Maree Alicia Hiria Sheehan (born 1969) is a New Zealand sonic artist, sound designer, composer and lecturer, and is a research fellow in the Te Manawahoukura Research Centre at Te WÃÂnanga o Aotearoa. In 2024 the Royal Society Te ApÃÂrangi awarded Sheehan the Te Koponui MÃÂori Research Award for her creation of audio portraits of MÃÂori women.
Sheehan was born in Leeston and grew up in Canterbury, Pà Ârangahau in the Hawke's Bay, and Christchurch. She has affiliations to NgÃÂti Maniapoto-Waikato, NgÃÂti Tà «wharetoa, NgÃÂti Raukawa and NgÃÂti Tahu-NgÃÂti Whaoa, and Irish ancestry through her father. Sheehan attended the Polynesian Performing Arts Centre in Christchurch.
Sheehan released several singles in the 1990s as a singer-songwriter, including three which reached the top twenty. Her music featured in the film Once Were Warriors, and in the television series Shortland Street; Home, Land and Sea; and Takatapui. In 1993 Sheehan was nominated for most promising vocalist at the New Zealand Music Awards, and in 1996 her album Past to Present was nominated for Best Mana MÃÂori Album. She released an album Chasing the Light in 2013.
Sheehan completed a master's degree and a PhD at Auckland University of Technology. Her doctoral research was titled The Sound of Identity Interpreting the Multi-dimensionality of WÃÂhine MÃÂori Through Audio Portraiture. Sheehan has worked at NgÃÂ Pae o te MÃÂramatanga research centre, and was head of the postgraduate programme at Auckland University of Technology's School of Art and Design. Sheehan is a research fellow at Te Manawahoukura Research Centre at Te WÃÂnanga o Aotearoa.
Sheehan's solo exhibition à Âtairongo at Artspace Aotearoa in 2020 presented audio portraits of three MÃÂori women, Moana Maniapoto, Te Rita Papesch and Ramon Te Wake.
In 2021, Sheehan was awarded the Professional Development Award for Screen Composition from the Australian Performing Rights Association and in 2022 the APRA Art Music Fund award for composition.
She received the MAITAI Whangai Award for mentoring band Nesian Mystik.
In 2024 the Royal Society Te ApÃÂrangi awarded Sheehan the Te Koponui Maori Research Award "for her innovative scholarship, focused on audio portraiture and sonic practices that has elevated the voices and identities of wÃÂhine MÃÂori".