Alumni News September 2024

**A round up of Alumni News from our September 2024 Explorer newsletter.**

Isobel Ewing (Inspiring Explorer 2017) and her partner embarked on a cycling expedition in July, starting in India. Their journey took them along the Srinagar-Leh Highway to Srinagar, then to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, including a loop into Kazakhstan, and finally to Tbilisi, Georgia, where they spent a month in the Caucasus mountains.

Ihlara McIndoe (right) and musicians at the ‘A Musical Journey to Antarctica’ concert, 2022. ©AHT/Anna Clare

Ihlara McIndoe (Inspiring Explorer 2020) has been accepted to Columbia University (US) for their doctoral programme.

2017-18_TAE Hut_Conservators At Work_AF_002_web

Mike Burgess (Conservation Contractor 2017) and the team at Architectural Metalformers were recently recognised at the Roofing Association of New Zealand’s ‘NZ Roof of the Year Awards’, where the two homes they entered placed first and second. Mike worked with our Conservation team on the Ice during the 2017-18 season, weather-proofing the roof of Hillary’s TAE/IGY hut.

McMurdo Station winter staff at the screening of Polheim, with Sarah Bouckoms (front, left) and Mike Dawson on screen.

Sarah Bouckoms (the Trust’s former Public Engagement Officer) organised a screening of the Trust’s documentary film Polheim, which follows the 2022 Inspiring Explorers Expedition™ to the South Pole, for staff wintering-over at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Sarah, who is currently stationed there, invited US Antarctic Program staff from Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and New Zealand’s Scott Base to join the event remotely. The film was well received, and the audience had engaging questions for Mike Dawson (Inspiring Explorer 2022, and the film’s cinematographer), who joined remotely for a post-screening Q&A.

Since February 2024, Annick Vuissoz (Conservator 2014-15) has been a project conservator and lab manager at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. She’s currently preparing a new Ancient Egypt exhibit in a visible lab within the “Stories We Keep” exhibit, allowing public viewing of conservation work on artefacts including coffins and a large funerary boat. Previously, Annick managed a refugee shelter in Switzerland, applying her conservation skills to assist with medical care, social support, and administrative procedures in this different environment.

A new paper by Drs. Mark Mabin and David Harrowfield NZAM (Trust Inaugural Executive Officer) has been completed and is expected to be published later this year. For many years, researchers have tried to locate the message post placed on the Possession Islands during H. Bull’s whaling expedition (1895). It was last reliably seen in 1903. Now, using a combination of historic archives, USAF aerial photography (1983), and GIS, researchers believe they have located what may be the earliest human structure in the Ross Sea region.

Kaitlyn Martin and Lawrence Rothwell (Inspiring Explorers 2023) have continued to develop their own explorer mindsets and encourage the spirit of exploration since returning from South Georgia. Both recently volunteered as Watch Assistants aboard the tall ship Spirit of New Zealand, supporting the Spirit of Adventure Trust’s mission to empower young New Zealanders by helping to look after and challenge forty teenagers (16-19 years old) as they learned about sailing, leadership, themselves, and life at sea.