Rate My Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith

Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith is the Professor of Biological Anthropology and Head of the Department of Anatomy in the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Otago. She earned her BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and her PhD from the University of Auckland in 1996 with a thesis on mtDNA variation in the Pacific rat as a model for human colonisation in prehistoric Polynesia. Her research focuses on biological anthropology, particularly the use of ancient and modern DNA techniques from humans and commensal animals—such as rats, dogs, pigs, chickens, and guinea pigs—to reconstruct human migration pathways, population histories, and settlement patterns in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. The Matisoo-Smith lab investigates the origins of Pacific peoples and their associated plants and animals, increasingly linking these histories to contemporary health issues like cardiometabolic risks, hyperuricaemia, and gout in Pacific populations. She chairs the Biological Anthropology Research Group and maintains extensive international collaborations, including with the National Geographic Genographic Project, where she served as Principal Investigator for the Oceania/Pacific region, partnering with indigenous communities to gather genetic data.