New appointment: Welcome Jenny Lee-Morgan – Professor of Māori Research

Jenny Lee-Morgan – Professor of Māori Research

Jenny Lee-Morgan has been appointed Professor of Māori Research, responsible for leading our Strategic Focus initiative on Māori Research.

Associate Professor Lee-Morgan, who takes up her new role this month, has worked closely with Unitec in the past. Along with Rau Hoskins, lecturer in Architecture at Unitec, she is currently co-leading Te Manaaki o te Marae: The role of marae in the Auckland housing crisis; a significant Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua – Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities project funded by the National Science Challenge. The kaupapa Māori research project is based at Te Puea Memorial Marae and includes a focus on the work of the Manaaki Tāngata team led by Hurimona Dennis on rehousing homeless whānau.

“We’re delighted to welcome Jenny to Unitec and are very excited at the potential her appointment offers us in the expansion of Māori research,” said Marcus Williams, Director of Research and Enterprise at Unitec.

“Off the back of the success of our formal partnership with Nga Pae o te Māramatanga, Te Manaaki o te Marae project and Ka Rewa: Māori Innovation Symposium, we are making strides in Māori research and look forward to the significant contributions we will continue to make,” he added.

Associate Professor Lee-Morgan was most recently Deputy Director of Te Kotahi Research Institute (TKRI) at the University of Waikato. TKRI was the inaugural recipient of the Health Research Council of New Zealand’s Te Tohu Rapuora award, which recognises a significant contribution to Māori health excellence and leadership at the Royal Society Te Apārangi Awards October this year.

Prior to her role at TKRI, Jenny was the Head of School of Te Puna Wānanga, the school of Māori Education at The University of Auckland. A qualified Māori secondary school teacher, Jenny has also worked in the community, tertiary and business sectors with a focus on teaching and learning and Kaupapa Māori research. Her doctoral study Ako: Pūrākau of Māori Teachers’ Work in Secondary Schools (Lee, 2008) was seminal in the methodological development of pūrākau as narrative inquiry. Her forthcoming co-edited book with Dr Joann Archibald and Dr Jason Santolo is entitled Decolonising Research: Indigenous Storywork as Methodology. The New Zealand section will extend on her initial pūrākau work, and is due to be published by Zed Books next year.

In 2016, Associate Professor Lee-Morgan was awarded Te Tohu Pae Tawhiti award by the New Zealand Association for Research in Education in recognition of her high-quality research and significant contribution to the Māori education sector.

Her most recent co-edited book, Decolonisation in Aotearoa: Education, Research and Practice (Hutchings & Lee-Morgan, 2016) presents a broad, decolonised agenda for Māori development and won Te Kōrero Pono (non-fiction category) in the Ngā Kupu Ora Aotearoa Māori Book Awards 2017.

“I am very excited about Jenny’s appointment as it marks another step towards an ongoing commitment by Unitec in the development and implementation of an ambitious Māori Success Strategy,” said Glenn McKay, Tumu Tauwhirowhiro Māori and Executive Director of Student Success at Unitec. “This will make a difference for Māori and it will make a difference for Unitec.”