Jacinta Arianna Ruru MNZM FRSNZ (born 1974) is a New Zealand academic and the first Māori professor of law.[1] Ruru is currently a professor at the University of Otago.[2]
Jacinta Ruru | |
---|---|
Born | 1974 (age 49–50) |
Alma mater | University of Victoria |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Indigenous law |
Institutions | University of Otago |
Thesis |
|
Doctoral advisor | John Borrows |
Website | www |
Ruru completed a Master's at the University of Otago in 2001, with a thesis on the Treaty of Waitangi and national parks in New Zealand.[3] After a 2012 Fulbright-funded PhD at the University of Victoria in Canada, Ruru returned to New Zealand and the University of Otago, rising to full professor in 2016.[4]
Ruru's research centres on indigenous peoples' (primarily Māori in New Zealand and First Nations in Canada) legal relations with land and water.[5][6] She is the co-director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga (NPM) the New Zealand's Māori Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE).[7][8]
In addition to winning the Prime Minister's supreme award for tertiary teaching,[9] Ruru has also been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.[10][11] In 2017, Ruru was selected as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's "150 women in 150 words", celebrating the contributions of women to knowledge in New Zealand.[12] In the same year she was invited to give the 10th Shirley Smith Memorial Address. Her speech was "First laws: tikanga Māori in / and the law".[13]
In October 2019, Ruru was appointed one of seven inaugural sesquicentennial distinguished chairs, or poutoko taiea, at Otago University.[14]
In 2019–20 Ruru was on the panel that wrote the controversial report He Puapua.
In the 2022 New Year Honours, Ruru was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to Māori and the law, and later that year received the University of Otago's Distinguished Research Medal.[15][16]
Ruru was born in Australia and is of Raukawa, Ngāti Ranginui and Ngāti Maniapoto descent. Her mother and both maternal grandparents were English and Australian.[citation needed]
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