Christine Kenney

Christine M. Kenney is a New Zealand sociologist, and is a Distinguished Professor of Disaster Risk Reduction at Massey University. She is the first Māori woman to lead a UN international science caucus.

Academic career
Kenney affiliates to Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Toarangatira, and Ngāi Tahu iwi. Kenney completed a PhD titled Me aro ki te ha o hineahuone: women, miscarriage stories, and midwifery: towards a contextually relevant research methodology at Massey University in 2009. Her research was supervised by Cheryl Benn, Suzanne Phibbs and Taiarahia Black. Kenney then joined the faculty of the School of Psychology at Massey University, rising to full professor in 2022, when she was appointed the university's inaugural Professor of Disaster Risk Reduction. She is the Director of Te Toi Whakaruruhau o Aotearoa, the EQC Mātauranga Māori Disaster Risk Reduction Research Centre, a role she was appointed to at the centre's launch in 2021. In July 2024 Kenney was one of two Massey professors newly appointed as Distinguished Professors, with the citation acknowledging her "exceptional work in indigenous disaster risk reduction created a new research field".

In 2021 Kenney was invited to lead the United Nations international Indigenous Disaster Science caucus. Her appointment was requested by the International Science Council and 'key United Nations agencies'. She is the first Māori woman to lead an international science caucus at the UN. She works with the Whorld Health Organisation, and several United Nations agencies, including UNDRR, UNESCO and UNOCHA.

Kenney’s research focuses on disaster risk reduction, climate change, community resilience and humanitarian issues. Kenney was an associate investigator on a 2016 Marsden grant led by Professor Steve Matthewman at the University of Auckland, titled Power Politics: Electricity and Sustainability in Post-Disaster Ōtautahi (Christchurch). She was the sole investigator on a 2017 grant Māori, Catastrophic Events, and Collective Development of Culture-based Disaster Management Theory and Practice. In 2022, she was one of three principal investigators on the Marsden grant Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua: Translating Mātauranga Māori, usefully applied in the past, to enhance recovery trajectories in the future, alongside Suzanne Phibbs and Professor Te Kani Kingi of Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi.