Outstanding Early Career Reseacher

The purpose of the WMS Award for the Outstanding Early Career Researcher is to recognise and celebrate our high-achieving emerging researchers and to encourage their future scholarly contributions.

Early Career Researcher Recipients:

2022: Dr Zack Dorner Senior Lecturer in Agribusiness

The award selection panel could see Zack's significant emerging capacity as a researcher, and the strong trajectory of his research and publications.

They were also impressed by Zack's regional/national connections, including the external funding with government and industry partners, as well as his engagement with the media. The panel also commended Zack on his community service to both WMS and the wider University (for example, the ECR networks).

2021: Dr Amanda Williamson Senior Lecturer in Strategy and Innovation  

Amanda has published multiple articles in the leading journal in her field, and has active research projects and international collaborations examining the cross-directional effects between entrepreneurial behaviour, and emotions/health, employing innovative research methods like natural language processing.

Amanda teaches entrepreneurship, strategy and foresight. As well as receiving the Outstanding Early Career Researcher award in 2021, she received a Divisional Teaching Excellence award in 2020.

2020: Dr Yang Hu Senior Lecturer in Finance

Yang joined the Waikato Management School in 2019 after completing his PhD degree. His research interests lie primarily in the fields of financial bubbles, energy finance and cryptocurrencies.

Yang has published in a wide range of internationally recognised journals, including Economics Letters, Economic Modelling, Energy Economics, European Journal of Finance, International Review of Economics & Finance, International Review of Financial Analysis, Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money, Journal of Economic Surveys, among others. He is a very deserving recipient of this award.