for the design of their gas cleaning system, the Torbed Reactor. The research also contributed key information toward the development of the industry guide to minimise fluoride emissions. In 2011, Professor Hyland and her team produced the first comprehensive and practical guide to fluoride emissions management which has allowed smelters worldwide to reduce fluoride emissions. Research for this guide directed by Hyland was acknowledged as having a "profound impact on how environmental mitigation measures and emission control systems are developed and applied to the primary aluminium industry." Responses to public issues When a paper by Professor Anne-Marie Brady of the University of Canterbury, presented as a supplementary submission to Parliament's justice select committee in 2020 claimed New Zealand universities had links to Chinese universities and could be assisting technology transfer useful to the Chinese military, Hyland as one of many academic leaders who disputed this, said that "Victoria University had stringent measures to ensure work undertaken by the university's staff and researchers complied with New Zealand's legal and compliance frameworks... where some of our potentially sensitive technology areas are concerned, due diligence informs our decisions to work with partner organisations – this holds true in regard to the Chinese organisations named in the article. She concluded: "There are many universities and organisations based in China, which are conducting high-quality, non-military research and, along with other research institutions, we are working to partner with some of these organisations, with the knowledge that the research will be used in safe and appropriate ways." In February 2021, when the New Zealand Herald noted the considerably reduced number of PhD students coming from overseas because of border restrictions due to the Government's response to COVID-19, Hyland said that this would have a major impact across the entire university system and that "PhDs are an incredibly important part of our research workforce...[and]... a drop in enrolments would also affect research projects run in collaboration with private bodies and Crown research institutes." Invited positions and distinctions Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge (SfTI). Hyland was appointed as the inauragual director of this initiative which brought together 13 research organisations and over 100 researchers to "enhance New Zealand's capacity to use physical sciences and engineering for economic growth." At her farewell on 26 February 2017, SfTI management presented Hyland with a pounamu blessed by Dr Te Taka Keegan, who said it was important that she received