Associate Professor Ocean Mercier

Associate Professor Ocean Mercier teaches in the Māori Resource Management programme in Te Kawa a Māui, the School of Māori Studies at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. She teaches Māori science, Indigenous knowledge systems, cultural mapping and her research examines the role of mātauranga Māori in environmental, social and cultural wellbeing. Ocean is an associate investigator on the Moana project (MetService), within the He Papa Moana team.

Ocean supervises a team of PhD and Master’s students who, in various projects alongside iwi, seek to strengthen social and cultural relationships of local people with oceans. He Papa Moana is also building a cross-cultural knowledge exchange platform. Ocean is also a research theme co-leader, with Chris Cornwall, for Coastal People: Southern Skies, one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Centres of Research Excellence. She was a presenter on Season 3 of TV show Coast: New Zealand.