Royal Society of New Zealand elects Fellows
26 October 2016
University of Waikato Pro Vice-Chancellor (Māori) Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith is one of 19 New Zealand researchers and scholars elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Professor Smith is a Māori scholar in the social sciences whose research has re-shaped inquiry across many domains in the sciences and humanities. Her innovative research on indigenous knowledge facilitated the development and promotion of research methodologies that enable indigenous people to re-assert the integrity of their own knowledge bases and their own ways of knowing and engaging with the world.
Her research spans language revitalisation, gender and youth issues, indigenous schooling, health and resilience, and indigenous knowledge and its interface with science, marginalisation and institutional change.
“I am both humbled by this honour and reflective as I know how much I have been supported by others,” says Professor Smith.
Academy Chairperson Distinguished Professor Gaven Martin FRSNZ, also a Vice-President of the Society, says the Society seeks to increase the diversity of its Fellowship, so is delighted to be able to announce this diverse group as new Fellows of the Society.
“University academics, men and people of European descent have been over-represented in our Fellowship selections to date. We sought to address this by encouraging a more diverse pool of excellent candidates for nomination to Fellowship. We updated selection criteria and ran workshops on bias to ensure no one was disadvantaged. We are especially pleased that this approach has resulted in a more diverse group of new Fellows - selected entirely on merit -which is more representative of our community of researchers and scholars.”
The new Fellows include a majority of females – 10 out of 19 – two Fellows from Crown Research Institutes, one Fellow from a private research organisation, two Fellows with Māori ethnicity and one with Asian ethnicity.
The group also includes the first female mathematician to be made a Fellow, Professor Hinke Osinga from the University of Auckland.
“The Society will build on this and continue to seek best practice to ensure diversity within all of its activities. We certainly do not see this positive result as a case of ‘problem solved’ but rather it provides evidence that positive change can be achieved by diligence.”
The Society is also contributing to a national working group for diversity and equity issues for the New Zealand research community.
The Royal Society of New Zealand offers expert advice to government and the public, recognises excellence in research and scholarship in science, technology and humanities, promotes science and technology education, publishes peer-reviewed journals, administers funds for research and fosters international scientific contact and co-operation.