Dr. Ward is currently a Senior Lecturer in Physiology and Principal Investigator of the Muscle Cell Function Research Group at the School of Medical Sciences, in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland. Dr. Ward's research expertise is in applying spectrofluorometric techniques to measure ionic fluxes in multicellular muscle preparations, isolated cells and intracellular organelles. These techniques are combined with high-resolution mitochondrial respirometry for the real-time analysis of OXPHOS and ROS and the immuno-histological examination of key proteins in fixed tissue using confocal and STED microscopy. Investigations are conducted on muscle preparations from animal models of disease and from multicellular human atrial tissue freshly obtained from consenting patients undergoing routine surgery. Dr. Ward is the Deputy Director of the New Zealand Society for Medical Sciences Inc. She is a member of the Physiological Society of New Zealand and the International Society for Heart Research, Australasian section.