Postgraduate Research Symposium
| Date: | Tuesday 1 Sep, 9:30am - 5:30pm |
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| Location: | AUT City Campus WG Building, WG306 + WG308 Auckland New Zealand |
Join us for the annual Postgraduate Research Symposium.
This event provides an opportunity for our postgraduate research and doctoral students to share their research with fellow students, AUT staff and the wider community. This year’s event will open with a keynote presentation before continuing onto sessions that feature oral presentations, creative works, and posters by postgraduate and doctoral research students.
The day will also feature an engaging panel discussion on publications. We're thrilled to be joined by Dr Amy Errmann, Dr Tangaroa Paul, Jay Nagalingam, and Donna Coventry, who will be sharing their experiences around publication with us.
Keynote address
We’re thrilled to have Associate Professor Megan Phillips (Waikato-Tainui) as our keynote speaker at this year’s event. Megan is an AUT alumna, and retail and sensory marketer and behavioural scientist. She is an Associate Professor in AUT’s Department of Marketing & International Business, within the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law, and is committed to mentoring and shaping the next generation of researchers and thinkers. Her keynote address at the 2026 Postgraduate Research Symposium is titled, “The Places We Go”.
Oh, the Places We'll Go!
Where can postgraduate research take you? And who might you become along the way?
Inspired by Dr Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go!, Associate Professor Megan Phillips reflects on her journey from a 20-year-old postgraduate student at AUT, uncertain of where study might lead, to an academic career spanning research, teaching, leadership, Indigenous scholarship and community impact.
Through stories of unexpected opportunities, rejection, persistence, changing research identities, intellectual loneliness and the people who help us along the way, this keynote explores the realities of navigating postgraduate research and academic life. It also asks students to think beyond where their research might take them, towards deeper questions: who are we accountable to? whose knowledge counts? what is worth changing? and who do we bring with us?
Ultimately, Oh, the Places We'll Go! is a reflection on research as a journey that is rarely linear, and never entirely travelled alone.
Refreshments will be served at this event.