The winners of the Prime Minister's Science Prizes were announced at Te Papa on Thursday.
The six recipients will share $1 million worth of prize money, half of it going to the top award, the Prime Minister's Science Prize, which was won this year by Paul Moughan and Harjinder Singh.
They are co-directors of the Riddet Institute, a research center which works on food science and human nutrition.
Other awards included the future scientist prize, which went to Hannah Ng, 17, for research into shortsightedness.
The prize for the best science teacher went to Peter Stewart from Papatoetoe High School, the Science Communicator Prize was won by New Zealand Association of Scientists president Shaun Hendy.
James Russell won the Emerging Scientist Prize.
