2020 New Zealand SAGE Award winner:
Tayla Hill
Tayla Hill (Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Mutunga) was embarking on her MSc thesis at the University of Otago at the time she was awarded the 2020 NZ SAGE Award.
Tayla was initially planning to conduct a geophysical field survey on the Dun Mountain Ophiolite for this project, and was looking forward to being able to apply the skills she learned at SAGE in the field back home in Aotearoa. However, the advent of COVID in early 2020 put a halt to both SAGE and to Tayla’s original project.
Tayla subsequently completed her MSc on another geophysics-focussed project, specifically understanding preconditioning and triggering of submarine landslides offshore from Wairarapa, and has just begun a job as an Engineering Geologist at Aurecon.
Now, with the SAGE camp once again on offer, and international borders opening up, Tayla will finally be able to attend SAGE in June 2022. While there, she’ll get experience in new techniques of geophysical exploration and research, and bring back fundamental skills that she can apply in her career here in Aotearoa-NZ.
Past New Zealand SAGE Award winners
| Year | Person | University |
| 2019 | Laura Hughes | Victoria |
| 2018 | Clarrie Macklin | Victoria |
| 2017 | Not awarded | - |
| 2016 | Sam Taylor-Offord | Victoria |
| 2015 | Ashleigh Fromont | Auckland |
| 2014 | Ben Ross | Otago |
| 2013 | Anton Gulley | Auckland |
| 2012 | Not awarded | - |
| 2011 | Richard Davy | Victoria |
| 2010 | Katharina Unglert | Victoria |
| 2009 | Not awarded | - |
| 2008 | Jessica Johnson | Victoria |
| 2007 | Not awarded | - |
| 2006 | Not awarded | - |
| 2005 | Anna Leslie | Otago |
| 2004 | Not awarded | - |
| 2003 | Emma Davies | Canterbury |
| 2002 | Michelle Salmon | Victoria |
| 2001 | Huw Horgan | Victoria |
| 2000 | Michael Finnemore | Canterbury |
New Zealand SAGE Award
The Summer of Applied Geophysical Experience (SAGE), is a unique ‘hands-on' geophysical educational programme held yearly over a four-week period in June/July in New Mexico. It is conducted by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a Branch of the Institute of Geophysical and Planetary Physics, University of California.
SAGE aims to enhance the experience and knowledge of students of geophysics in an intense course of geophysical exploration and research that goes beyond classroom-based curricula. Much more than just a summer field camp, SAGE is a complete immersion in geophysics, an educational experience in which students participate in every phase of the field and interpretation programmes.
SAGE participants are chosen globally, and since 2001 one enrolment to participate in SAGE has been available to a student from New Zealand.
Funding for the New Zealand SAGE Award is provided by the Geoscience Society of New Zealand, GNS and the EQC.
