Elizabeth Macpherson

Elizabeth Jane Macpherson is a New Zealand academic, of Pākehā descent and is a full professor at the University of Canterbury, specialising in indigenous water rights in Australasia and Latin America. She was awarded a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship in 2023 to work on the legal frameworks around blue carbon.

Academic career
Macpherson completed Master of Arts and LLB degrees at Victoria University of Wellington, and a PhD at the University of Melbourne. Macpherson then joined the faculty of the University of Canterbury, rising to full professor in 2024. She is a principal investigator in the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge, where she researches ecosystem-based marine management policy and climate maladaptation.

In 2019, Macpherson published the book Indigenous Water Rights in Law and Regulation: Lessons from Comparative Experience through Cambridge University Press. The book is regarded as the "first comprehensive examination of laws and policies around the world that protect Indigenous peoples’ rights to use and regulate water". It has been used in judicial and government inquiries, and was awarded the 2020 Law and Society Association of Australia and NZ prize for most outstanding book.

Awards
Macpherson was awarded an Early Career Research Excellence award by the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2021, for her work on "exploring opportunities for Indigenous peoples' water rights in laws and policies around the world".

In 2022 Macpherson's article ''Can Western water law become more ‘relational’? A survey of comparative laws affecting water across Australasia and the Americas”'' won the New Zealand Legal Research Foundation Sir Ian Barker Published Article Award.

In 2023, Macpherson was awarded a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship to work on the legal frameworks around blue carbon. On awarding the fellowship, the Royal Society said that "her research has a real-world impact on some of the most pressing socio-environmental challenges of our time".

Also in 2023, Macpherson won the University of Canterbury Advancing Sustainability Research Award, for "her contribution to environmental and natural resources law, and her focus on addressing global environmental challenges". Macpherson responded that "this is not just a recognition of my research but of Indigenous peoples who are leading legal innovations on issues of sustainability both internationally and locally".