The address
The symposium opened with remarks on research leadership and strategic direction from Professor Amirhosein Ghaffarianhoseini, Associate Head of School (Research), and a karakia. He then gave the presiding address as Head of School, setting out what the morning was for and how the School wanted its research to be read: not as a list of projects, but as a body of work with a shape and a direction.
The programme moved through seven research presentations, from rooftop solar deployment in New Zealand and the carbon cost of office renovation cycles to resilient neighbourhoods under flood risk, Te Kura o Rata, and vibration based monitoring of ageing and earthquake damaged infrastructure. He closed the formal programme by presenting the SoFE Research Excellence Awards 2026 and the PhD Awards 2026 with Sherif Beskhyroun, Amirhosein Ghaffarianhoseini and Stacy Vallis.
Most research showcase days end with a list of projects. Ours ended with a map.
His reflection on the symposium, LinkedIn
The argument
His reflection afterwards made a leadership claim rather than a celebratory one. Resilience in a school, he wrote, is not produced by the language of a strategy document. It comes from the depth, breadth and coherence of the research base, and from the capacity to respond to changes in policy, funding, technology and social need while still holding a clear direction.
The symposium was designed to make that visible. Sustainability, artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, indigenisation, buildings and infrastructure, resilience engineering and the future of the built environment were presented as one connected landscape, drawn as a network of research themes linking to research impact, community engagement and practical contribution. The image is deliberate: a school whose work connects in this way can absorb external shocks, because no single funding stream or policy setting holds it up.
Context
The symposium formed part of AUT Research Week, 31 August to 4 September 2026, and led directly into the GDI 2026 Industry Chapter and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture session the following week. Both rest on the principle he set out for the School’s research: it matters most when it changes thinking, practice, policy or places beyond the university.
For a Head of School in his first year, the occasion carried a second purpose. Awards for research excellence and for doctoral work signal what an institution values. Presenting them himself, at the close of a morning built around connected research, tied recognition to the kind of work he wants the School to do more of.