Ocean Ripeka Mercier is a New Zealand academic specialising in physics and Māori science.

Career

After a B.Sc. (Hons) Mercier did a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington (), also known by its shorter names "VUW" or "Vic", is a public university, public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of New Zealand Parliament, Parliament, and w ...

, in association with Industrial Research Ltd. Mercier is involved in the field of Māori science, the application of scientific principles and

mātauranga Māori Mātauranga (literally ''Māori knowledge'') is a modern term for the traditional knowledge of the Māori people of New Zealand. Māori traditional knowledge is Interdisciplinarity, multi-disciplinary and Logical holism, holistic, and there is c ...

to real-world problems. As well as teaching it, she presents a television programme on the topic called

Project Mātauranga A project is a type of assignment, typically involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a specific objective. An alternative view sees a project managerially as a sequence of events: a "set of interrelated tasks to be ...

, now in its second season. Mercier is on the editorial board of the MAI Journal. In 2017 she was awarded the

New Zealand Association of Scientists The New Zealand Association of Scientists is an independent association for scientists in New Zealand. It was founded in 1941 as the New Zealand Association of Scientific Workers, and renamed in 1954.Gregory, G., 2013. Not to be forgotten: New ...

Cranwell Medal The Cranwell Medal, previously the Science Communicator Medal, is awarded by the New Zealand Association of Scientists to a "practising scientist for excellence in communicating science to the general public in any area of science or technology". ...

for science communication efforts. In 2019 Mercier was awarded the

Royal Society Te Apārangi The Royal Society Te Apārangi (in full, Royal Society of New Zealand) is a not-for-profit body in New Zealand providing funding and policy advice in the fields of sciences and the humanities. These fundings (i.e., Marsden grants and research fe ...

's Callaghan Medal. She was a part of the Imagining Decolonised Cities Team, which won the 2021 Te Rangaunua Hiranga Māori Award, conferred by the Royal Society Te Apārangi.

Selected publications

* Harris, Pauline and Ocean Mercier. Te ara pūtaiao o ngā tūpuna, mō ngā mokopuna: science education and research In Mulholland, M. (2006). ''State of the Māori nation: Twenty-first-century issues in Aotearoa''. Auckland .Z. Reed. *Mercier, O. R., Asmar, C. and Page, S. (January 1, 2011). An academic occupation: mobilisation, sit-in, speaking out and confrontation in the experiences of Maori academics. ''Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 40,'' 81-91. * Mercier, Ocean Ripeka. 'Glocalising' Indigenous Knowledges for the Classroom. In Dei, G. J. S. (2017). ''Indigenous philosophies and critical education: A reader''. New York: Peter Lang. * Mercier, Ocean Ripeka. What is decolonisation? In Elkington, B. (2020). ''Imagining decolonisation''. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. * Mercier, Ocean Ripeka and Beth Ginondidoy Leonard "Our Indigenous brothers and sisters are available for us and we are available for them": non-local relationships nurturing research through an Alaska-Aotearoa online student exchange. In Sumida, H. E. and Martin, N. D. (2020). ''Indigenous knowledge systems and research methodologies: Local solutions and global opportunities''. Toronto: Canadian Knowledge. * Palmer, S. and Mercier, O. R. (April 3, 2021). Biotechnologies in pest wasp control: taking the sting out of pest management for Māori businesses?. ''New Genetics and Society, 40,'' 2, 155-177.

Personal life

Mercier is of

Ngāti Porou Ngāti Porou is a Māori iwi traditionally located in the East Cape and Gisborne regions of the North Island of New Zealand. It has the second-largest affiliation of any iwi, behind Ngāpuhi, with an estimated 102,480 people according to the ...

descent.

References

External links

Institutional homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mercier, Ocean New Zealand physicists New Zealand women academics Victoria University of Wellington alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Ngāti Porou people New Zealand Māori academics New Zealand Māori women academics New Zealand Māori scientists New Zealand women physicists 21st-century New Zealand women scientists 21st-century New Zealand physicists