Rate My Professor Sarah Bierre

Dr Sarah Bierre is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, Wellington, within the Health Sciences Division. She earned a BA (Hons) First Class in politics and geography from Victoria University of Wellington and a PhD in Public Health from the University of Otago. As a core member of He Kāinga Oranga – The Housing and Health Research Programme, Dr Bierre employs qualitative and critical methodologies to examine how housing policy, politics, and law shape inequalities in access to affordable, secure, and decent housing, with a particular emphasis on the rental sector. Her research addresses key issues such as eviction and health outcomes, occupancy limits, cooling practices for disabled people, and the ethic of care in community housing. Currently, she leads a strand of work on governance, wellbeing, and public housing under an MBIE-funded programme focused on maximising wellbeing in public housing. Dr Bierre is open to supervising Masters and PhD students in these research areas. In 2025, she received a University of Otago Research Grant (UORG) for her work in the Health Sciences Division.

Dr Bierre's scholarly contributions include numerous peer-reviewed publications. Recent works feature 'The ideal and practice of an ethic of care in the community housing sector of Aotearoa/NZ' (International Journal of Housing Policy, 2025, with L. Grant and P. Howden-Chapman), 'Setting maximum occupancy limits in rental housing: landlord control and tenant experience' (Housing Studies, 2025, with E. Johnson et al.), 'Staying cool at home: Cooling practices, barriers, and possibilities for disabled people's experiences of managing summer heat in Aotearoa New Zealand' (Energy Research & Social Science, 2025, with R.K. Dohig et al.), and 'A snapshot of a fragmented landscape: Homelessness law and policy in Aotearoa New Zealand' (The Routledge Handbook of Global Perspectives on Homelessness, Law & Policy, 2024, with B. Fraser et al.). Earlier publications cover 'Framing home injury: opportunities and barriers to regulating for safer rental housing in Aotearoa/New Zealand' (Housing Studies, 2023), 'He Kāinga Oranga: reflections on 25 years of measuring the improved health, wellbeing and sustainability of healthier housing' (2023), and 'The theory and practice of a politics of compassion in the private rental sector during the COVID-19 pandemic' (International Journal of Housing Policy, 2022). Her research informs policy discussions on housing standards, health equity, and regulatory reforms.