Our graduates build careers in many areas of science and technology within New Zealand and overseas. We offer the BSc degree, and our BSc (Hons), MSc and PGDipSci programmes combine taught papers and research and we have a strong PhD programme.
We are a highly productive group carrying out interdisciplinary research at the frontiers of our disciplines. We have extensive international collaborations and an impressive history of commercialising our results.
Massey University researchers, led by Professor Shane Telfer, have received $1.5 million to explore the potential of a material that could perform tasks like capturing carbon dioxide directly from air to help mitigate global warming.
Ministry for Business, Innovation and Enterprise - 2017
$1.5 million funding from Catalyst Strategic Fund
Robert McLachlan was awarded a prestigious James Cook Fellowship by the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2012. The fellowships are awarded to researchers who have achieved national and international recognition in their area of scientific research.
Royal Society Te Aparangi - 2012
James Cook Fellowship
Professor Geoff Jones was awarded the Littlejohn Research Award by the New Zealand Statistical Association in 2016. The Award is the Association's senior research honour. It recognises original statistical research published in the last five calendar years.
New Zealand Statistical Association - 2016
Littlejohn Award for Massey statistician
A project led by Dr Jennifer Tate received $929,000 for a project to determine if there are genomic "rules" to successful polyploid speciation.
Royal Society Te Apārangi - 2018
Marsden funding for allopolyploid research
Dr David Winter received $300,000 funding for the project 'Treasure from the junk pile: Do transposable elements drive the evolution of gene expression?'
Royal Society Te Apārangi - 2018
Marsden funding for gene expression research
Professor Murray Cox was awarded $925,000 from the Royal Society's Marsden Fund to research what fraction of genetic change actually causes a corresponding change in phenotype.
Royal Society Te Apārangi - 2017
Marsden funding for genotype research
Professor Martin Hazelton was awarded $535,000 from the Royal Society's Marsden Fund for the research project 'Lattice polytope samplers: theory, methods and applications'.
Royal Society Te Apārangi - 2017
Marsden funding for lattice polytope sampler research
Dr Helen Fitzsimons was awarded $795,000 from the Royal Society's Marsden Fund for the project 'A new role for HDAC4 in neuronal morphogenesis and memory'.
Royal Society Te Apārangi - 2017
Marsden funding for neurone research
Professor Geoff Jameson and Professor Bill Williams were awarded $935,000 from the 2018 Royal Society's Marsden Fund for the research project 'Pectin methylesterases: turning pectin function with complex variations upon a simple theme'.
Royal Society Te Apārangi - 2018
Marsden funding for pectin research
Dr David Simpson, along with Professor Paul Glendinning of the University of Manchester, received $500,000 for the project 'Organised chaos: Using geometry to explain robust chaotic dynamics in switched dynamical systems'.
Royal Society Te Apārangi - 2018
Marsden funding for switched dynamical systems
Massey University biochemist Kathryn Stowell was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2015 for her discovery of a novel gene variant in the rare genetic disorder Malignant Hyperthermia.
New Year Honours - 2015
ONZM for life-saving research
Professor Emeritus David Penny received one of the highest honours in the science world in 2017, being named a National Academy of Sciences foreign associate. The academy is an American-based institution that recognises achievement in science by election to membership for outstanding contributions to research. Its membership has included the late Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein.
National Academy of Sciences - 2017
Professor Emeritus named National Academy of Sciences foreign associate
In 2007 Distinguished Professor Robert McLachlan was awarded the Dalquist Prize. This international award recognises original contributions to fields in the area of numerical analysis as applied to differential equations.
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) - 2007
SIAM Dalquist Prize
Professor Murray Cox has been awarded the Te Rangi Hīroa Medal by the Royal Society Te Apārangi for his work decoding how past societies lived through their genetic data. The Medal recognises excellence in the social sciences and was established in memory of Sir Peter Buck.
Royal Society Te Apārangi - 2017
Te Rangi Hīroa Medal
My MSc in biochemistry has opened many doors to the science industry.
Amanda Gribble - Quality Control Leader, Lion
Master of Science (Biochemistry)
A degree in chemistry from Massey University is held in high esteem internationally.
Anushree Sen Gupta - Senior Technician, AsureQuality
Bachelor of Science (Chemistry)
The environment at Massey is really friendly and supportive and there are lots of opportunities for meeting other people working in the field.
Ashley Way - Massey PhD student
Master of Science(Nanoscience)
My MSc training made me a better microbiologist, who values good research practices, innovative science, ethical decision making, effective communications, and scientific contributions to society. I would highly recommend the MSc programme to others.
Caroline Kim
Master of Science (Microbiology)
I would highly recommend the MApplStat to anyone interested in furthering their understanding of statistics and hoping for a career in (applied) statistics.
Catherine Lloyd-West - Statistician - AgResearch
Master of Applied Statistics
My supervisor, Professor Stowell, was brilliant throughout my PhD. She gave me all the support I needed and helped me find solutions for the various problems we ran into during my time at Massey. She had an open door policy and I was always able to discuss issues when needed.
Cornelia Roesl - Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh
PhD (Biochemistry)
Studying at Massey gave me a strong background and exposure to coding and using statistical software which has definitely come in handy, along with a strong background in regression and predictive modelling techniques which make up a large component of my work these days.
Dominic O'Halloran - Analyst, Quantium
Postgraduate Diploma in Science (Statistics)
I have always been passionate about numbers so choosing to study a BSc that was numbers-related was an easy decision for me.
Emily Hendy - Insights Analyst - Lotto NZ
Bachelor of Science (Statistics)
The flexibility of the BSc programme at Massey was one of the big positives of Massey for me. It allowed me to take a rather circuitous route to choosing my major, switching a couple times, from nutrition to biochemistry, before finally deciding to go with nanoscience, which is now my passion.
Haidee Gao - PhD student
Bachelor of Science (Honours) (Nanoscience)
I like the variety in the study of chemistry. There’s lots of different directions you can go in, and always something new to learn
James Stevens - Jurox (Australia)
Master of Science (Chemistry)
I love detail and complexity. I love pulling apart systems and the underlying logic to see what really makes them tick. I find it absolutely exciting to develop models which emulate real-world behaviours.
Jay Ta'ala - Grade Simulation Specialist - BHP Billiton
Bachelor of Science (Mathematics)
I’m paid an excellent salary, I’m given access to the world, my software runs on three billion devices worldwide, the developer ecosystem using my code exceeds 10 million developers and my office outlooks the countryside in beautiful New Zealand.
Jonathan Giles - Technical Lead / Software Engineer Oracle
Master of Science (Computer Science)
I chose Massey, as I knew that it would take me further than just a degree.
Kim Green - PhD student
Bachelor of Science (Honours) (Genetics)
My study prepared me well for my next physics venture, which involved starting up Magritek, a joint venture between Massey and Victoria.
Mark Hunter - Research Scientist – Magritek
Master of Science (Physics)
Physics always struck me as the most interesting of the sciences and the majority of scientists who I really look up to are all physicists. Studying at Massey was worthwhile as there was a lot of learning about things that are used in the real world.
Motoko Kakubayashi - Press Officer - Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, University of Tokyo
Master of Science (Physics)
The School of Fundamental Sciences is located on the Manawatū campus in Palmerston North.
Massey University Fundamental Sciences
Science Tower A1.19
Colombo Road
Palmerston North 4410
New Zealand
Attn xxxxxx
Massey University Fundamental Sciences
PN461 Private Bag 11222
Palmerston North 4442
New Zealand
Attn xxxxxx
We offer a design and repair service for electronic equipment for teaching and research.
Repair: we can repair a wide variety of scientific equipment which involves electronics such as:
Design and manufacture: We have experience in one-off design, development and manufacture of speciality equipment for teaching and research.
For more information contact us (06) 356 9099 ext 7267.
Statistical consultancy service from the Statistics and Bioinformatics group. We provide advice to researchers within Massey University as well as private organisations.
The MMIC facility is available for use by organisations such as researchers, Crown Research Institutes, other teaching institutions, hospitals and commercial clients. We offer transmitted light and fluorescence microscopy, electron microscopy and image analysis and have a professional team of specialists to help you with your microscopy needs.
Massey Genome Service provides DNA & RNA sequencing services to New Zealand researchers and students.
Equipment in this laboratory includes a
The Laser Laboratory includes optical tweezers, light scattering, and Raman spectrometer.
This laboratory includes equipment for molecular biology, protein expression and purification.
We have solar cell construction and performance testing facilities.
There are a wide range of spectrometers as part of the equipment on the Manawatū campus including
Laboratory includes the Rigaku Spider X-ray diffractometer, a microfocus rotating-anode generator with wrap-around detector (unique in Australasia) that is optimised for small molecule crystallography on microcrystals, powder diffraction and high resolution protein crystallography, crystallisation robot, microfocus rotating-anode generator, image-plate detector and capillary optics, optimised for small protein crystals.
The Centre combines state-of-the-art crystallographic, NMR, computational, biochemical, and biophysical approaches to study biomolecular structure, dynamics and interactions.
The centre houses New Zealand's finest collection of NMR spectrometers (700, 500, 400 and 200 MHz) along with a a new Xray diffraction suite.
Our research seeks to understand the molecular basis of plant-pathogen interactions so that we can better inform disease resistance breeding programmes in crop and tree species of relevance to New Zealand.
The head of the School of Fundamental Sciences, Professor Hazelton is a professor of statistics. His research interests are in smoothing methods, biostatistics, spatial statistics and statistical modelling.
The School Fundamental Sciences is one of six interconnected schools within the College of Sciences.
