Rate My Professor Robyn Longhurst

Professor Robyn Longhurst is Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, joining in March 2024 after serving in the same role at the University of Waikato since 2015. At Waikato, she was appointed Professor of Geography in 2006, building a distinguished career in academia focused on teaching excellence and research innovation. Longhurst holds a BSocSc, MSocSc, and PhD from the University of Waikato, completing her doctorate in 1996 with the thesis 'Geographies that matter: Pregnant bodies in public places'. In her current position, she oversees the Library, Centre for Academic Development, and various academic functions, manages the academic quality framework, and represents the university on the national Committee of University Academic Programmes (CUAP). She has led two university academic quality audits and served as an auditor on three panels across New Zealand and Australia, demonstrating her expertise in tertiary education leadership and curriculum development responsive to evolving sector needs.

Longhurst's research centers on human geography, exploring relationships between people and place with a particular emphasis on gender, alongside interests in feminist geography, embodiment, bodies, spaces, emotions, migration, disability, motherhood, and food. Her influential publications include the book 'Bodies: Exploring Fluid Boundaries' (Routledge, 2004), co-authored 'Space, Place, and Sex: Geographies of Sexualities' (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), and key articles such as 'The body and geography' in Gender, Place & Culture (1995), 'Using "the body" as an "instrument of research": kimch’i and pavlova' in Area (2008), 'Everyday activisms: Parental places and emotions of disability activism in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand' (2021), and 'Disabled people's embodied and emotional geographies of (not)belonging in Aotearoa New Zealand' (2020). She has been honored as a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (FRSNZ) in 2018, received the International Geographical Union Lauréat d’honneur in 2018, and the Association of American Geographers' Jan Monk Service Award in 2012.