Announcing Professor Tapsell as the inaugural Director of the Institute of Kāika Climate Resilience

Mō tātou, ā, mo kā uri a muri ake nei!

Tēnā koutou katoa! Te Whare Wānaka o Aoraki Lincoln University is pleased to announce the appointment of Māori social science researcher and academic, Professor Paora (Paul) Tapsell (Ngāti Whakaue and Ngāti Raukawa), as inaugural Director of the Institute of Kāika Climate Resilience. Professor Tapsell began his role at Lincoln University on 8 January 2025. 

In this new role, Professor Tapsell’s primary responsibility will be to develop and establish the Institute. He will provide leadership and guidance in creating the vision and research direction of the Institute bringing together leading researchers both within Lincoln University and beyond. The institute will tackle challenges facing our kāika and find practical, novel solutions using the best approaches from mātauraka, western physical and social sciences, artificial intelligence and other technologies. He will also provide academic leadership and mentoring while developing relationships across the University to serve kāika.

Professor Tapsell is currently a Principal at Takarangi Research, a Professorial Fellow of Heritage & Museums Studies at Australian National University and has been an Adjunct Professor with the Faculty of Environment, Society and Design at Lincoln University. Professor Tapsell is also a Companion of the Royal Society Te Apārangi and the Principal Investigator of Marsden Fund research Kūmara: Uncovering new narratives about settlement, histories and kōrero of Aotearoa.

Professor Tapsell has had extensive senior leadership experience across university and museum sectors, including Director (Māori) at Auckland Museum through the 2000s then Dean and Professor Māori Studies at Te Tumu (Otago University) up to 2017. He was briefly Director of Research and Collections at Victoria Melbourne Museums before taking up Professor of Australian Indigenous Studies at University of Melbourne. With the onset of COVID, he returned home to better serve his people, using Takarangi Research and www.maorimaps.com to assist in reconnecting urban-raised generations of Māori and their ancestral marae communities or kāika.

To date, Professor Tapsell’s research has been focused on social science and Mātauraka (whakapapa-framed knowledge) across kāika (marae communities and their urban-living kin) in Aotearoa and the wider Pacific, regarding issues of heritage protection, water security, food sovereignty and impact of climate change on health/wellbeing of tangata, whenua and taoka.

“We are delighted to appoint someone with the mana of Professor Tapsell to lead the new institute. His academic standing ensures that we will meet Lincoln University’s strategic intent to implement a research institute that brings together Māori research excellence and oversees transformational research on kāika climate-resilient futures including mana whenua research priorities,” says Lincoln University Provost Professor Chad Hewitt.

For media enquiries, email media@lincoln.ac.nz.