IYNT NZ
IYNT NZ is the national organising committee of the New Zealand Young Scientists Tournament. They are responsible for choosing the problems, organising the tournament, taking entries, appointing jurors for the NZYST. They are also responsible for selecting the team members and team leaders for the IYNT each year.
Contact Details:
Murray Chisholm (021) 1389907
Chairman of IYNT NZ:
Murray Chisholm is Assistant Head of Science at Wellington High School. He has been involved in NZYPT since 2008 as WHS team leader and as a juror. Wellington High School have participated in the National Finals of NZYPT frequently in the last 8 years and were the 2018 National Champions.
Murray took a team to the first Junior Young Physcists' Tournament (JYPT) in Sydney in 2010. The JYPT was organised to give students under the age of 16 experience in a physics tournament. This was so that they would be better prepared for the tournaments used to select the IYPT teams of Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea. Murray was the JYPT President in 2011 and director of the tournament held that year. He took teams from WHS to the first 7 editions of the JYPT, finishing runner up 3 times and in 3rd place twice.
Looking for a way to expand the tournament concept beyond physics, Murray took a team to the 5th International Young Naturalists' Tournament in Nanjing in 2017. The whole team representing NZ were from Wellington High School, and they won. In 2018 a second team from Wellington High School traveled to Tbilisi for the sixth IYNT and placed 3rd.
Murray was tournament director of the first NZYST held in 2019 at Wellington High School. He then organised the selection and preparation of the New Zealand team for the 2019 IYNT in Minsk. The NZ team won the tournament.
Chair of NZYST 2022 Organising Committee:
Natalie Ayriss
email: NZYoungScientists@gmail.com
Natalie Ayriss has been involved in NZYST and IYNT since the start. She set up a team at Kristin School for the first NZYST in 2019. The team came 2nd and had a team member selected for the NZ team for the IYNT in Minsk. Natalie travelled to the 7th IYNT in Belarus as team leader after preparing the NZ team at training camps and online during winter 2019. In 2021 Natalie again entered teams in NZYST. Four of her students were chosen to represent New Zealand in the 9th IYNT in Almaty. She again was team leader with the team finishing third and bronze medallists in the virtual science tournament.