15 March 2010 Scholar from both ends of the earth to Lincoln University

An internationally acclaimed scholar who researches Arctic communities has been appointed to a senior teaching role at Lincoln University.

Dr Emma Stewart is the new Senior Lecturer in Parks and Tourism, bringing recent experience in the UK and Canada and a wealth of international awards.
 
Dr Stewart has twice been a commonwealth scholar, the first time coming from Britain to study at Lincoln University in the mid 1990s. She went on to teach at the University of Glamorgan in Wales, then spent six years in Canada completing her PhD.
 
Her doctoral research in Arctic Canada focused on resident attitudes to tourism and saw her awarded the Canadian Governor General’s Gold Medal. That work has been recognised and extended by an award of $250,000CDN from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, to support research beginning this August into the impact of climate change on cruise tourism and how this may affect aspects of Inuit life.

Her other awards include an award for the best PhD thesis in geography in Canada, Canadian academic innovation and excellence awards and scholarships, including being awarded a prestigious four-year Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation doctoral scholarship.
 
Dr Stewart says her return to Lincoln University feels like coming full circle. 
 
“I have returned to New Zealand with my Kiwi husband and two young children, one born in the UK, one in Canada,” she says. “When I was a Masters student here, I was privileged to be involved in two social science projects based at Scott Base in Antarctica. They instilled in me an interest in tourism and polar places and led to my eventual PhD study in the Arctic, where I lived alongside northern residents. It has been incredible to have experience of both polar regions and learn lessons from both.
 
“Cruise tourism is the main mode of transport to both polar regions and the sinking of the MS Explorer off the Antarctic Peninsula in November 2007 means there are some critical questions to be asked, particularly relating to climate warming.  
 
“I am also interested in the impacts of cruise tourism on the Canterbury region, since it’s clearly a growth sector. It would be useful to understand more fully the impact of the sector here.”
 
Dr Stewart has been working on two books over the past couple of years, one a state of the art review of tourism research in the polar regions and the other more specifically on polar cruise tourism. Both books are due to be released shortly.