With Dr Amy Errmann.

In this episode of Hey Did You Know, Dr Amy Errmann, Senior Lecturer in Marketing and International Business, talks to host Mike Kilpatrick about mindfulness, attention, and the ways our brains shape consumer decisions.

This includes research into mindfulness and time perception, including how even a short meditation can make time feel longer.

She also talks about how brands and public campaigns are using mindfulness, and how mindful luxury tourism worked in in the Faroe Islands and any lessons that Aotearoa could learn from.

USEFUL LINKS

• Mindfulness - Healthify / Te Puna Waiora
• Mindful Luxury: A case of the Faroe Islands
• “Open to give”: Mindfulness improves evaluations of charity appeals that are Incongruent with the consumer’s political ideology
• Re-positioning the present moment: Effects of mindfulness on consumer behavior

COMMUNITY CALLS AND ACTION 

1. Rate & Review on your chosen podcast app 
2. Follow the show on Instagram
3. Tell us what you want to know about next: [email protected]

CREDITS

Host – Mike Kilpatrick

Editor – Mike Kilpatrick

Producer – Mike Kilpatrick  

Executive Producer – Nicola Hopkins  

Music – Clinton Watkins  

Design – AUT Brand Team

With Professor Regan Potangaroa.

In this episode of Hey, Did You Know? An AUT Podcast, AUT Professor Regan Potangaroa (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa) chats to host Susan Strongman about creating a refugee camp from scratch, being taken hostage twice, his new-found love for drone fishing, and more.

Professor Potangaroa is a recognised global expert in humanitarian engineering and Māori-centered resilience.USEFUL LINKS

• Kutupalong refugee camp  

• Canterbury Earthquakes  

• 2016 Kaikōura earthquake 

• Professor Regan Potangaroa academic profile

COMMUNITY CALLS AND ACTION 

1. Rate & Review on your chosen podcast app 
2. Follow the show on Instagram
3. Tell us what you want to know about next: [email protected]

CREDITS

Host – Susan Strongman  

Editor – Susan Strongman  

Producer – Mike Kilpatrick  

Executive Producer – Nicola Hopkins  

Music – Clinton Watkins  

Design – AUT Brand Team

With Dr Mel Johnston. 

In this episode of Hey, Did You Know? An AUT Podcast, Dr Mel Johnston, Head of Department, Sports Leadership and Management at AUT, chats to host Mike Kilpatrick about major sporting events, the upcoming FIFA World Cup and the changing role of sport in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

They discuss whether the Commonwealth Games are still relevant, why they matter for athlete development, and what a future New Zealand-hosted Games could look like. Mel also talks about the politics and economics of mega-events, including FIFA’s huge revenues, dynamic ticket pricing, sport washing and the growing influence of broadcasting. 

The conversation also explores community sport, including rising costs, volunteer shortages, access for children and the need for clubs to adapt to changing expectations. Mel shares insights from the National Sports Club Survey, including concerns about affordability and participation. 

They also discuss integrity in sport, gender equality, the growth of women’s sport, and how events such as the FIFA Women’s World Cup can create momentum for participation, visibility and investment. 

MAIN TOPICS AND DISCUSSION 

Sport Leadership and Management at AUT - 
https://www.aut.ac.nz/study/study-options/sport-and-recreation 

National Sports Club Survey - 
https://sprinz.aut.ac.nz/areas-of-expertise/sport-leadership-and-management/national-sport-club-survey 

Sport Integrity Commission Te Kahu Raunui - 
https://sportintegrity.nz/ 

FIFA World Cup 2026 - 
https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026 

Commonwealth Games - 
https://thecgf.com/ 

COMMUNITY CALLS AND ACTION 

1. Rate & Review on your chosen podcast app 
2. Follow the show on Instagram
3. Tell us what you want to know about next

CREDITS 

Host – Mike Kilpatrick

Editors – Mike Kilpatrick

Producer – Mike Kilpatrick

Executive Producer – Nicola Hopkins

Music – Clinton Watkins

Design – AUT Brand Team

With Professor Caryn Zinn.

In the thirteenth episode of Hey, Did You Know? An AUT Podcast, Professor Caryn Zinn from AUT's School of Sport, Exercise and Health, chats to host Mike Kilpatrick about differing aspects of food and how they relate to health.

As well as ultra-processed foods, they talk about the new inverted food pyramid, carbohydrates and the importance of protein - as well as the things that should be in the lunchboxes of school kids.

They also discuss insulin resistance, why dietary guidelines designed for healthy populations don't necessarily fit the needs of everyone and introduces a new AUT app.

The app - CHIPS - is AI-driven and designed to help people make better food choices. They also touch on diets, including veganism and how to select the right protein powder.

Caryn also reveals which actor would play her in a movie of her life!

MAIN TOPICS AND DISCUSSION 

New dietary guidelines from the US stir the pot - https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/thedetail/586936/new-dietary-guidelines-from-the-us-stir-the-pot

Reversing Type 2 diabetes -

https://www.aut.ac.nz/news/stories/new-research-on-reversing-type-2-diabetes

Ultra-processed foods are taking over our diets -

https://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2025/11/19/ultra-processed-foods-are-taking-over-our-diets-expert-reaction/

COMMUNITY CALLS AND ACTION 

1. Rate & Review on your chosen podcast app 
2. Follow the show on Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/autuninews/⁠
3. Tell us what you want to know about next: ⁠[email protected] ⁠

 CREDITS 

Host – Mike Kilpatrick

Editors – Mike Kilpatrick

Producer – Mike Kilpatrick

Executive Producer – Nicola Hopkins

Music – Clinton Watkins

Design – AUT Brand Team

Spiders with Dr Leilani Walker. 

In the twelfth episode of Hey, Did You Know? An AUT Podcast, Dr Leilani Walker chats to host Susan Strongman about why she once had 30 giant-jawed spiders living in her garage, sexual cannibalism in praying mantises, necrophiliac penguins... and why we should care about any of these things.

Dr Walker (Te Whakatōhea) is a senior lecturer in environmental science at AUT and curator of entomology at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. As a behavioural ecologist, she uses terrestrial invertebrate models to study sexual selection, intra-specific competition and evolution. Dr Walker’s research interests also encompass entomology and arachnology more generally, as well as equity in higher education and science.

MAIN TOPICS AND DISCUSSION 

• The man who invented day light saving time 

• Sheetweb spiders  

• The global spread of (mis)information on spiders 

• 'Sexual depravity' of penguins that Antarctic scientist dared not reveal  

COMMUNITY CALLS AND ACTION 

1. Rate & Review on your chosen podcast app 
2. Follow the show on Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/autuninews/⁠
3. Tell us what you want to know about next: [email protected] ⁠

 CREDITS 

Host – Susan Strongman

Editors – Susan Strongman

Producer – Mike Kilpatrick

Executive Producer – Nicola Hopkins

Music – Clinton Watkins

Design – AUT Brand Team 

Romantasy with Dr Yael Cameron. 

In the eleventh episode of Hey, Did You Know? An AUT Podcast, Dr Yael Cameron chats to host Mike Kilpatrick about romantasy, the book genre that’s taken the world by storm. 

During their chat Yael explains what romantasy is and talks about popular romantasy author Sarah J Maas’s popularity.

She also discusses the idea that because romantasy books tend to be queer and women friendly there may be snobbery or misogyny when it comes to talking about the genre. 

That doesn’t mean romantasy is perfect, though, and Yael talks about some of the common tropes that are seen in these books as well as great examples of where those tropes are turned on their head. 

They also talk about popular Netflix show Heated Rivalry and how important it is for people to see sports people represented as queer and the impact that can have. 

That leads to a discussion about the Superbowl half-time show and how powerful Bad Bunny’s performance was for representation – but also why it was a political statement. 

Yael finishes talking about poetry and then shares some suggestions for books to read if you’re new to romantasy. 

Warning – there may be spoilers for Sarah J Maas books in this podcast. 

Yael is a Senior Lecturer in Teacher Education in the Faculty of Culture and Society 

Using a queer and feminist lens, Yael’s work traces social, religious and mythological representations in popular culture as a way of understanding the world we live in.   

She has written about influential works like Dune, Mad Max, Finnish Noir, and Russian Resistance Poetry and also on legendary figures like Frankenstein, Medusa, and Eve. 

MAIN TOPICS AND DISCUSSION 

@sarahjmaas - The Instagram page for the author of A Court of Thorns and Roses  

Bad Bunny’s Superbowl half-time show -Watch the full show on YouTube 

Heated Rivalry - The Wikipedia entry on the wildly popular Canadian TV show 

Radiance by Grace Draven- The official website of the author of Yael’s recommended read

COMMUNITY CALLS AND ACTION 

1. Rate & Review on your chosen podcast app 
2. Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/autuninews/
3. Tell us what you want to know about next: [email protected] 

 CREDITS 

Host – Mike Kilpatrick

Editors – Mike Kilpatrick

Producer – Mike Kilpatrick

Executive Producer – Nicola Hopkins

Music – Clinton Watkins

Design – AUT Brand Team 

Science with Professor Allan Blackman. 

Summary

In the tenth episode of Hey, Did You Know? An AUT Podcast, Professor Allan Blackman chats to host Mike Kilpatrick about science and chemistry and just how important it is in today’s world. 

During their chat, Allan reveals which television show got the science correct and why one lab incident he witnessed ended with an emergency hospital trip.  

He also talks about why scientists need to be precise in the language they use and why he thinks chemistry is cool and is going to save the world. 

Allan is a Professor of Chemistry in the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences at AUT. He got his PhD from the University of Otago. 

He is dedicated to good science communication and chemistry education and is a regular on RNZ, talking about science in the news.

He is the co-author of a widely used science textbook and a YouTube series called Chemistry Matters. 

Throughout his career, his students have acknowledged his talents in chemistry education by selecting him for several teaching excellence awards. 

His own research is focused on the synthesis, structure, and reactivity of coordination complexes, especially those containing substitution-inert metal ions. 

Main Topics & Discussion 

• The most boring chemical element 
  The most boring chemical element episode of Elemental | RNZ 

• Perchloric Acid 
  The world’s scariest acid? 

• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson 

  The book that explains science brilliantly 

• Chemistry Matters – the YouTube series 
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsnOmf9_1yc 

Community & Calls to Action 

1. Rate & Review on your chosen podcast app 

1. Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/autuninews/ 

1. Tell us what you want to know about next: [email protected] 

Credits

Host – Mike Kilpatrick 

Editor – Mike Kilpatrick 

Producer – Mike Kilpatrick 

Executive Producer – Nicola Hopkins 

Music – Clinton Watkins 

Design – AUT Brand Team

Theatre, professional wrestling and Donald Trump with Professor Emerita Sharon Mazer. 

In the ninth episode of Hey, Did You Know? An AUT Podcast, Professor Emerita Sharon Mazer chats to host Mike Kilpatrick about her background in theatre and how US President Donald Trump’s rise to power has a connection to professional wrestling. 
 
They also speak about performance and whether it teaches us who we are as well as why the act of going to see a theatre performance is so important. She also offers up some of her favourite theatres in Aotearoa you might want to check out as well as discussing the reciprocity between those on stage and the audience. 

They finish their conversation talking about the role of Māori theatre. 

Sharon is a Professor Emerita of Theatre and Performance Studies in Te Ara Poutama, the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Development at AUT.  

After working as a theatre director in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland she earned her PhD at Columbia University, writing about Middle English drama.  

She has published multiple books, and you may have seen her on your screens as an expert in the Netflix documentary series Mr. McMahon. She is also an ongoing contributor to the Wrestling Darkness podcast series. 

Main Topics & Discussion  

• World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), formerly the WWF 

⁠https://www.wwe.com/⁠  

• Kayfabe – what does it mean? 

Sharon uses the word ‘kayfabe’ - ⁠what does it mean?⁠  

• The Battle of the Billionaires 

⁠It all went down at WrestleMania XXIII⁠  

• Te Matatini – traditional Māori performance art 

 ⁠https://www.tematatini.co.nz/ ⁠ 

Community & Calls to Action 

1. Rate & Review on your chosen podcast app 

1. Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/autuninews/ 

1. Tell us what you want to know about next: [email protected] 

Credits

Host – Mike Kilpatrick 

Editors – Mike Kilpatrick 

Producer – Mike Kilpatrick 

Executive Producer – Nicola Hopkins 

Music – Clinton Watkins 

Design – AUT Brand Team

The moral panic of novels and video games with Dr Tof Eklund.

In the eighth episode of Hey, Did You Know? An AUT Podcast, Dr Tof Eklund chats to host Susan Strongman about moral panic, what parents and caregivers should actually worry about if their kids are into video games, and whether the hype around generative AI is just that; hype. In between, they discuss Dungeons and Dragons, Dr Eklund’s most watched film, and which fictional character they admire the most.  

Dr Tof Eklund earned their PhD in English at the University of Florida with a thesis on time and narrative in etching and printmaking, comic books, and video games. Now a lecturer at AUT’s School of Social Sciences and Humanities, their research interests lie at the intersection of the theoretical, the subcultural, the digital, and the creative. 

A queer parent, philosophical anarchist, videogame and tabletop RPG designer, zine comics creator, speculative fiction writer, and former wine steward, Tof is "interested in everything," with the possible exception of team sports. 

Main Topics & Discussion 

• Moral panic – from novels to video games. 

• Do videogames make people violent?  

• Gamergate to Groypers: should parents and caregivers be worried if their kids are gamers? 

• Is concern around generative AI the latest moral panic? 

 Community & Calls to Action 

1. Rate & Review on your chosen podcast app 

1. Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/autuninews/ 

1. Tell us what you want to know about next: [email protected] 

Credits: 

Host – Susan Strongman 

Editor – Susan Strongman 

Producer – Mike Kilpatrick 

Executive Producer – Nicola Hopkins 

Music – Clinton Watkins 

Design – AUT Brand Team

The workplace and its impact with Associate Professor Rachel Morrison.

In the seventh episode of Hey, Did You Know? An AUT Podcast, Rachel Morrison chats to host Susan Strongman about the impact of toxic masculinity on future workplaces, how open plan offices affect women and minority groups differently, and whether a plastic plant can make you feel better.   

An associate professor at AUT’s Business School, Rachel has a background in psychology. Her current research primarily focuses on the place we all spend, on average, about 22 percent of our time, work. 

Main Topics

• Te Kaunihera Wāhine o Aotearoa National Council of Women of New Zealand 2025 Gender Attitudes Survey
• Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane E. Dutton’s Crafting a job: Revisioning employees as active crafters of their work. 
• How women’s life‑long experiences of being judged by their appearance affect how they feel in open‑plan offices by Rachel Morrison 
• Get out of my face! We’re more antisocial in a shared office space by Rachel Morrison

Community and calls to action

• Rate & Review on your chosen podcast app

• Follow the show on Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/autuninews/⁠

• Tell us what you want to know about next: ⁠[email protected]⁠

Credits

Host – Susan Strongman

Editors – Susan Strongman

Producer – Mike Kilpatrick

Executive Producer – Nicola Hopkins

Music – Clinton Watkins

Design – AUT Brand Team