Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Co-Director Melinda Webber is Professor of Education at Te Pūtahi Mātauranga | The Faculty of Arts and Education, Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland. Melinda specialises in Māori Education and Social Psychology and is the Aotearoa New Zealand co-director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity programme based at The University of Melbourne. She wrote Walking the space between: Identity and Māori/Pakeha (NZCER Press, 2008), co-wrote A fire in the belly of Hineāmaru A collection of narratives about Te Tai Tokerau tupuna & Ka ngangana tonu a Hineāmaru - He kōrero tuku iho nō Te Tai Tokerau (Auckland University Press, 2022), and co-edited Sociocultural realities: Exploring new horizons (Canterbury University Press, 2015) and Mana Tangatarua: Mixed heritages and biculturalism in Aotearoa/New Zealand (Routledge, 2017).
Melinda has led research with and for her iwi, hapū, and numerous educational organisations utilising a diverse range of research methods. She is committed to the revitalisation of mātauranga tuku iho and kaupapa-ā-iwi research approaches. Melinda is a daughter of Te Tai Tokerau (Ngāti Hau, Ngāti Hine, Te Paatu / Ngāti Kahu) and Rotorua (Ngāti Whakaue) and lives in Tāmaki Makaurau with her partner and daughters.