Rate My Professor Libby Grant

Libby Grant is an Assistant Research Fellow in the He Kāinga Oranga/Housing and Health Research Programme within the Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington, as part of the Division of Health Sciences. Her academic qualifications include a BA, DipPhty, DPH, and MPH. She completed her Master of Public Health focusing on the regulation of private rental housing in New Zealand, which informs her particular interest in the role of regulation to improve the quality of rental housing. Additional research interests and activities encompass how values framing can influence change by recalibrating debates on public health issues in society and the media, urban health, and child safety on driveways. Libby Grant is affiliated with the New Zealand Centre for Sustainable Cities, where she works in the Governance Strand of the Public Housing & Urban Regeneration: Maximising Wellbeing research programme. She is a member of the He Kāinga Oranga team that was awarded the 2021 Rutherford Medal, New Zealand's top research honour, for contributions to housing and health research.

Libby Grant's key publications highlight her contributions to public health and housing policy. These include co-authoring with Sarah Bierre and Philippa Howden-Chapman 'The ideal and practice of an ethic of care in the community housing sector of Aotearoa/NZ' (International Journal of Housing Policy, 2025, advance online publication); co-authoring with Michael Keall, Vanessa Beanland, Ralph Chapman, Angela Curl, Philippa Howden-Chapman, Rebbecca Lilley, Rebecca McLean, Ed Randal, and Caroline Shaw 'Increases in speed limits: Unjust and unjustifiable' (The Briefing, 1 October 2024); contributing to Philippa Howden-Chapman and colleagues' 'He Kāinga Oranga: Reflections on 25 years of measuring the improved health, wellbeing and sustainability of healthier housing' (Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 54(3), 290-315, 2024); and co-authoring with Sarah Bierre, Marama-Ann Teariki, and Celeste Aspinall 'The sustainability of public housing: The importance of governance' (Proceedings of the State of Australasian Cities Conference, pp. 151-152, 2023). She also co-edited Improving Buildings, Cutting Carbon with Helen Viggers and Philippa Howden-Chapman (Steele Roberts Aotearoa, 2021), presenting examples of best practices to reduce carbon emissions in building construction and operation.