European Commission, includes 15 partners from around the world.  In 2024-2028, she is an invited Associate Partner within Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network Contested EU Foreign Policy in an Era of Geopolitics (EU-FOG).  The Network includes 17 partners from around the world. In 2025-2030, Professor Chaban is an invited Associate Partner in the “Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters Degree European Politics and Society: Vaclav Havel".

Patricio has extensive experience across industry, academia, and applied research. His work focuses on energy and transport systems, decarbonisation, energy transition, and infrastructure planning, with expertise in energy systems modelling, data analytics, GIS, optimisation, simulation, and systems analysis. His research spans transport decarbonisation, electrification, demand flexibility, battery energy storage, electric vehicles, building energy systems, and energy systems modelling. As a Research Engineer at the EPECentre, he supports multidisciplinary projects that develop data-driven models, decision-support tools, and transition pathways to inform investment, policy, and infrastructure planning.

Prof Bronwyn Hayward (MNZM, FRSNZ) is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations and Director of The Sustainability, Citizenship and Civic Imagination Research group. Her research is at the intersection of sustainability, youth, climate change and democracy. Bronwyn has held many Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change roles:  a Review Editor (AR7 Ciites special report)  AR6 (Synthesis report 2023) Coordinating lead Cities & infrastructure (2022) and a lead author of the IPCC Special Report on 1.5 Degrees C (2018). She is co-primary investigator with University of Surrey's ESRC funded CUSP: Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity, where she leads the CYCLES Children and Youth in Cities lifestyle Evaluation study in 7 world cities. A Co-PI of the National Science Challenge Mana Rangatahi, supporting Indigenous young people facing climate change (2022-2025). She held an Erskine Fellowship with University College, Oxford, UK 2017. Recent books Children, Citizenship and Environment (Routledge, 2012 and a significantly revised second #SchoolStrike edition Routledge London, 2021 and Sea Change: Climate Politics and New Zealand (BWB, 2017). She served on the International Social Sciences Council steering committee - Transformative Research; Co-researcher with University of Oslo, Voices of the Future project; Lead author on UNEP's global survey of 18-35 year olds lifestyles and sustainabilityl Trustee for the UK Foundation for Democracy and Sustainability 2012-2016. Outside academia Bronwyn worked for children's TV; was a Ministerial appointment to the NZ Broadcasting Standards Authority; Trustee for the SPARK Foundation & Give A Little. She was inaugural joint winner of UC Arts Conscience & Critic of Society Research Award 2014, Kiwibank Local Hero (2019) Westpac/Stuff media winner of Supreme Woman of Influence & Environment categories (2022), She is co-convenor of Adaptation Futures 2025 the world's premiere climate adaptation event October 2025

Associate Professor Joya Kemper is a specialist in sustainable, ethical, and healthy consumption and production, with expertise spanning behaviour change, social and institutional change, and sustainable marketing. Her research focuses on four core areas:

• Sustainable marketing and marketing for good (circular economy, waste reduction, sociopolitical activism)
• Sustainable and healthy eating (meat reduction, alternative proteins, future foods)
• Social change (behavioural, organisational, and institutional transformation)
• Education for sustainable development.

She has published more than 50 peer‑reviewed articles in leading journals in marketing, sustainability, food systems, and social change. Her work is supported by major national and international funding, including an OECD Fellowship on food waste at Wageningen University (2023), a $1.2m Health Research Council project on alcohol warning labels (2021–2024), and roles as an Associate Researcher on three MBIE Endeavour Programmes: an $11.7m circular economy for plastics initiative (2022–2027), a $9.7m circular economy for grape marc programme (2023–2028), and an $8.7m precision biocontrol/phage solutions project (2025–2028).

Her research directly supports sector needs in sustainable consumption, healthy and sustainable food systems, environmental behaviour change, and circular economy innovation, providing evidence‑based insights for government agencies, industry partners, NGOs, and international organisations working toward more sustainable, equitable, and resilient systems.

Dr Andrew Lapthorn leads the High Voltage Laboratory at the University of Canterbury, specialising in high-voltage engineering, power system resilience, electrical insulation performance, dielectric testing, and conformity assessment for the electrical industry. His expertise spans high-power systems, grid-scale electrical infrastructure, asset performance, failure analysis, and standards compliance, with recognised leadership as an IEC Young Professional. He has authored more than 60 technical papers and over 20 technical reports across high-voltage testing, power system reliability, and advanced electrical materials.

He leads Workstream 4 of the MBIE-funded programme Architecture of the Future Low Carbon, Resilient, Electrical Power System, focusing on future-grid architecture, low-carbon energy systems, electrification, and resilient power networks. He also leads Workstream 4 and contributes to Workstream 3 of the MBIE project High Power Electric Motors for Large-Scale Transport, advancing research in electrified transport, high-power motor technologies, and energy-efficient propulsion. As University of Canterbury lead, he directs research on the performance of power system protection under extreme solar storms within the Solar Tsunamis MBIE Endeavour Programme.

Dr Lapthorn serves as Secretary of the IEEE New Zealand Council and as Convenor of the New Zealand Panel of CIGRE A3 — High Voltage Equipment. Internationally, he is a member of the CIGRE D1 Study Committee on materials and emerging test techniques, and of Working Group B1.82, contributing to international work on cable systems, high-voltage equipment performance, and power system standards.

Dr Elizabeth Macpherson a Professor of Law and Rutherford Discovery Fellow at the University of Canterbury. 

Elizabeth is a lawyer and interdisciplinary researcher who focuses on the design and implementation of water law and policy in community and justice settings. Her research focuses on the potential for comparative constitutional law, human rights, and Indigenous rights, relationships, and jurisdiction to enable better outcomes in water governance. She has a particular interest in the development of freshwater and marine law and policy in Australasia and the Americas. She has led numerous grants and published widely on freshwater and marine law and policy, especially as they relate to Indigenous peoples’ rights.

Elizabeth is the author of the award-winning book Indigenous Water Rights in Law and Regulation: Lessons from Comparative Experience (2019, Cambridge University Press) and leads a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship programme in partnership with Ngāi Tahu, funded by Te Apārangi The Royal Society of New Zealand, on Blue Carbon Futures in Aotearoa New Zealand: Law, Climate, Resilience. Elizabeth has over twenty years legal and policy experience advising Indigenous peoples and governments on environmental and natural resources law matters.

Donald studies journalism practice and public communication, including news discourse, social media and science communication. He has written on conflict reporting, communication ethics and discourse analysis. He has expertise in discourse analysis, including corpus-based discourse analysis. He writes on communication ethics and also co-edits Ethical Space, an international communication ethics journal. He is a co-director of UC's Media Innovation Lab, a lab that supports journalists to develop innovartion in factual storytelling.

Lynette is an environmental psychologist whose research is focused on improving human behaviour change to achieve better outcomes for people and the environment. Her interdisciplinary approach to research is guided by thirty years of experience across both science and social science fields. She has held professional research positions within the NSW Department of Primary Industries and New England University, before moving to the University of Canterbury in 2022. Lynette’s research involves working with organisations and the community to better understand target audience behaviour, and to assist in the design of more effective behaviour change interventions to manage a range of environmental issues, such as free-roaming cats and dogs, widespread weeds, chemical spray drift, human waste management, freshwater conservation, and biosecurity reporting. 

Dr Kate Prendergast is a Lecturer in the Faculties of Health and Arts. She developed UC's cross-faculty postgraduate programme in Sustainable Futures and Innovation. Her research sits at the intersection of sustainability, wellbeing, and health, with a particular focus on how young people can flourish in sustainable, low-carbon ways in a rapidly changing climate. In 2025, she received an American Political Science Association award for her presentation of a co‑authored paper on re‑imagining civics education in chaotic climate futures.

Kate is a Research Fellow with Surrey University’s Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. She’s a lead researcher for the international CYCLES (Children and Youth in Cities, Lifestyles Evaluation and Sustainability) project, which examines the everyday lives of young people across seven global cities through a sustainability and wellbeing lens.

She's also an investigator with the Mana Rangatahi: Climate Change and Decision Making project, funded by the National Science Challenge and UC's Child Well-Being Research Centre. 

In addition, Kate collaborates with the Sustainable Business Network on the annual Next Wave Barometer, which tracks the sentiment, confidence, and success factors shaping sustainable innovation in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Dr Prendergast has also contributed to organisational (e.g. FENZ) and national wellbeing projects aimed at monitoring and improving health and wellbeing outcomes.

Dr. Josh Schipper is passionate about all topics power systems, from modelling conductors with Maxwell's equations up to the operation and planning of large electrical grids. My initial research assessed the impacts of variable renewable generation (VRE) on gird inertia, frequency stability and reserve requirements. Challenges that will continue to affect New Zealand as wind, solar and energy storage grow to achieve national sustainability goals. Topics requiring profiency in power systems control and stability analysis, data analysis, regulation, and optimisation in its application to electricity markets.

My current research has been in the 'Future Architecture of the Network' project, which explores methods of better simulating direct current (DC) transmission. Including the operation and control of Modular Multilevel Connverters (MMC), Line Commutated Converters (LCC) for high voltage applications; and low voltage converters.

Aprajay is working in EPECentre for Future Architecture Network (FAN) project since January 2026. He worked as software engineer for Siemens in Grid Software group, his PhD. thesis work involved appying optimization, uncertainity analysis and game theory for distribution system planning problem. He is interested in power system modelling, parallel programming, and accelerating time domain simulations.