Rate My Professor Giselle Byrnes

Professor Giselle Byrnes serves as Provost at Massey University, a position she has held since 2018 after joining the institution in 2016 as Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Research, Academic and Enterprise). She is an internationally recognised historian specialising in colonial and postcolonial histories, with particular focus on settler-Indigenous relationships, mechanisms of colonisation, nation and migration from postcolonial perspectives, and the contested legacy of land and power in Aotearoa New Zealand. Byrnes earned her Bachelor of Arts in History and English and Master of Arts in History from the University of Waikato in 1988 and 1990, respectively, followed by a PhD in History from the University of Auckland in 1995. Her doctoral thesis, Inventing New Zealand: Surveying, Science, and the Construction of Cultural Space, 1840s–1890s, underscores her expertise in the histories of land surveying and colonisation.

Her distinguished career includes roles as Research Historian with the Waitangi Tribunal (1995–1997), Lecturer in History at Victoria University of Wellington (1997–2007), Professor of History, Head of the History Department, and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Postgraduate) at the University of Waikato (2007–2011), and Pro Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Law, Education, Business and Arts as well as Community Engagement at Charles Darwin University in Australia (2011–2016). She served as President of the New Zealand Historical Association around 2005–2007 and was a Fulbright Visiting Professor in New Zealand Studies at Georgetown University in 2006. Key publications encompass Boundary Markers: Land Surveying and the Colonisation of New Zealand (Bridget Williams Books, 2001), The Waitangi Tribunal and New Zealand History (Oxford University Press, 2004), and as General Editor, The New Oxford History of New Zealand (Oxford University Press, 2009). Other notable works include articles on critical family history and migration (Genealogy, 2023), the utility and futility of 'the nation' in New Zealand histories (New Zealand Journal of History, 2011), and antipodean settler societies (Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 2008). In her leadership role, Byrnes drives strategies for research, teaching, learning, and enterprise, advancing equity, diversity, inclusion, and the public contributions of universities.