Theresa Sawicka

Dr. Sawicka has two roles: Associate Director – Research Services and Manager of the Faculty of Graduate Research (FGR) at Victoria University of Wellington. As Associate Director, she is responsible for oversight of a number of regulatory and compliance processes including the Performance-Based Research Fund evaluation of all academic staff (a Government-initiated research evaluation exercise that takes place every 6 years), and animal and human ethics. She has oversight of the University’s research policies, internal grants and its management information system. She is also responsible for overseeing the researcher development programs. In her FGR role she is responsible for oversight of the quality of the PhD through universitywide processes and programs that support PhD candidates. Her own research has focused on a group of Polish refugee children who were invited to New Zealand by the Prime Minister during World War II and were educated as Poles in NZ. She is a qualified Feldenkrais practitioner, a member of the Feldenkrais Guild executive in NZ and a member of the Australasian Training and Accreditation Board.