Harvard Horizons for Top Kiwi Scholars

Harvard Horizons for Top Kiwi Scholars

Three of Aotearoa New Zealand’s top academic achievers are heading to Harvard University on funded scholarships courtesy of the Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship.

The Knox Fellowship programme provides funding for students from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom to conduct graduate study at Harvard University. Funding is guaranteed for up to two years of study at Harvard for students in degree programmes requiring more than one year of study. There can be as many as 30 Knox Fellows at Harvard in any given year.

Oscar Botha

Oscar graduated with a Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the University of Auckland in 2023. The Knox Fellowship will enable him to undertake a Master of Architecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Oscar is interested in the interplay of affordabilty, sustainability, and liveability in architecture, and he has been able to apply his knowledge of heat transfer, thermal design, acoustics, and structural design to his work.

“My interest lies in producing positive design solutions that improve how people live, work, and communicate, while also addressing the critical impact of architecture on the environment.”

“I’m thrilled to have been awarded a Knox. It will give me the opportunity to become a part of a community of experts, and will propel my understanding of global architecture, allowing me to explore sustainable architecture for social empowerment at the highest level.”

Maddy Nash

Maddy graduated with an LLB (Hons) from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington in 2019, and, in 2020, following study on exchange, she graduated with a BCom (econ/fina).

Maddy will pursue an LLM at Harvard Law School. Although Maddy is interested in many areas of law and wishes to maintain a broad practice, she will focus on developing expertise in competition law, financial markets law, consumer law and white-collar crime through her overseas study.

“My chosen focus areas appeal to my enjoyment of solving complex problems that draw on my interests and previous study in law, economics and finance. The United States has lots of regulatory activity in these areas, especially recently. They are also areas in which New Zealand draws a lot on overseas approaches. I am looking forward to immersing myself in a different environment and bringing back what I learn.”

Alongside the Knox Award, Maddy was also the recipient of the Ethel Benjamin Scholarship for Women in Law.

Hannah Yang

Hannah graduated with a BA/LLB (Hons) from the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau in 2019. Hannah has broad legal interests, one of which is the evolution of public law in Aotearoa New Zealand and the increasing incorporation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

“Greater recognition of the Treaty as a constitutional document in our law is long overdue, seeing as it is the basis upon which the modern New Zealand state was founded. There are questions, however, as to how such recognition should be effected, and whether it is legitimate for development to continue solely through the courts.”

Like Maddy, Hannah will also be studying towards an LLM at Harvard Law School and was the recipient of the Ethel Benjamin Scholarship for Women in Law. She intends to use her time at Harvard Law School to do further study into constitutional and democratic theory, so that she can consider the bases for legislative and judicial authority, how New Zealand’s unique history affects those justifications, and what this means for how the Treaty ought to be incorporated in New Zealand law. In doing so, she hopes to contribute meaningfully to New Zealand’s Treaty jurisprudence and the direction in which the law is headed in the near future.

Find out more about the Frank Knox Memorial Fellowships.