Ihi Heke is indigenous Māori and was raised in the mountain environments of New Zealand’s South Island. During the past 40 years Dr Heke has variously guided mountain bikers, skiers and outrigger paddlers. Dr Heke also has post graduate degrees in Environmental Management, educational psychology and a PhD in indigenous population health. Dr Heke’s most recent research focus has been utilising Systems Dynamics to help indigenous groups build health and wellness activities through traditional environmental knowledge. Dr Heke was also awarded a research grant by Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore) combining Systems Science and Maori Environmental Connections. Over the last several years Dr Heke has been consulting to Google X and recently developed a VR180 Māori environmental experience reel with a particular interest in high performance sport. More specifically his work has been looking at converting elite athletes into environmental champions by teaching them how to be environmentally centred rather than athlete centred in the ways that they train and evaluate elite performance.

Key Research areas

• Ancestral Māori concepts of health obtained from the environment
• Production of Indigenous ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) AI powered plug ins.
• Environmental connections between climate change, well-being, indigenous ways of knowing and high performance sport.

Dr Nathan Elsworthy is a Senior Lecturer in Exercise and Sport Sciences at Central Queensland University (CQUniversity) since 2017, teaching in the Skill Acquisition and Motor Control units. Prior to this, he was a Lecturer at Victoria University. Nathan’s research has encompassed the physical, physiological and decision-making demands of team sport officials, and he has completed projects in elite officiating groups, including World Rugby, Australian football league (AFL), Women’s national basketball league (WNBL), National rugby league (NRL) and A-league soccer. Further to this, Nathan also has ongoing projects examining the fluctuations in neuromuscular status and well-being measures in National basketball players (via Cairns Taipans), and sub-elite NRL players, and well as international rugby union players (Tonga rugby).