Professor Damon Salesa
Vice-Chancellor, Auckland University of Technology
| Professor Damon Salesa is the Vice-Chancellor of Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland University of Technology (AUT). He leads a university of more than 26,000 students and 4,000 staff, making AUT one of the largest universities in Aotearoa New Zealand. A prize-winning scholar, Damon specialises in the history, society, and politics of New Zealand and the Pacific. He holds a Master of Arts with First Class Honours from the University of Auckland and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to complete his doctoral studies at the University of Oxford. Damon is the author and editor of numerous books and academic articles, including Island Time: New Zealand’s Pacific Futures and Racial Crossings: Race, Intermarriage and the Victorian British Empire, which won the international Ernest Scott Prize in 2012. His most recent book, An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essays, received an Ockham Book Award in 2024. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford University. At AUT, Damon leads work on AI and emerging technologies and is actively involved in critical conversations around education, innovation, and pedagogy. He is a publicly engaged scholar who contributes to national and regional discussions on inequality, politics, and education. His career has included study, work, and collaboration across New Zealand, the Pacific, Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. |