Emily "Penny" Penick is a full-time PhD candidate at the University of Waikato, where her research applies permaculture principles to funding relationships in Aotearoa's performing arts. She explores how "companion industries" might function like companion planting—where non-arts sectors and creative practice support each other's growth.

With prior experience spanning performance, finance, and large-scale events, Emily brings cross-sector fluency to her research with funders, practitioners, and policymakers. She is especially interested in how systems shape everyday experience, and how creative and cultural work might be better supported in ways that are sustainable, humane, and responsive to real lives.

Alongside her doctoral work, she contributes writing and research to Good Magazine and is developing Dirty House, a regenerative building initiative in partnership with Richard Young Architecture. Based in Aotearoa, New Zealand, Penny lives off-grid and enjoys running the dogs, surfing, and tending the garden with her husband.