New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour

I am interested in how information-rich computational systems can better support human discovery and learning, particularly through tools that enable more interpretable and collaborative forms of understanding and communication. Focus areas include:

• Intelligent systems for environmental and social challenges
• GIScience and spatial data science
• Representation across machine learning models, natural language, and domain-specific data
• Dynamic and automated scientific workflow systems
• Decentralized knowledge systems

Dr. Christoph Bartneck is a professor in the department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at the University of Canterbury. He has a background in Industrial Design and Human-Computer Interaction, and his projects and studies have been published in leading journals, newspapers, and conferences. His interests lie in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction, Science and Technology Studies, and Visual Design. More specifically, he focuses on the effect of anthropomorphism on human-robot interaction. As a secondary research interest he works on projects in the area of sport technology and the critical review on scientific processes and policies. In the field of Design Christoph investigates the history of product design, tessellations and photography.

He has worked for several international organizations including the Technology Centre of Hannover (Germany), LEGO (Denmark), Eagle River Interactive (USA), Philips Research (Netherlands), ATR (Japan), and The Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands). Christoph is an associate editor of the International Journal of Social Robotics. Christoph is a member of the ACM SIGCHI, The New Zealand Association Of Scientists and Academic Freedom Aotearoa. The press regularly reports on his work, including the New Scientist, Scientific American, Popular Science, Wired, New York Times, The Times, BBC, Huffington Post, Washington Post, The Guardian, and The Economist.

Dr Lynn Clark is an Associate Professor in Linguistics at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury and a leading researcher in sociophonetics, language variation and language change. Her research explores how speech varies across individuals, communities and regions, and how languages evolve over time through the interaction of social, cognitive and linguistic factors. 

Lynn's work combines theoretical and empirical approaches to understand how accents develop, change and are maintained. She investigates the ways that factors such as age, gender, community identity, and geography influence speech patterns, with a particular focus on New Zealand English and regional accents. Her research has contributed significantly to understanding how sound changes emerge and spread through populations and across generations. 

A key theme of Lynn's research is the relationship between language variation and linguistic theory. Through large-scale analyses of spoken language, she examines how phonetic features interact within dynamic speech systems and how social meaning is encoded in accent variation. Her work spans speech production, speech perception, and lifespan changes in speech, from childhood through to older adulthood. 

Andy Cockburn is an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science & Software Engineering at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.

His research concerns Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) --- designing, implementing, evaluating and modelling user interfaces, with a focus on understanding and exploiting specific underlying human factors to improve interaction. With over 200 publications, his contributions include many desktop and mobile interface designs that use human spatial memory to support  expertise development in basic tasks such as file retrieval, command invocation, window switching, and scrolling.

Andy has served on the Editorial Boards for leading HCI journals, including ACM ToCHI, the Human-Computer Interaction Journal, and Foundations and Trends in Human-Computer Interaction.   He served as papers co-chair for CHI 2014 and 2015, and as technical program co-chair for CHI 2020. In 2015 he was inducted to the ACM CHI Academy, which honours the principal leaders in the field.

Andy has consulted for many leading tech companies as an expert witness across various jurisdictions.

Jack Copeland FRS NZ is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, where he is Director of the Turing Archive for the History of Computing.

Jack began life as a physicist and his philosophical research is mostly science-facing, including research in mathematical logic and the philosophy of mathematics; Artificial Intelligence; cognitive science; philosophy of mind; the philosophy and foundations of computing; and the history of science, engineering and digital technology. Much of his work is collaborative and transdisciplinary.

Jack has received various prizes and honors for his research work, including the American Philosophical Association’s Jon Barwise Prize (2017), the citation for which describes him as “the world-wide expert on Alan Turing and a leading philosopher of AI, computing and information”, and the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Aronui Medal (2020) “for research into the foundations, philosophy and history of computing”. In 2017 he was admitted to the United States IT History Society Honor Roll, described by the Society as “a listing of a select few that have made an out-of-the-ordinary contribution to the information industry”. The citation for his IACAP Covey Award (2016) recognizes his “substantial record of innovative research in the field of computing and philosophy”. In 2011 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, on the basis of his research and scholarship. Jack received the University of Canterbury Research Medal in 2009. The citation said "Professor Copeland's work is considered remarkable not only for its success but also its breadth. His research ... has brought enormous prestige to the University of Canterbury."

Jack has also won a number of teaching awards at UC, including the Student Choice Great Character Award (2023), UCSA Lecturer of the Year Award (2010), Top Lecturer in the College of Arts (2010), and Best Lecturer in the Faculty of Science (2002).

Jack has been script advisor, co-writer, and scientific consultant for a number of scientific documentaries. One of these, the BBC’s Code-Breakers, directed by Julian Carey, won two UK BAFTA awards and was listed as one of the year’s three best historical documentaries at the Media Impact Awards in New York City (2013). The Man Who Cracked the Nazi Codes, based on Jack’s Oxford University Press biography Turing, and directed by Denis van Waerebeke, won the Best Documentary prize at the FIGRA European film festival (2015) and has been shown widely on TV networks around the world, including ARTE (who commissioned it) and the History Channel. Jack’s large permanent exhibitions at Bletchley Park, Alan Turing’s Papers (opened 2012) and Hitler’s “Unbreakable” Cipher Machine (opened 2013), both co-curated with Gillian Mason, have been viewed by millions of visitors.

Jack's international visiting professorships include the Royden B. Davis Visiting Chair of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Department of Psychology at Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA, the John Findlay Visiting Professorship of Philosophy at Boston University, Boston, USA, Visiting Professor of Information Science at Det Informations-videnskabelige Akademi, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Renmin University of China, Beijing, China, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Akita University, Akita, Japan, and most recently Visiting Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Plaksha University, Mohali, India. He has been a regular Gastprofessor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland, since 2013 (where he co-founded the Turing Centre and co-directed it until 2020). He is also Honorary Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Research Fellowships include Senior Fellow in the History of Science and Technology in the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge Mass., USA; Visiting Fellow at King’s College, Cambridge, England; and most recently Visiting Fellow at Käte Hamburger Kolleg, RWTH, Aachen, Germany, and Visiting Fellow at the Centre Leo Apostel for transdisciplinary research, Vrije University, Brussels, Belgium.

Jack is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a member of the American Philosophical Association (APA), a member of the New Zealand AI Researchers Association, and a founding member of the American Association for Philosophy and Computing.

I am a phonetician and phonologist, with a focus on vowels and prosody in Austronesian languages. I am interested in how lesser-studied languages can inform us about phonological categories like 'diphthong', 'foot' and 'stressed syllable'. At New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour, I am a post-doctoral fellow and primary investigator of the Marsden fast-start project Word stress in te reo Māori: production and perception. Before this, I was a post-doctoral fellow on the project Te reo Māori vowel sequences within and across morpheme boundaries (PI Jen Hay). 

Gan Qiao is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour. His research interests include corpus linguistics, variationist sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. His current work focuses on the effects of machine assistance on language variation in written production across English varieties.

Professor Gillon (Ngāi Tahu iwi) is the Founding Director of the University of Canterbury Child Well-Being Research Institute. Prof Gillon is also the New Zealand UNESCO National Commissioner for Education.

Professor Gillon has a strong leadership and research background in education and speech-language therapy. She has held roles as Dean of Science, Dean of Education, and Pro-Vice Chancellor for the College of Education, Health and Human Development  at the University of Canterbury. Most recently she was the Deputy Director for the Better Start National Science Challenge E Tipu E Rea. She contributed to the leadership of a 10-year programme of research ($34million) focused on ensuring all young children have a successful start to life. 

Professor Gillon is well known internationally for her research in phonological awareness and children’s early literacy development. She has won several prestigious research awards for her pioneering work in effective interventions to accelerate reading in children with speech and language disorders and children with dyslexia. She has published well over 100 scientific research papers, and has presented numerous keynote and invited speeches around the world.

Professor Gillon is the Co-Lead Developer of the Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA). This is a culturally responsive and structured literacy teaching approach based on the science of reading. It is currently being implemented in over 1000 schools across Aotearoa New Zealand. New Zealand. Professor Gillon is leading a range of research projects analysing data from the response of over 100,000 young children to BSLA teaching. Recent projects include understanding early literacy development in children who are English Language Learners, accelerating literacy in Maori and Pacific children in culturally responsive ways and the use of novel online assessments to monitor children’s growth in foundational oral language and early literacy skills.

Professor Gillon is a Fellow of Te Aparangi, the Royal Society of New Zealand, the first New Zealander to be made a Fellow of the American Speech-Language and Therapy Association, and a Life member of the New Zealand Speech Language Therapy Association. She has received several awards for her research including the prestigious University of Canterbury Research Excellence Medal and the University of Canterbury Research Innovation Medal.

My research uses psycholinguistic methods to investigate how language relates to the human mind and brain. Specifically, my research program examines what information and how it guides language users’ acquisition and use of form and meaning by testing different languages and populations. My current research has two strands: (1) cross-linguistic research on reference form-meaning mappings, and (2) developmental research on sentence form-meaning acquisition in children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

I coordinate the Language, Brain, and Behaviour specialisation. 

I am a phonologist specializing in the lexicon-phonology interface and phonology in language contact, including loanword phonology and bilingual phonology. I also work as a phonetician, exploring the effects of prosody, speaking rate, and sociolinguistic factors, on the production and perception of speech sounds. At the New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour, I am currently working on Ngā Rōpū Kupu o Te Reo Māori (The Word Categories of Te Reo Māori), a project examining the nature of word categories in Māori.

Meredith Marra is Professor in Linguistics in School of Language, Social & Political Sciences. She teaches sociolinguistics and Discourse Analysis from first year to PhD level, often taking a critical stance on the role of language in society.

She has been researching aspects of workplace discourse for more than 25 years and is Director of the Language in the Workplace Project. Her primary research interest is the language of business meetings, but she has also published in the areas of power, (im)politeness, humour and aspects of identity (especially gender and ethnic identity) in journals including the Journal of Pragmatics, Language in Society and Text & Talk.

Meredith is co-author of Leadership, Discourse, and Ethnicity (OUP, 2011) with the Language in the Workplace team, and co-editor of Constructing Identities at Work (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), Negotiating Boundaries at Work (EUP, 2017) and Linguist at Work (VUP, 2017).

Professor Laurie (Laura– Lee) McLay is a researcher specialising in the health, wellbeing, and developmental outcomes of neurodivergent children, including autistic tamariki and children with lifelong physical health conditions. Her work is grounded in equity of access, with a strong focus on digital health, including telehealth delivery of supports that improve the everyday lives of children and their whānau. She is particularly recognised for her expertise in sleep assessment and support for neurodivergent children—an area of high unmet need with significant implications for learning, development, and family wellbeing.

Her research investigates how digital tools, online programmes, and technology‑enabled interventions and supports can enhance caregiver capability, reduce stress, and provide practical, culturally responsive strategies for families who face barriers to traditional services. She is committed to neurodiversity‑affirming practice, co‑design, and approaches that centre on the lived experiences of tamariki and their caregivers.

Laurie leads the Waiora Tamariki Programme at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha University of Canterbury. This programme evaluates the effectiveness, acceptability, and real‑world implementation of digitally delivered supports across key domains of child wellbeing, including sleep, eating and feeding, toileting, communication, and caregiver mental health. The programme integrates psychosocial models, child development, and digital innovation, and works in partnership with autistic tamariki, caregivers, clinicians, and community organisations to ensure interventions are practical, evidence‑informed, and responsive to Aotearoa New Zealand families.

In addition to her research leadership, Laurie serves as an Associate Dean of Research (ADR), contributing to research strategy, governance, and capability development within her Faculty. In this role, she supports quality research practice, fosters collaboration, and helps strengthen the environment for impactful, community‑engaged research.

Through both her research and her ADR leadership, Laurie contributes to national and international conversations on digital health innovation, early intervention, family‑centred practice, and support pathways for neurodivergent children. Her work aims to build a more accessible, equitable system of support that empowers caregivers and enhances the wellbeing of tamariki across Aotearoa.