Summary from the Cyclone Gabrielle Research Symposium

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Dr Sally Anderson is the Scientific Services Manager for Market Access Solutionz Ltd and is based in Wellington. Sally has over 15 years’ experience designing, managing, and implementing science research programmes for New Zealand’s horticultural sector. This includes co-ordinating the Vegetable Research & Innovation Board, managing Summerfruit, Citrus and Onions R&D programmes.
Sally has a science background and holds a and PhD from the University of Auckland, with over 10 years of research experience in environmental ecology, molecular biology, and microbial ecology, with prior roles at NIWA (now Earth Sciences NZ) and the Wellington School of Medicine.
Leading the science services portfolio at MAS, Sally works to support clients with technical advice in plant health research, biosecurity, crop protection, export market access.
As the Vegetable Research & Innovation Board co-ordinator, Sally worked alongside industry stakeholders to secure funding from MPI NIWE fund to support the vegetable, fruit and arable sectors to carry out monitoring post-Cyclone Gabrielle to better understand how highly productive land recovers from these extreme weather events. These learnings and those from other agencies were showcased at the Cyclone Gabrielle Research Symposium, held on the 19-20th November 2025. Sally will summarise the symposium and its findings.

