SAM’S NEW MAN
There’s a new man melting the heart of Newshub anchor Samantha Hayes, and he couldn’t have more in common with the nature-loving journalist. The striking redhead is dating handsome scientist Jacob Anderson ,a paleoclimate geologist, who has embarked on four Antarctic expeditions.
Hayes, 32, first met Anderson in 2014 and their paths crossed again last year while Hayes was doing a story on the scientists unearthing Antarctica’s past to predict the future.
Spy spotted the pair in Queenstown at Clicquot in the Snow this month — when Hayes hit the catwalk for the first time in designer Kathryn Wilson’s alpine show — but she would not confirm the relationship until this week. “Jacob and I have known each other for ages and earlier this year we reconnected when I was doing a story on Sir Peter Blake and he was working for the trust. We’re taking things one day at a time and enjoying life,” she told Spy.
They are both over-achievers. Hayes has traversed the globe as a journalist and now sits in the main seat at 6pm, Anderson is no shrinking violet. He is the environmental programme manager for the Sir Peter Blake Trust and manages the Young Blake Expeditions, Blake Ambassadors and the Environmental Educator and science outreach initiatives.
Anderson obtained his BSc in Earth Science at Massey University and his MSc in Geology at the University of Otago, where he held an AINSE Postgraduate Research Award.
He is now doing his PhD at Otago and his research focuses on past Antarctic climate and ice sheet behaviour. As well as the Antarctic journeys, he has been on two expeditions to the Auckland Islands as part of the Department of Conservation yellow-eyed penguin monitoring programme and on the 2016 Young Blake Expedition.