My name is Roma Mere Roberts. I am a New Zealander of Pakeha and Māori (Tainui; Ngati Apakura,Ngati Hikairo,Ngati Koroki Kahukura) descent.
I have a B.Sc.(Canterbury, and an M.Sc and Ph.D from the University of Auckland. In 1972 I was appointed as Junior Lecturer in Zoology, then seconded to teach in Anatomy Dept. School of Medicine, including co-ordination of the academic mentoring programme for Māori and Pacific medical students. In 1992 I moved to the School of Biological Sciences, where I developed and co-ordinated a new paper Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science. Awarded a Commonwealth Universities scholarship to study Indigenous peoples’ traditional environmental resource management in Canada. In 1996 I transferred to the School of Environmental & Marine Sciences as a lecturer in Māori Resource Management. During this time I also worked pro bono as a scientific advisor to the Ngatiwai Trust Board.
From 1997-1999 I was seconded to Auckland Museum as Creative Director of the new Māori Natural History Gallery (NHG/Te Ao Tūroa) and currently serve as advisor for the new Māori NHG. In 2000 I was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship for studying indigenous environmental perspectives in Canada and Hawaii. In 2004 appointed Head of Science at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi in Whakatane where I was responsible for an undergraduate science programme teaching both mātauranga pūtaiao and science as part of Bachelor of Environmental Management degree. Resigned in 2008 due to my husband’s ill health and returned to Auckland University as an Honorary Research Fellow in Anthropology. Retired in 2010. In 2020 appointed Honorary Academic to the School of Biological Sciences, to assist with the introduction of mātauranga and pūtaiao programmes in the Faculty of Science.