New Royal Society Te Apārangi Fellows
Three AUT academics have been elected as Fellows to the Academy of the Royal Society Te Apārangi: Professor Jarrod Haar, Professor Patria Hume and Professor Denise Wilson. Being made a Fellow is an honour that recognises distinction in research, scholarship or the advancement of knowledge at the highest international standards.
The new Fellows will be formally inducted at an event in Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington on 29 April.
Professor Jarrod Haar
Professor Jarrod Haar (Ngati Maniapoto and Ngati Mahuta) is a Professor of Human Resource Management in the AUT Business School and Deputy Director of AUT’s NZ Work Research Institute.
Jarrod has an international reputation as one of the foremost Māori scholars in business and management. He uses highly complex statistical methodologies to provide robust understandings of mātauranga Māori in contemporary New Zealand workplaces. This work has influenced national and international understandings of Indigenous cultural wellbeing in the modern workplace.
Throughout his research career, Professor Haar has demonstrated the advantages of incorporating Māori worldviews and practices into organisations that would typically exclude such suggestions. Much of the existing international literature on the participation of Indigenous peoples in the labour force takes a deficit-based approach, whereas Jarrod highlights the role of cultural wellbeing and collectivism in explaining Māori experiences of the workplace.
He has made very substantial contributions to research which is relevant to both Māori and non-Māori employee wellbeing. His work on families and how to balance job and family demands is not only ground-breaking in a scientific sense, but of such practical importance to New Zealand and globally.
Professor Patria Hume
Professor Patria Hume has held leadership roles at AUT in both SPRINZ and RIO. She is an international leader in sports performance, renowned for her work using evidence-based interventions to influence best-practice policy development that aims to reduce injury and improve sports techniques for athletes around the world.
In 1999, Patria started SportSmart, a nationwide sports injury prevention programme for the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). Her collaborations with PhD students, industry partners and academics from many disciplines resulted in this programme being developed into sport-specific programmes. RugbySmart, for instance, was adopted as an annual compulsory programme for players and coaches and resulted in a significant reduction in severe neck injuries. Her team pioneered the use of novel instrumentation to collect data on player head impacts during games and training in contact sports.
She initiated the Global Rugby Health Research programme after her teams’ ground-breaking work with World Rugby and New Zealand Rugby, exploring the long-term health impacts of playing rugby. The research has indicated potential long term health consequences for head impacts and that sub-concussive head impacts need addressing. The results from these research projects have captured global attention and have helped transform concussion injury awareness and management in New Zealand and internationally.
Professor Denise Wilson
Professor Denise Wilson (Ngāti Tahinga) is Professor of Māori Health, Associate Dean Māori Advancement in the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, and Co-Director of AUT’s Taupua Waiora Māori Research Centre.
Denise is a world-leading academic contributing new knowledge to support a positive transformation in wellbeing outcomes in Aotearoa, particularly for Māori. Focused on addressing low health care engagement and family violence, her interdisciplinary research, rooted in nursing, uses Māori-centred methodologies to enhance the quality of care that Māori people receive. Her work draws on traditional and contemporary mātauranga Māori knowledge, as well as Western research methods, to challenge existing practices and inspire new solutions.
Denise’s research has been influential in reinvigorating cultural safety in the health and social sectors as it recognises the unique socio-historical contexts, consistent marginalisation and discrimination that contribute to detrimental social and health outcomes. Her work with Māori and whānau has contributed to developing the Māori nursing workforce, and the Māori nursing leadership in a new cross-government agency approach to addressing family violence and sexual violence in New Zealand that involves prevention and intervention strategies. Her work is greatly contributing to efforts to reduce health disparities of Māori and other Indigenous people globally. In 2019 she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurses.