Rate My Professor Nathan Kenny

Dr Nathan Kenny, of Te Ātiawa and Ngāi Tahu descent, serves as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry and Associate Dean (Māori – Research) for the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Otago. He began his academic journey at Otago, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and a Diploma in Languages (German) in 2008, followed by a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Genetics in 2009. His honours project, supervised by Professor Peter Dearden, investigated NMDA receptors in rotifers. Kenny then pursued a Doctor of Philosophy in Zoology at the University of Oxford, completing it in 2014 on a Clarendon Scholarship. His doctoral research focused on the mechanisms of left-right asymmetry during development in molluscs.

Following his PhD, Kenny held postdoctoral positions at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Natural History Museum in London—where he was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship in 2017—and Oxford Brookes University. At the latter, he applied single-cell sequencing to study regeneration in annelid and platyhelminth worms. In 2021, he returned to the University of Otago as a Rutherford Discovery Fellow in Biochemistry, leading the IDEA lab. His fellowship project examines the molecular underpinnings of resilience to climate change stressors, such as thermal stress and ocean acidification, in the green-lipped mussel (Perna canaliculus or kuku). This work supports sustainable aquaculture and kaitiakitanga through collaborations with iwi and Genomics Aotearoa. Kenny's research spans evolutionary genomics, phylogenetics, and evolutionary developmental biology in invertebrates, utilizing tools like genomic sequencing, single-cell RNA and ATAC sequencing, bioinformatics, and embryological assays. Key publications include co-authorship on "Independent origins of spicules reconcile paleontological and molecular evidence of sponge evolutionary history" in Science Advances (2026), "Multimodal single cell analyses reveal gene networks of planarian stem cell differentiation" in Nature Communications (2025), and "Impacts of marine heatwave stress and harmful algal exposure on subadult green-lipped mussels" in Ecotoxicology & Environmental Safety (2025). He has contributed to public discourse through seminars on genomic research partnerships and Māori data sovereignty.