University of Auckland Faculty of Science
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The University of Auckland Faculty of Science (Māori: Te Whare Pūtaiao) is one of the six faculties of the University of Auckland in Auckland, New Zealand.[2] It comprises ten schools and departments and, with 9,418 equivalent full-time students in 2025, is the largest of the university's faculties by enrolment.[2][1]
Parent institution | University of Auckland |
|---|---|
| Dean | Michael Kingsley (interim)[1] |
| Students | 9,418 EFTS (2025)[2] |
| Undergraduates | 7,213 EFTS (2025)[2] |
| Postgraduates | 2,205 EFTS (2025)[2] |
| Location | , |
| Website | science.auckland.ac.nz |
The faculty is led by a dean; the interim dean is Professor Michael Kingsley.[1] His predecessor, Professor Sarah Young, became the university's Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education.[2]
Campuses and facilities
The faculty's schools and departments are based across several of the university's sites, including the City Campus, the Newmarket Campus and the Leigh Marine Laboratory.[3]
In November 2013, the faculty embarked on a NZ$200 million redevelopment and expansion of its main buildings on the City Campus.[4] Following multiple delays,[5] the Science Centre was opened in July 2017.[6] The faculty office is on level 6 of the Science Centre, in Building 302 on Symonds Street.[1]
The Institute of Marine Science operates the Leigh Marine Laboratory, next to the Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve about 100 km north of Auckland. The Dr Anneliese Schuler Aquaria Laboratory opened at the site in January 2025, in the year the adjacent marine reserve marked its fiftieth anniversary.[2] The faculty also runs two public-facing facilities: the Goat Island Marine Discovery Centre at Leigh, and the Health and Rehabilitation Clinic.[7]
Schools and departments
The faculty is made up of ten schools and departments:[1]
- School of Biological Sciences
- School of Chemical Sciences
- School of Computer Science
- School of Environment
- School of Exercise, Sport and Rehabilitation Sciences
- Institute of Marine Science
- Department of Mathematics
- Department of Physics
- School of Psychology
- Department of Statistics
The faculty also hosts the Auckland ICT Graduate School.[1]
Research
The faculty hosts two of New Zealand's Centres of Research Excellence – the Maurice Wilkins Centre for Molecular Biodiscovery, which targets serious human diseases, and Te Pūnaha Matatini, the centre for complex systems – and contributes to three others hosted elsewhere: the Riddet Institute, the MacDiarmid Institute and Te Whai Ao – Dodd-Walls Centre.[8]
At university level, the faculty hosts Ngā Ara Whetū – Centre for Climate, Biodiversity and Society, co-hosted with the Business School and the faculties of Arts and Education and of Engineering and Design.[8] Faculty-level research centres include the Centre for Computational Evolution, the Auckland SynBio Research Centre, Te Pūtahi o Pūtaiao, the Centre of Machine Learning for Social Good, the Centre for AMR Research, and the George Mason Centre for the Natural Environment, which was established with a NZ$5 million donation from the Taranaki doctor George Mason.[8][9] Individual schools and departments host further centres, among them the Centre for Green Chemical Science,[10] the Cyber Security Foundry, the Discovery Centre for Fundamental Research and the Centre for Optical Space Systems.[8]
Five of the six University of Auckland academics named in Clarivate's 2025 Highly Cited Researchers list were from the Faculty of Science: Andrew Allan, Virginia Braun, Deming Gong, Kevin Trenberth and Ziyun Wang.[2]
Teaching
The faculty's principal undergraduate qualification is the Bachelor of Science (BSc), alongside a Graduate Diploma in Science. In 2020 it introduced a four-year Bachelor of Advanced Science (Honours), aimed at high-achieving students intending to continue to postgraduate research.[11] The BSc may also be taken as a conjoint degree with arts, commerce, engineering, law, music, nursing and property programmes.[12]
Postgraduate offerings include the Bachelor of Science (Honours), postgraduate certificates and diplomas, taught and research masters degrees such as the Master of Science and the Master of Bioscience Enterprise, and doctoral programmes including the PhD and the Doctor of Clinical Psychology.[13]
In 2025 the faculty enrolled 9,418 equivalent full-time students, of whom 7,213 were undergraduates and 2,205 postgraduates, making it the largest of the university's six faculties.[2]
Official magazine
inSCight is the official magazine of the Faculty of Science. First published in 2007, it appears annually and is aimed at the faculty's alumni and friends.[14]