Melinda Webber is a New Zealand academic, and is a full professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in MÃÂori identity and ways in which race, ethnicity, identity and culture impact on young people and their success. She is of NgÃÂti Hau, NgÃÂti Kahu, NgÃÂpuhi and NgÃÂti Whakaue descent.
Webber completed a master's thesis titled Hybrid MÃÂori/PÃÂkeha: Explorations of identity for people of mixed MÃÂori/PÃÂkeha descent in 2007, and a PhD titled Identity matters: Racial-ethnic representations among adolescents attending multi-ethnic high schools in 2011, both at the University of Auckland. Her doctoral advisors were Elizabeth McKinley and John Hattie. In 2017, Webber received a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship to explore identity and success from an iwi perspective. She has also received a Marsden Fast Start grant, and in 2013 was a Fulbright Scholar. For her Fulbright award, Webber travelled to University of WisconsinâÂÂGreen Bay to share knowledge with their First Nations Studies programme. Webber then joined the faculty at the university, rising to full professor in 2022.
Webber is part of the NgÃÂ Pae o te Maramatanga Centre of Research Excellence, and associate director of the Woolf Fisher Research Centre. Webber is on the editorial board of a number of journals, including the Australian Journal of Gifted Education, Contemporary Educational Psychology, and MAI Journal: A New Zealand Journal of Indigenous Scholarship.
Webber's research on reversing negative stereotypes has resulted in the publication of two books published by Auckland University Press, A Fire in the Belly of HineÃÂmaru, also available in te reo as Ka Ngangana Tonu a HineÃÂmaru, He Kà Ârero Tuku Iho nà  Te Tai Tokerau. The books contain 24 biographies of MÃÂori tà «puna.