2024 Kingma Award - joint winners
Sophie White
Sophie is an integral part of the globally significant palaeontology research programme in the Department of Geology at the University of Otago as the Lab Manager for all aspects of vertebrate and invertebrate research.
With her practical background and skills, alongside her lab manager role and supporting collections and facilities management, Sophie is also involved in teaching, research, wider technical support, outreach and community engagement.
Sophie has an extraordinary range of academic and practical research skills. She is a highly respected and experienced preparator of both living and fossil cetaceans in Aotearoa New Zealand, as evidenced by the constant requests for her advice and expertise from communities, museums, and other university departments around New Zealand. She works from field excavation through preparation, imaging and modelling. She maintains networks with other museums and technical specialists both nationally and internationally.
Biljana Lukovic
Biljana Luković is a scientific technician at Te Pū Ao, GNS Science with expertise in various GIS and programming applications. Biljana has a pioneering blend of scientific curiosity, questioning the status quo and engineering solutions to the problems presented to her, and plays a highly influential role bridging the gap in the science system between ideas and technical implementation.
Biljana has been instrumental in the development of hazard and risk modelling using GIS that are now used for national and international risk assessments. She pioneered the conversion of a published mathematical model of tsunami inundation into GIS code to adapt for use in NZ and refined the methodology to provide evacuation zone estimates for more than 5 councils and several Pacific Island countries.
In a world’s first for tsunami, Biljana has engineered a risk-based approach to understanding the effectiveness of the Pacific Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System. This work has found an appreciative global audience in UNESCO.
Past Kingma Award winners
| Year | Person | From |
| 2023 | Margaret Norris | GNS Science |
| 2022 | Regine Morgenstern | GNS Science |
| 2021 | Sacha Baldwin | University of Canterbury |
| 2020 | Jane Chewings | Victoria University of Wellington |
| 2019 | Neville Palmer | GNS Science |
| 2018 | Karen Britten | GNS Science |
| 2017 | Jenny Black | GNS Science |
| 2016 | Brent Pooley | University of Otago |
| 2015 | Annette Rodgers | Waikato University |
| 2014 | Kerry Swanson | Canterbury University |
| 2013 | Marianna Terezow | GNS Science |
| 2012 | Delia Strong | GNS Science |
| 2011 | Belinda Smith-Lyttle | GNS Science |
| 2010 | David Heron | GNS Science |
| 2009 | David Feek | Massey University |
| 2008 | Iain Matcham | formerly GNS, Lower Hutt |
| 2007 | Roger Tremain | GNS, Lower Hutt |
| 2006 | Ritchie Sims | Geol. Dept., University of Auckland |
| 2005 | Steve Wilcox | NIWA, Wellington |
| 2004 | Rob Spiers | Geol. Dept., University of Canterbury |
| 2003 | Ben Morrison | GNS, Dunedin |
| 2002 | Lisa Northcote | NIWA, Wellington |
| 2001 | Dirk Immenga | Dept. Earth Sciences, University of Waikato |
| 2000 | John Patterson | School of Earth Sciences, Victoria University |
| 1999 | Louise Cotterall; Damian Walls | Auckland University; Otago University |
| 1998 | Roger Williams | GNS, Wellington |
| 1997 | Richard Garlick | NIWA, Wellington |
| 1996 | Greg Foster | NIWA, Wellington |
| 1995 | Mike Trinder | Geol. Dept. University of Otago |
| 1994 | Andrew Sutton | Geol. Dept., Victoria University |
| 1993 | No award made | - |
| 1992 | Andrew Grebneff | Geol. Dept., University of Otago |
| 1991 | Stephen Brown | Geol. Dept., University of Canterbury |
| 1990 | Vic O'Connor | Tonkin & Taylor Ltd., Auckland |
| 1989 | Stephen Bergin | Rock and Soil Mechanics Lab., University of Waikato |
| 1988 | Jane Forsyth | NZGS, Dunedin |
| 1987 | Vaughan Stagpoole | Geophysics Division, Wairakei |
| 1986 | Arthur Alloway | Geol. Dept., University of Canterbury |
| 1985 | Martin Little | Geol. Dept., University of Auckland |
| 1984 | June Cahill | NZGS, Lower Hutt |
| 1983 | Edward Pak | Geothermal Institute, University of Auckland |
| 1982 | John Mitchell | NZ Oceanographic Institute, Wellington |
| 1981 | Brad Scott; Glen Coates | NZGS, Rotorua; NZGS Christchurch |
| 1980 | Keith Calder | Geol. Dept., Victoria University of Wellington |
| 1979 | Barry Burt | NZGS, Lower Hutt |
| 1978 | John Simes | NZGS, Lower Hutt |
| 1977 | Neville Orr | NZGS, Lower Hutt |
| 1976 | Christine Whiteford | Geophysics Division, Wellington |
| 1975 | D.R. Petty | NZGS, Otara |
Ko Kingma
Jacobus (Ko) Kingma (1916-1974) came to New Zealand to join the NZ Geological Survey in the Napier District Office in 1949. This followed a colourful early life in Indonesia, a painful experience in a Japanese POW camp, and postgraduate research in Holland. During his time at the Survey he published 4 four-mile maps (more than any other geologist) and set up the Survey's Sedimentology Laboratory in Christchurch, where he worked for the last 15 years of his life.
Ko has been described as one of the most stimulating, colourful and imaginative geologists New Zealand has known. Some of his alternative ideas are to be found in his book "The geological structure of New Zealand".
Ko was the Geological Society’s third President (1957-58). Among his other research interests were fossil ostracods (MSc), taxonomy of ants, and world religions.
The Kingma Award for technicians was funded by his family in memory of Ko.
