Professor Paul Spoonley ONZM FRSNZ

Educator and Author

Distinguished Professor Spoonley was raised in Havelock North and attended Hastings Boys’ High from 1965 to 1969. He initially studied at Victoria University of Wellington where he completed the first of six university degrees from various New Zealand and British universities. He completed his PhD at Massey University in 1986.

He taught at the University of Auckland before being appointed to a position at Massey University in Palmerston North as a lecturer in Sociology. He was appointed Professor in 1995 and then Distinguished Professor in 2013 in recognition of his national and international reputation. Paul became the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Research Director, then Regional Director (Albany) in 1994 before becoming Pro Vice-Chancellor (2013-2019).

In 2009, Distinguished Professor Spoonley was awarded the Royal Society’s Science and Technology Medal for “outstanding contributions to academic scholarship, informed public debate and committed leadership”. He was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of California Berkeley in 2010 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2011. He became a Fellow of Auckland Museum in 2015 and joined the Museum Board. He is a Research Fellow of the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

He has filled a number of governmental and international roles including as a Board member of the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology and the Marsden Council. He worked with the Taiwhenua o Heretaunga on iwi development.

Distinguished Professor Spoonley is the author or editor of 19 books, including the biography of Ranginui Walker as well as books on New Zealand’s demography, the nature of work and political extremism.

Since retiring from Massey University in 2023, he worked for the Police Commissioner on a major project on police-community relations and he was appointed Co-Director of the National Centre for Countering Violent Extremism by the then Prime Minister.

He was awarded the New Zealand Commemoration Medal in 1990 and made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2025.

While at Hastings Boys’ High School he took part in school swimming and athletics.