Congratulations go to Phillipa Mills who was recently presented with the NZGS Young Geotechnical Professionals Fellowship award.  This is awarded to the author of the best paper by a New Zealand representative at each Australia-New Zealand Young Geotechnical Professionals conference.  Pip presented her paper at the 11th ANZ YGP Conference in Queenstown at the end of October, talking about her work seeking to develop an understanding of the constitutive behaviour and failure mechanisms in the highly sensitive volcanic soils in the Bay of Plenty.  The award is intended to assist her to attend a future YGP conference overseas.

A special mention also goes to two other kiwi presenters who were highly commended:

• Romy Ridl, University of Canterbury of for her work in looking at topographical influences on in-situ stresses and deformations in the Cromwell Valley.
• Hamish McEwan of AECOM, Hamilton for his work in developing an understanding of the geology in a foreign country and training local geologists in site investigation techniques.