Dabbling in genetics earns lifetime achievement award

Patrick Shannon

The winner of the 2008 KuDo^s Lifetime Achievement award is estimated to have brought in excess of $400 million to the New Zealand dairy farmer by improving the genetics of the New Zealand dairy herd since 1956.

In his 80s, Patrick Shannon was recognised at the annual KuDo^s awards presentation and dinner, on 23 September 2008, for his significant contribution to New Zealand’s position as a world-leader in dairying. Dr Shannon has been instrumental in developing many herd improvement programmes used by dairy farmers today – the development of liquid semen technologies, semen allocation and distribution systems, world-leading dairy sire progeny testing programmes, and sire and cow production breeding indexes.

At the other end of the career scale, Mairi Stewart was awarded the KuDo^s for excellence as an Emerging Scientist, for developing a non-invasive technique for measuring the heat in a cow’s eyeballs, which is then used to measure the stress of the animal.

Environmental Science KuDo^s award winner, Kim Pickering has looked into ways to develop sustainable materials from natural fibres, like hemp and wood. She has combined these natural fibres with plastic to make furniture, bridge-building material, skateboards and surfboards to lower the dependence on petroleum-based products.

Over 20 high school students attended the awards to see and learn about the science happening in their region.

The eight KuDo^s award winners were chosen from 67 nominees and 19 finalists:

• Patrick Shannon – Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by the University of Waikato.
• Gerard Devlin – Medical Science Award, sponsored by the Waikato District Health Board.
• Kim Pickering – Environmental Science Award, sponsored by Environment Waikato.
• AgResearch Food QSM™ Team – Agricultural Science Award, sponsored by Hamilton City Council.
• University of Waikato Digital Library Research Group – Information and Computer Technology Science Award, sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
• Elizabeth Carpenter – Science Teacher/Educator/Communicator Award, sponsored by Wintec.
• Roberta Farrell – Science Entrepreneur Award, sponsored by Waikato Innovation Park.
• Mairi Stewart – Emerging Scientist, sponsored by WaikatoLink.