Dr Hannah McKerchar

Hannah is a member of AJ Park’s Chembio team and helps clients with patent searching, understand if their technology is patentable, as well as patent litigation.

Expertise

Hannah sits at the intersection of research, law and commercialisation. She has specialist knowledge of proteins with particular interest in the structure and function of food proteins. She has a background in commercial litigation and practised as a lawyer in both Aotearoa, New Zealand and Australia before attaining a PhD.

Hannah was based at AgResearch while she completed her PhD at the University of Canterbury. Her project investigated crosslinks that form in food proteins during processing with a particular focus on milk proteins. She mapped and characterised nutritionally adverse crosslinks using proteomic methods and looked at the dynamic differences between goat and cow proteins in milk. 

Experience

Prior to joining AJ Park Hannah interned at the Office of the Prime Minister’s Science Advisor, with support from the Riddet Institute. Her work explored how to bridge the gap between research and policy, and she created resources to help researchers translate their work for policymakers.

Beyond work

Outside of work, Hannah enjoys swimming at the beach, knitting and eating liquorice.