Cate Macinnis-Ng

Catriona M. O. Macinnis-Ng is a New Zealand ecologist, and is a full professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in the effects of climate change, especially drought, on plants. She has been awarded a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship, the Roger Slack Award, and the Miriam Dell Award for Excellence in Science Mentoring.

Academic career
Macinnis-Ng completed her undergraduate training in Sydney, before undertaking a PhD titled In situ monitoring of toxic pollutant impacts on the photosynthesis of the seagrass Zostera capricorni Aschers  at the University of Technology Sydney. Macinnis-Ng held several research fellowships in Australia, before returning to New Zealand with her family in 2010. She joined the faculty of the University of Auckland in 2015, rising to full professor in 2024.

Macinnis-Ng was president of the New Zealand Ecological Society from 2017 to 2019. During her presidency she instituted a mentoring scheme that had mentored more than fifty members by 2023. Macinnis-Ng also mentors within the University of Auckland's Women in Science Programme, and serves on the Royal Society Te Apārangi Council.

Macinnis-Ng is a principal investigator in the Te Pūnaha Matatini Centre of Research Excellence. She was awarded a Marsden Fast-Start Grant in 2012 to research the ecophysiology of kauri trees, with respect to possible effects of drought and climate change.

Honours and awards
In 2014 Macinnis-Ng was awarded a University of Auckland Early Career Research Excellence Award. She was awarded a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship in 2015 to research the impact of drought on native forest ecosystems. She was awarded the Roger Slack Award in 2016 by the New Zealand Society of Plant Biologists. In 2023 she received the Miriam Dell Award for Excellence in Science Mentoring from the New Zealand Association for Women in Science.