Tauranga's Jenny Arnold has graduated from The University of Auckland after completing a thesis looking at gambling.
Ms Arnold, who lives in Tauranga, graduated with a Master of Public Health with Honours on September 29.
Her Masters research looked at issues around public health and gambling in New Zealand.
In particular she was curious about the conflict in the way people speak about gambling and public health, and wanted to avoid making gamblers the subject of her study.
Her thesis, The Colonising Work of Gambling in New Zealand: How the Discourses Frame the Public Health Approach and Position the Practitioner, sought to identify how gambling talk, policy and text has colonised public health theory and public health staff into supporting the presence of gambling in society and assuming the gambler is the seat of the problem.