Catherine Reid

Catherine Mary Reid is a New Zealand palaeontologist, and is a full professor at the University of Canterbury, specialising in palaeogeography of waterways and the evolution and ecology of bryozoans.

Academic career

Reid earned a Master in Science at the University of Auckland in 1996, where she was awarded a Hastie Scholarship by the Geoscience Society of New Zealand. Reid then completed a PhD at the University of Tasmania on aquatic invertebrates called bryozoans in Tasmania, New South Wales and Southern Thailand, supervised by Clive Burrett and Pat Quilty. Reid joined the faculty of the University of Canterbury, rising to full professor in the School of Earth and Environment in 2024.

Reid is interested in the ecology and evolution of bryozoans, and how changes in ocean chemistry impact on them, and has researched these internationally. In New Zealand, she investigates the geological history of waterways and estuaries, using sedimentology and microfossils to investigate the human impacts on these areas. She is a member of the Waterways Centre, a joint research initiative between Lincoln University and the University of Canterbury to improve freshwater management.

Reid was an associate investigator on a 2021 funded Marsden grant titled Avian diversity in the aftermath of the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/Pg) mass extinction: Zealandia as a hub for the evolution of marine birds, and led by Vanesa De Pietri at Canterbury. Reid was part of a team investigating ancient penguin fossils, including the recently discovered Kupoupou stilwelli.

In 2014 she served as secretary on the national committee of the Geoscience Society of New Zealand.

Selected works