Fisheries key contacts

Dr Richard O'Driscoll

Chief Scientist - Fisheries

Richard specialises in research aimed at improving estimates of fish abundance using acoustics, trawling, and complementary technologies. Since attaining his PhD from the University of Otago in 1997, he has had extensive sea-going and practical fisheries experience both in New Zealand and overseas, including the Antarctic. Richard is the immediate past chair (2017-2019) of the ICES Working Group on Fisheries Acoustics Science and Technology. He has worked at NIWA since 2000 and is currently a programme leader for NIWA's National Centre for the Fisheries Assessment and Monitoring programme.

Jeremy McKenzie

Principal Scientist - Fisheries

Dr Bradley Moore

Fisheries Scientist

Dr Matt Dunn

Principal Scientist - Fisheries

Matt has a Ph.D. in fisheries from the Business School at University of Portsmouth (UK), worked in fisheries research at CEFAS (UK), and then moved to New Zealand in 2003 to work for Victoria University of Wellington and NIWA. Matt is a leader of NIWAs Assessing Fishery Resources programme. The research Matt conducts is mostly fish stock assessments, involving quantitative fisheries data analyses and population modelling. Matt has also worked on fish biology, impacts of climate on fisheries, and food webs and ecosystem models. Matt has conducted reviews of stock assessment research for agencies in Australia, Europe, South America, and the USA.

Dr Darren Parsons

Principal Scientist - Marine Ecology

Darren completed a BSc and MSc at the University of Auckland where he studied the movements of snapper within the Goat Island Marine Reserve. Darren then completed a PhD at North Carolina State University where he investigated the indirect effects of recreational fishing on spiny lobster. Since 2006 Darren has been at NIWA, where he has worked on a range of fish ecology and inshore fisheries projects. In 2017 Darren was co-appointed through the University of Aucklands Joint Graduate School in Coastal and Marine Science.

Darrens research interests centre on fish ecology and understanding how it is modified by human induced stressors such as fishing, land-based effects and climate change. Darren is particularly interested in fish life-history, movement, behaviour and personality, and how fisheries select and modify these aspects within fish populations. Darren has existing projects investigating: (i) nursery habitat association in juvenile snapper, (ii) the effects of ocean acidification on snapper larvae, (iii) the age structure of inshore fish populations such as snapper and trevally, and (iv) inshore trawl surveys of the Hauraki Gulf and Bay of Plenty.

Dr Jennifer Devine

Fisheries Scientist

Lisa Bragg

Personal Assistant

Currently working as Personal Assistant to the following Chief Scientists:

Fisheries - Richard O'Driscoll; Oceans - Mike Williams; Climate Atmosphere and Hazards - Andrew Tait; Te Kūwaha - Erica Williams; HPC and Data Science - Kameron Christopher.

David Kopp

Contracts Manager