Rate My Professor Elissa Cameron

Professor Elissa Cameron (Ngāi Tahu, Ōtākou) serves as Head of the School of Biological Sciences in the Faculty of Science at the University of Canterbury, a position she has held since July 2021. She was promoted to full Professor there in November 2018. Her academic journey began with master's research at Christchurch’s Orana Wildlife Park in 1992, followed by a PhD in Ecology from Massey University in 1999, with a thesis titled Maternal investment in Kaimanawa horses. Cameron conducted extensive field research in Africa for seven years, studying meerkats, zebras, lions, and giraffes. She directed the Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria from 2006 to 2010 and worked at the University of Tasmania for five years as Professor of Wildlife Ecology. Her research specializations encompass mammal behavioural and evolutionary ecology, focusing on wildlife such as Tasmanian devils in Australia and Kaimanawa wild horses in New Zealand.

Cameron investigates cryptic social bonds and friendships among animals, demonstrating through Kaimanawa horse studies that these relationships enhance reproductive success and drive behavioural changes akin to those in humans, influenced by companions and environment. She has elucidated biological mechanisms biasing offspring sex ratios, revealing roles of maternal condition—including glucose levels—and paternal fertilisation timing in horses and mice. Ongoing work examines possum learning via observation and giraffe sensory ecology alongside mole-rats. A leader in conservation, she co-chairs the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission Giraffe and Okapi Specialist Group and served on the Tasmanian Devil Programme Steering Group from 2012 to 2018. Cameron earned the University of Canterbury Research Medal in 2022 and was elected a Ngā Ahurei a Te Apārangi Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2025 for her wildlife biology and conservation contributions. As Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Zoology, she advances the field. Notable publications include Social bonds between unrelated females increase reproductive success in feral horses (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2009) and Stallion harassment and the mating system of horses (Animal Behaviour, 1999). She promotes equity and diversity in science through mentoring.