The Trustee of the Yvonne A M Smith Charitable Trust is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2009 Yvonne A M Smith Charitable Trust Scholarship is Brigid Te Ao McCallum Livesey (“Biddy”).
Biddy will be studying a Master of Science in Urban Management and Development at Erasmus University, Rotterdam in the Netherlands at the Institute for Housing & Urban Development Studies.
Biddy is currently working for the Ministry for the Environment as part of an inter-departmental project group working on sustainable urban development.
Biddy obtained a double degree from Victoria University of Wellington: a Bachelor of Arts in Te Reo Maori and a Bachelor of Science in Ecology and Bio-Diversity, with an A average.
Biddy’s talents in sciences and the arts and her vision for the sustainable, diverse and inclusive development of New Zealand’s cities, greatly impressed the interview panel and they chose Biddy out of 40 applicants to be awarded the $50,000 Yvonne A M Smith Charitable Scholarship.
Biddy has now completed her postgraduate studies and is taking on new challenges. Read more about Biddy's progress 
Grant winners
The quality of applications to the scholarship this year was extremely high. Accordingly, (with the generosity of Yvonne Smith), the interview panel decided that three further grants would be awarded.
A grant of $10,000 was awarded to Anna Jane Bradley, a previous Judge’s Clerk and current prosecutor, who will be undertaking a Master of Laws at Harvard Law School, focusing on criminal sentencing guidelines. Anna has also been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship.
A $10,000 grant was also awarded to Deb Rowe who is a neo-natal nurse undertaking a PhD in Health Science at the University of Auckland, focusing on determining what a safe nursing culture is and how it can be embedded into the practice of nursing in New Zealand public hospitals.
$10,000 was also awarded to Vanessa Burrett, current president of the YWCA Hamilton, who is studying a Master of Social Science in Psychology at the same time as a Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Psychology at the University of Waikato. Vanessa is studying the assessment of risk and treatment of intellectually disabled sex offenders.
