Leading Pacific feminist geographer earns top award
2 April 2026
Pacific Studies Professor among new Ngā Ahurei Fellows elected to Academy of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.
Professor Yvonne Te Ruki Rangi o Tangaroa Underhill-Sem MNZM, a leading Pacific feminist geographer and Pacific Studies scholar, has been elected to the Academy of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s highest academic honours.
The Royal Society Te Apārangi has confirmed its latest cohort of Ngā Ahurei Fellows, recognising Professor Underhill-Sem for her internationally respected Pacific feminist, decolonial approach to geography, population studies, development, and Pacific Studies. Her election places her among a distinguished group of scholars whose work has made outstanding contributions to knowledge and to communities in Aotearoa and across the Pacific.
Of Cook Islands, Niuean and Pākehā descent, Professor Underhill-Sem has spent more than three decades advancing research grounded in Pacific epistemologies, centring women’s lived experiences, embodiment and mobility. Her theory-informed scholarship spans climate and labour mobility, population and development, feminist political ecology, and research on menstruation, maternities and gendered care economies in the Pacific.
Underhill-Sem said the Fellowship acknowledges not only her own work, but the collective labour of Pacific women scholars and communities whose knowledge underpins her research.
This recognition reflects generations of Pacific women whose thinking, care work and leadership have long been overlooked, and the communities who trusted me with their stories. My work has always been accountable to them.
“I receive this honour with deep humility,” she said. “This recognition reflects generations of Pacific women whose thinking, care work and leadership have long been overlooked, and the communities who trusted me with their stories. My work has always been accountable to them.”
Her research is widely recognised for challenging colonial development paradigms and reframing population and development debates through relational, Indigenous and feminist lenses. It has influenced policy, funding priorities and development practice, while strengthening Pacific-led theory, research methodologies and mentoring emerging Pacific scholars.
Reflecting on her journey as a Pacific woman in academia, Underhill-Sem said visibility and responsibility go hand in hand.
“As Pacific scholars, we carry our ancestors, families, our histories and our futures with us into these spaces,” she said. “This Fellowship strengthens my commitment to opening doors, disrupting unjust systems, and ensuring Pacific ways of knowing remain central - not marginal - in global scholarship.”
A trailblazer for Pacific women, Underhill-Sem has held senior leadership roles across universities, government and regional institutions, including Director of Development Studies at the University of Auckland, Deputy Moderator Pacific for the Performance-Based Research Fund, and membership on national and international science and gender equity panels.
In 2022, she received the Dame Joan Metge Medal from the Royal Society Te Apārangi, and in 2024 was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to tertiary education and Pacific development. In 2025, she was also elected as a Fellow of the Pacific Academy of Sciences, and named Distinguished Geographer by NZ Geographical Society.
The formal induction into the Academy of the Royal Society Te Apārangi will take place on 30 April in Wellington.