Makarena Dudley and Rachel Simon-Kumar among those recognised in 2025 New Year Honours

The career of Dr Makarena Dudley (Te Rarawa, Ngāti Kahu) has been recognised in the 2025 New Year Honours.

Dr Dudley has been made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit  for services to people with dementia, particularly Māori.

She is deputy director Māori in the University’s Centre for Brain Research and a clinical neuropsychologist who has spent more than a decade focusing on mate wareware (dementia) in older Māori. She is recognised as a world-leading researcher on Indigenous health.

This year she and Sir Richard Faull set up a partnership between the Centre for Brain Research and Te Hau Ora o Ngāpuhi in Northland, putting in place a groundbreaking initiative that weaves in tikanga Māori to ensure culturally appropriate dementia care for Māori.

"Māori are overrepresented in dementia statistics and our research shows that by 2026, up to 4,500 Māori in Aotearoa will live with mate wareware. Māori have worse odds for developing mate wareware than non-Māori,” she said.

The partnership, extended due to its success, has been a transformational approach to community-based care and has crafted a Māori-centred strategy to support carers, whānau, and kaumātua living with dementia.

Dr Dudley co-leads the clinical psychology programme at the University, where she has more than doubled the number of Māori students admitted, graduating and now practising.

Full citation.

Associate Professor Rachel Simon-Kumar (School of Population Health) has become an MNZM, for services to women’s studies, health research and to ethnic communities.

Dr Simon-Kumar works in Social and Community Health and her research has shaped New Zealand scholarship on migration and multiculturalism, migrant women and adolescent health, and gender politics.

Through her research expertise, she has advocated for the wellbeing of women and ethnic communities.

She is the Co-Director of the Centre for Asian and Ethnic Minority Health Research and Evaluation at the University, and is chair of Shama Ethnic Women’s Trust Board which provides support to more than 600 ethnic women, children and families on healthy relationships, parenting, and prevention of family and sexual violence.

Dr Simon-Kumar was awarded the New Zealand Fulbright Scholar Award in 2022.

Full citation.

Associate Professor Malcolm Legget (Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences) passed away in November, but His Majesty’s approval of his MNZM took effect on 31 October 2024.

He received the MNZM for his services to cardiology, having been director of echocardiology at Greenlane Hospital (1995-2000) and as the co-founder of The Heart Group in 1997.

Dr Legget, who trained at Otago and overseas, joined FMHS in 2014, and was appointed as Associate Professor in Medicine. He made important original contributions to the understanding of the causes and treatment for people with heart disease.

Dean of FMHS Professor Warwick Bagg said at the time of his passing that Dr Legget “embraced teaching of medical students and mentored and supervised younger cardiology trainees during their career development which has ensured continued excellence of clinical care for the longer-term future.

"Malcolm had a longstanding relationship with the Heart Foundation including serving on the Board since 2016 and was instrumental in the set-up of the Heart Foundation Heart Health Research Trust which has supported the Heart Foundation Chair of Heart Health at the University of Auckland for over a decade.”

But Dr Legget also made a significant contribution to cancer treatment and research, ensuring access to world-leading treatments being available through New Zealand’s public health system.

Described in a NZ Herald obituary article as ‘no ordinary New Zealander’, Dr Legget was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer (NET) in 2011 and given a few months to live. He headed to Australia for specialised treatment that he believed should be available in New Zealand as well. In 2015 he organised a fund-raising cycle road from Cape Reinga to Wellington to raise money for the specialist scanner needed to determine if patients with NET will respond to the life-lengthening treatment, peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT). In 2021 a PRRT service was launched in Auckland, ensuring his legacy.

Read the full citation. 

Professor Helen Pilmore (Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences) who developed the University’s Renal Asynchronous teaching programme, was awarded a CNZM for her work in nephrology and transplantation services.

She has helped drive growth of transplants at the Auckland unit from 20 to more than 130 per year and has been instrumental in developing systems that have seen patient and kidney survival rates in Auckland exceeding global benchmark standards.

Full citation

Honorary Professor Peter Robert Skelton, CNZM
For services to environmental law.
(Law alumnus)

Alan Smythe  
For services to the community and philanthropy.  
(Arts alumnus), Distinguished Alumni Award winner (1999)  

Denise Astill
For services to the prevention of foetal anticonvulsant syndromes.
(Education alumna)

Dr Peter Cleave
For services to Māori language education.
(Arts alumnus)

Dr Catherine Ferguson
For services to otolaryngology.
(FMHS alumna)

Matthew Metcalfe
For services to the film industry.
(Arts alumnus, former staff)

Dr Te Tuhi Robust
For services to Māori and education.
(Education alumna, former staff)

Professor Margot Skinner
For services to physiotherapy.
(Science alumna, former staff)

Dr Karen Colgan
For services to wildlife conservation and education
(FMHS alumna)

Dr Ingrid Huygens
For services to education and Māori
(Arts, Psychology alumna)

Tania Kingi
For services to Māori and people with disabilities
(Business, Māori Development alumna)

Deborah Mackenzie
For services to victims of domestic violence
(Arts/education alumna, former staff)

Billie-Jean Potaka Ayton
For services to education and Māori
(Education alumna)

Tania Pouwhare
For services to Māori and Pacific communities, and the environment
(Arts alumna)

Associate Professor Linda Te Aho
For services to Māori and legal education
(Law alumna, former staff)

Frances Tagaloa  
For services to survivors of abuse in care alum  
(Arts/Law alumna)