'Oku ou tōmu'a fakatapu mo fakamālō ki he 'Otua. Fakatapu atu kiate kimoutolu kotoa pē. Dr Charmaine 'Ilaiū Talei traces her Pacific ancestry to the kāinga of Tatakamōtonga, Houma, Ha'alalo, and Pukotala, Ha'apai in the Kingdom of Tonga, and the moana beyond: Sāmoa, Uvea (Wallis and Futuna) and Fulaga, Lau Islands, Fiji.

Real world and Industry informed Research

Enabling a symbiotic relationship between architectural research and architectural practice is a motivation of Charmaine's work. As an architect, researcher and educator, Charmaine is a leading researcher of Pacific architecture specialising in Tongan and Fijian architectures. Charmaine works as an architectural consultant on government, community and aid projects in the Pacific region, Aotearoa, and Australia. She is also the founder of NOFO'ANGA, a research-led agency that works with Tongan diaspora to build housing in the Kingdom of Tonga.

She is a thought leader on the following topics:

• Fijian and Tongan vernacular architecture
• Culturally responsive design methodologies
• Indigenisation of the architectural profession
• Building resilient housing in the Pacific region
• Indigenous building technologies and building praxes
• Tonga’s remittance architecture
• Pacific housing wellbeing
• Tongan sociospatial behaviours
• Aid-funded projects in the Pacific region
• Pacific multigenerational housing in Aotearoa New Zealand

University and Discipline Leader

Since 2024, Dr Charmaine ‘Ilaiū Talei has served as director of Fofonga, the university platform for Pacific research excellence. She was Associate Dean Pacific for her faculties from 2023 to 2025. In 2025, Charmaine was elected by Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects to represent the Pacific region as co-lead for the Education committee, Commonwealth Association of Architects.

Over the last 4 years, Charmaine has secured $ 838,982 of research and teaching funds for the university and her school, with over 80% as external funds. She has over 44 peer-reviewed outputs and 17 quality assured publications.

Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of Auckland Responsibilities:

• Director of Fofonga: Platform for Pacific Research Excellence ( 1 July 2024 - current)
• Fonoaga Committee of Pacific University Leaders reporting to Pro-Vice Chancellor Pacific (December 2022 - current)
• Pro-Vice Chancellor Pacific appointment on the Academic Development Review Group (September 2023 - current)
• University Major Funds Steering Group (June 2025 - current)
• University Signature Research Areas Reference Group (November 2025 - current)
• The Polynesian Society, Honorary Secretary (July 2024 - current)
• Associate Dean Pacific, Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries (2023 - 2025)
• Associate Dean Pacific, Faculty of Engineering and Design (2025)

Te Pare School of Architecture and Planning Service and Research Responsibilities:

• School of Architecture Accreditation Committee: PRM Courses (Sem 2, 2022 - 2025)
• Curriculum Framework Transformation Committee: 2022 - 2024
• Architecture Professional Studies Stream Leader (Sem 2, 2022 - 2025)
• Tertiary Foundation Certificate: Architecture and Planning module co-ordinator Co-Lead (2022 - 2024)
• Faculty Equity Committee (Sem 2, 2022 - 2024)
• Tuakana Advisor Architecture (2022)
• Secondary Schools Outreach Co-Lead (2022)
• Researcher at MĀPIHI - Māori, Pacific Island and Indigenous Housing Research Centre (2022 - present)
• Scholarship selection committee for MĀPIHI - Māori, Pacific Island and Indigenous Housing Research Centre (2023)
• Researcher at Future Cities Research Hub (2023 - present)

Amanda Aaltonen is a PhD candidate in Business and Economics at the University of Auckland, with an MSc in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her work sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence, international entrepreneurship, and organizational wellbeing, exploring how technology adoption reshapes both business performance and the people behind it.

Alongside her doctoral studies, Amanda is an entrepreneur at Noaur, a technology company operating between Finland and New Zealand, bringing a practitioner's perspective to her research on startups and technology adoption.

Faramarz Abbasi (Faramarz Ebn Abbasi) holds an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language. He's studying for his PhD in Education at the University of Auckland, NZ. His research interests lie in applied linguistics and the intersection of educational psychology and L2 instruction, with a focus on individual differences. Besides publishing in several journals and presenting at international conferences, he's also a reviewer for reputable journals such as System, Language Teaching Research, and SSLA.

Please note that I am not a professor/lecturer and cannot supervise students or review CVs.

Please visit:

Find a supervisor & Apply to Study 

If you have an enquiry, visit: UoA Whakapā mai | Contact us

I currently work on several research projects, but I always welcome exciting collaborations within my areas of expertise.

Feel free to reach out via email for Academic Collaboration enquiries at:

faramarz.ebn-abbasi@auckland.ac.nz

Dr Hamid Abbasi is a bioengineering researcher at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI), Center for Brain Research, and Department of Physiology, renowned for his multidisciplinary approach to harnessing technology for medical innovation. With a background that intertwines computer science and bioengineering, he has expertise in designing computational solutions, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, for analyzing complex medical data, particularly useful for neurosurgery, cancer drug discovery, and neonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury.

He is the current Chair of ABI Early Career Researchers (ECR) committee, and an active member of ECRs Committees at the Center for Brain Research at the University of Auckland. He received his Ph.D. in 2018 in Engineering Science and holds Masters and Bachelor degrees in control, electronics, and instrumentation Engineering. He is also an active senior IEEE member and a member of the IEEE Brain community, the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology society (EMBS), and the IEEE signal processing society.

Dr Abbasi's achievements extend to his collaboration with the transdisciplinary team at Neurofanos, with dedication in developing cutting-edge image-guided technology to enhance neurosurgical navigation. Neurofanos is the spotlight winner of the University of Auckland's $100k Challenge, with the aim of delivering the next generation of neuronavigation technology. This revolutionary technology holds the promise of providing neurosurgeons with unparalleled clarity in visualizing deep brain structures, representing a significant leap forward in the field.

Among his recent accolades, Dr Abbasi is the recipient of the 2022 Royal Society Te Apārangi Cooper Award and the 2023 ABI Excellence in Research Translation Award. These awards recognize his outstanding contributions to the development of advanced technology for the automatic identification of biological markers related to hypoxic-ischemic brain injury at birth.

See the 'Research' tab above for available PhD positions with our teams.

Top distinctions/honors (selected list):

2024, New Zealand Winner for the Future AI-Startup Award - with Neurofanos 
2023, Excellence in Research Translation Award - Auckland Bioengineering Institute
2022, Royal Society Te Apārangi Cooper Award
2022, Velocity $100k Challenge's first place Award with Neurofanos (team lead).
2022, Aotearoa Brain Project collaborative ‘Bright Idea’ Award,
2022, Velocity Innovation Challenge Award with Neurofanos (team lead).
2022, Senior IEEE member Award
2021, Royal Society of New Zealand's Falling Walls Lab Award
2021, Most innovative poster at Auckland Bioengineering Institute Research Forum
2014, UniServices Commercialization Prize, Spark $100k Challenge (with BabyAware - team lead)


Grants and funding (selected)

2024 HRC Sir Charles Hercus Fellowship ($600K),
2023 MBIE Smart Ideas, Principal Investigator ($1M),
2022 HRC Programme, Associate Investigator ($5M),
2023 MedTech Research Accelerator Program, Principal Investigator ($80k),
2023 Neurological Foundation small project, Principal Investigator ($15k),
2022 Velocity $100k Challenge fund, Principal Investigator ($35k)


Committee/Professional groups/Services:
- Chair of Early Career Researchers committee at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (2023-present)
- Member of Early Career Researchers committee at the Center for Brain Research (2019-present)
- Member of Early Career Researchers committee at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (2020-present)
- Former member of Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences Post-doctoral Society at the University of Auckland - 2018
- Senior IEEE member: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
- Member of IEEE Brain community
- Member of IEEE Signal Processing Society
- Member of Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, IEEE
- Member of the Exposure organizing committee, the University of Auckland, 2014 and 2015 (Posters Team Lead)
- Member of the executive committee of the Velocity/Spark, the University of Auckland, 2015 (Research Team Lead)

Maartje Abbenhuis is a historian of war, peace, neutrality and international ideas, particularly in the period 1815 - 1918. She is the author of several books and edited collections, including: The Art of Staying Neutral: The Netherlands in the First World War, 1914 - 1918 (2006); An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics 1815 - 1914 (2014, Choice Outstanding Academic Title); The Hague Conferences in International Politics 1898-1915 (2018); (with Gordon Morrell) The First Age of Industrial Globalisation: An International History 1815-1918 (2019);  (with Prof. Ismee Tames) Global War, Global Catastrophe: Neutrals, Belligerents and the Transformation of the First World War (2021, which won the Norman Tomlinson Prize). Her latest book -The Dum-Dum Bullet: A Lethal History was published in 2026 by Cambridge University Press. She is the recipient of two Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Grants: one in 2004 for work on the borderlands of the Netherlands in the First World War and the other in 2014 for her Hague conferences project. In 2018, she spent a semester as a Residential Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies in Amsterdam.

I am a Research Fellow/Lecturer at the University of Auckland's Department of Physics and School of Chemical Sciences, with a research portfolio that spans inorganic chemistry, crystallography, and materials science. My work is particularly noted for the synthesis and structural characterization of novel compounds with potential applications in energy-efficient technologies such as hydrogen technology.

My doctoral research, supervised by Prof. Owen Curnow at the University of Canterbury, led to the synthesis of various nonclassical polyhalide and discrete chloride hydrate clusters, including ternary iodine–bromine–chlorine octahalides. These studies expanded the understanding of halogen bonding and the structural diversity of polyhalide ions and bonding of chloride hydrates. I published six research papers during my doctoral studies, and my work has been featured in leading journals such as Chemistry – A European Journal, ChemPlusChem, and The Journal of Physical Chemistry A.

At the University of Auckland, I contribute to both research and teaching. I teach courses including CHEM 120: Chemistry of the Material World, CHEM 740: Current Topics in Analytical Chemistry, CHEM 712: Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, and CHEM 710: Advanced Physical Chemistry.

Ahmed Abdelhadi is a PhD researcher in the Department of Engineering Science, where he is pursuing his doctoral studies under the supervision of Associate Professor Andrea Raith. Prior to commencing his PhD, he obtained an MSc in Software Engineering and Construction from the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) in the United Arab Emirates. During his MSc studies, he also completed several PhD-level courses in Software Construction, Software Testing, and Data Science and Mining in 2023. Earlier, in 2017, he obtained his BSc degree with Honours in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Khartoum (UofK).

From 2019 to 2024, Ahmed gained extensive professional experience in technology and education across the UAE. At Global Vision Co. in Abu Dhabi, he worked as a Technology Engineer and Training Specialist, where his work focused on robotic operating systems, algorithm development, 3D printing and modeling, and supervising and updating engineering projects. In addition, he contributed to the development of educational curricula, technical guidelines, and engineering learning materials, while also delivering training and teaching.

Between 2020 and 2024, he also served at the Ministry of Education / Emirates Establishment, contributing as a Web Developer, Software Developer, and Data Scientist. In these roles, he worked on implementing technological and innovative solutions within the education sector.

Additionally, from 2022 to 2024, Ahmed worked as a Research Associate at UAEU’s Cognitive, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics Laboratory (CIT) in Al Ain, where he also supervised research assistants. His research during this time focused on computer vision, deep learning, data science, and machine learning.

Ahmed’s current research interests focus on algorithms for bi-objective and multi-objective optimisation problems, with a primary emphasis on electric vehicles and wireless charging technologies. He is also exploring routing problems and shortest path algorithms.

During his MSc studies, his research focused primarily on artificial intelligence technologies, particularly their implementation and development in areas such as natural language processing and understanding, computer vision, and pattern recognition. Earlier, during his BSc studies, his work focused on developing embedded systems, electronic circuits, and printed circuit board (PCB) technologies.

Some recent honors and awards:

• ORSNZ 56th the Young Practitioner prize - December 2024
• The Emirates Establishment Award for Innovation in Educational AI and Technology - February 2024
• UAE innovates smart goverment award - August 2023
• UAEU Chancellor’s Fellowship Award (graduate with a full-scale GPA 4.0/4.0) - April 2023
• The Technology and Innovation Institute Grant - January 2023
• ADAI Connect Summit 2022 recognition award and seat - December 2022
• Dean’s Honour List in recognition of excellent academic performance (financial burden waiver) - maintained throughout MSc duration

Mohsen Abdoli is a PhD candidate in Operations and Supply Chain Management at the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management (ISOM), University of Auckland. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Management from the University of Mazandaran and a Master’s degree in Industrial Management with a focus on Operations and Production Management from Shahid Beheshti University—one of Iran’s most prestigious academic institutions. His academic training has provided him with a strong analytical foundation, particularly in Operations Research and optimization.

His current research focuses on the application of Optimization, Scheduling, Queuing Theory, and Simulation in healthcare systems. He is particularly interested in leveraging these methodologies to enhance decision-making, resource allocation, and patient flow within complex healthcare environments. By integrating theoretical models with practical challenges, his work aims to improve operational efficiency and service quality in healthcare delivery.

Before beginning his doctoral studies, Mohsen worked at the Health Management Research Center of the Medical Science University in Iran. This experience deepened his understanding of real-world healthcare systems and reinforced his commitment to addressing operational challenges through evidence-based research. He is driven by a goal to contribute to the development of efficient, sustainable, and patient-centered healthcare systems through rigorous academic inquiry.

Distinctions/Honours:
- University of Auckland Business School Doctoral Scholarship [2025]

Dr. Shakeela Saleem is a research fellow in Speech Science, School of Psychology at the University of Auckland. Specializing in innovative swallowing assessments and management, She focuses on adults with neurodegenerative and neurogenetic conditions, as well as head and neck cancer. As an active member of the UoA Swallowing and Voice Research Laboratory, Shakeela is committed to enhancing the lives of individuals with swallowing difficulties through advanced assessment, treatment, and medical education. Her PhD project featured a two-treatment arm clinical trial aimed at improving voice, swallow, and cough skills in individuals with Parkinson’s disease. Currently, she co-leads a randomized clinical trial evaluating the effects of expiratory muscle strength training on the swallowing function of head and neck cancer patients treated with primary chemoradiation therapy. Shakeela is also experienced in teaching and conducting dysphagia simulation training workshops. She mentors Master of Speech and Language Therapy practice students, guiding them in projects on voice and swallowing assessment and therapy approaches.

She is a registered member of New Zealand Speech-language Therapists’ Association. She also has experience working as a speech-language therapist in acute adult care at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland.

Awards/Distinctions

2025- Emerging Practitioner award for Research- Sir Don Beaven Award, New Zealand Speech-Language Therapists Association Conference, Napier, New Zealand.

2025- Faculty of Science Research Fellow Society SEED fund, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

2024- Research award (Allied Health, Scientific and Technical award ceremony) - Counties Manukau District Health Board, Auckland, New Zealand
2023- Springer Publishing bursary award -Dysphagia Research Society Annual Conference, San Fransisco, USA. 
2022- Hope Selwyn Scholarship for Ageing research in New Zealand.
2018- PhD scholarship - World Bank Project 'Accelerating Higher Education Expansion and Development' for higher education university teacher.
2017- Merit award in Master of Public Health in Epidemiology, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.
2017- Travel Grant, University of Kelaniya to present research at Asia Pacific Conference on Speech, Language and Hearing, Narita, Japan.
2015- Travel Award - Regional Asia Pacific International Moment for Autism Research (IMFAR) conference, Shanghai, China.
2014- Meritorious research award in the American Speech Language and Hearing Association annual convention, Florida, USA.
2014- Distinction Award in Diploma in Counselling, National Institute of Social development, Sri Lanka.
2013- Meritorious research award in the American Speech Language and Hearing Association annual convention, Chicago, USA.