Alison Downard

Alison Joy Downard is a New Zealand academic, and has been a full professor at the University of Canterbury since 2009. Her work focuses on surface chemistry, electrochemistry and nanoscale grafted layers. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, has received the R. H. Stokes Medal, and was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Rennes 1.

Education
Downard attended Te Puke High School. She went to Otago University to study home science but ended up graduating with a Bachelor of Science in electrochemistry in 1979 instead.

Academic career
After a PhD titled Electron transfer reactions of organometallic clusters at the University of Otago, Downard moved to the University of Southampton, followed by a two-year postdoctoral associate position at UNC Chapel Hill from 1986. In 1988, she moved to the University of Canterbury, rising to full professor in 2009.

In 2017, Downard was featured as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's 150 women in 150 words.

Downard works as part of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology. Downard's research on chemical modifications to surfaces at the nanoscale has enabled new electrodes to be discovered. Her findings have implications for energy storage. She collaborates with the Condensed Matter and Electroactive Systems (Matière condensée et systèmes électroactifs MaCSE) team at the University of Rennes 1 and frequently travels to Rennes for this research.

Awards
In 2014, Downard was awarded the R. H. Stokes medal by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. The same year she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Rennes 1.