Aya Morris (left) and her first equal co-author Dr Bernadette Baird-Zars
Aya Morris – a Fulbright Scholar’s journey in Sustainable Development
Massey University alumna Aya Morris was honoured with the 2022 Fulbright New Zealand Scholarship, which enabled her to join a research team at Columbia University in New York City. As part of her Master of Sustainable Development Goals programme at Massey, she focused on sustainable development and resilience in coastal communities.
As a young parent living in the Far North District then, Aya Morris chose to study with Massey in 2003 after learning of the university’s strong distance learning option. In 2013, she graduated with a Bachelor of Psychology, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Education Psychology in 2016.
Aya attributes her interest in environmental sustainability to her early life experiences living in one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most economically deprived districts. She grew up in Kohukohu, a village located on the Hokianga Harbour, where she was 12 before mains electricity was connected to her home. Before then, Aya and her family lived with alternative energy, including a wind generator and solar panels, and kept livestock and planted fruit orchards and vegetable gardens.
In 2019, while attending the Festival for the Future, an annual summit on leadership and innovation for impact, Aya saw Professor Chris Gallavin talk about the new Masters of Sustainable Development Goals programme. This, along with the people she was working alongside at the Far North District Council, inspired her to continue her education, and she enrolled in the first intake of the programme.
With her Fulbright NZ Science and Innovation Graduate Award in 2022, Aya conducted her research in sustainable development and resilience in coastal communities at Columbia University in New York City as part of her Master of Sustainable Development Goals.
In February 2023, Aya returned from her Fulbright scholarship at Columbia’s Climate School. This experience helped her earn her master’s degree with distinction, specialising in Environmental Sustainability.
She recently co-authored an article now published in the academic journal Geoforum, available here: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1jML0_OL2Antm.
“Many thanks to The Fulbright Programme and Fulbright New Zealand, Te Tūāpapa Mātauranga o Aotearoa me Amerika for the opportunity to travel to the USA as a visiting researcher. Thanks also to everyone from Massey University and the Institute of Development Studies (Massey University) for all the support before, during and after my research fellowship,” Aya shares.