Rate My Professor Christina Ergler

Associate Professor Christina Ergler serves in the School of Geography within the Division of Humanities at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. She holds a Diplom from the University of Bonn and a PhD from the University of Auckland, completed in 2013. Her career trajectory at Otago includes positions as lecturer and senior lecturer before her promotion to associate professor. Ergler supervises postgraduate students on topics encompassing urban social and environmental justice, wellbeing, liveable cities, and physical and social mobilities. She teaches courses such as ENVI 111 Environment and Society, GEOG 215 Urban Geography, GEOG 280 Research Methodology in Human Geography, and GEOG 465 Geographies of Justice.

Ergler's research intersects geography, sociology, and public health, with a focus on geographies of health and wellbeing. She investigates relationships between wellbeing, place, and lived everyday experiences, emphasizing children's play, independent mobility, urban design, social norms, and environmental injustices. Current projects include co-designing research on water and play with primary school children and exploring pre-schoolers' evaluations of their city. Notable publications include the book 'The Power of Place in Play: A Bourdieusian Analysis of Auckland Children's Seasonal Play Practices'; 'The death and life of urban public spaces: an atmospheric analysis of spatial reclamation by young people' (2026, Children's Geographies); 'Belonging in urban park and playgrounds: Wellbeing perspectives of disabled children and their families' (2025, Wellbeing, Space & Society); and 'Sustainability as a relational value in early childhood: The power of nature play, joy and local place identity' (2025, Journal of Outdoor & Environmental Education). Her scholarship has garnered over 1,800 citations, influencing fields of children's geographies and health geography. Ergler received the Royal Society Te Apārangi Early Career Research Excellence Award for Social Sciences in 2022 and the University of Otago Early Career Award for Distinction in Research in 2021. Through creative and participatory methodologies, her work advances socio-spatial justice and sustainable urban environments.