Rate My Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith

Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith is the Professor of Biological Anthropology and Head of the Department of Anatomy in the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Otago. She earned her BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and her PhD from the University of Auckland in 1996 with a thesis on mtDNA variation in the Pacific rat as a model for human colonisation in prehistoric Polynesia. Her research focuses on biological anthropology, particularly the use of ancient and modern DNA techniques from humans and commensal animals—such as rats, dogs, pigs, chickens, and guinea pigs—to reconstruct human migration pathways, population histories, and settlement patterns in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. The Matisoo-Smith lab investigates the origins of Pacific peoples and their associated plants and animals, increasingly linking these histories to contemporary health issues like cardiometabolic risks, hyperuricaemia, and gout in Pacific populations. She chairs the Biological Anthropology Research Group and maintains extensive international collaborations, including with the National Geographic Genographic Project, where she served as Principal Investigator for the Oceania/Pacific region, partnering with indigenous communities to gather genetic data.

Matisoo-Smith joined the University of Otago's Department of Anatomy in 2009. She has published three books, including DNA for Archaeologists (2012, co-authored with K. Ann Horsburgh), 17 book chapters, and over 75 peer-reviewed papers in prestigious journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (eight papers), Science (two), and Nature (two). Notable contributions include pioneering genetic evidence from commensal species to trace Pacific migrations and environmental impacts, and collaborations like the analysis of ancient mitochondrial genomes from Wairau Bar with the Rangitāne o Wairau iwi, revealing a more complex founding population for New Zealand. Her achievements have been recognized with the University of Otago Distinguished Research Medal (2016), Fellowship of the Royal Society of New Zealand (2013), Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries of London (2009), James Cook Research Fellowship (2013), and Mason Durie Medal (2018). She has supervised numerous postgraduate students, many of whom have become leading early-career researchers, and emphasizes community engagement in genetic studies across the Pacific.