Meet Kate Moloney - our 2024/2025 Sadie Balkind Awardee

I grew up in Waitaha Canterbury and am proud to call it home. I’m in my final year of a Masters in Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury with a focus in conservation genomics, which is all about how studying the entire genomes of species can help us protect them. Specifically, I’m looking at the genome of the Chatham Island black robin, also known as karure or kakaruia.

Like many of Aotearoa’s threatened species, the black robin is reliant on costly conservation management to survive, and the resources – time, money, and expertise – for such management are increasingly scarce. My research is part of a collaboration between UC and Massey University that explores how we can incorporate data from today’s most high-quality genomic tools (like new DNA sequencing technologies) into ecological models of population growth that inform future management. In doing so, we hope to mitigate a common pitfall of conservation genomics, which is a lack of translation between what genomics researchers like myself and my team find out and what actually happens in conservation programmes like those for the black robin.

Through my Masters, I have had the opportunity not only to work with one of Aotearoa’s most beloved taonga species, but also to directly engage with the Chatham Island communities for whom the black robin is a core part of their identity. This has been the most rewarding part of it all. After completing my degree, I want to continue finding ways to bridge the gap between highly technical fields like genomics and the people, species, and ecosystems they are designed to help, by pursuing a career in research and science communication.

Receiving the 2025 Sadie Balkind scholarship is a huge honour that will allow me to make the most of my research this year and dedicate more of my free time to public outreach and my leadership role within the biology student community at UC. All of this will better equip for the work I hope to do in the future. Many thanks to GWC for your generosity!