Jacinta Ruru


Jacinta Arianna Ruru is a New Zealand academic and the first Māori Professor of Law. She is of Raukawa, Ngāti Ranginui and Ngāti Maniapoto descent. Ruru is currently a professor at the University of Otago.

Academic career

After a 2012 Fulbright-funded PhD at the University of Victoria in Canada, Ruru returned to New Zealand and the University of Otago, rising to full professor in 2016.
Ruru's research centres on indigenous peoples' legal relations with land and water.
In addition to winning the Prime Minister's supreme award for tertiary teaching, Ruru has also been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. In October 2019, Ruru was appointed one of seven inaugural sesquicentennial distinguished chairs, or poutoko taiea, at Otago University.

Selected works