Professor Helen Gremillion was recognised for interdisciplinary research at her Professorial Address on Wednesday, 9 July 2025. 

With a background in gender studies and cultural anthropology, Prof Gremillion has engaged in research projects across a wide range of fields. 

Colleagues, current and former students, friends and family gathered at Te Noho Kotahitanga Marae to celebrate her thirty-year academic career.

It was a special pleasure that David Epston, one of the co-founders of Narrative Therapy (a key research area for Professor Gremillion), was also in attendance.

During the evening, the Social Practice Research Leader was acknowledged for the impact her work has had in our communities.

Emeritus Professor Marcus Williams described Prof Gremillion as “profoundly influential in growing research culture in Social Practice, supporting staff to develop their research agendas with impact for professions, communities, and teaching practice.”

“These research initiatives are partnered with Māori and Pacific researchers and communities, including those involved in the postgraduate programmes within Social Practice which Helen oversees currently as Discipline Leader.”

As well as being Social Practice’s Research Leader, she is also Unitec’s Research Professional Development Liaison and partners with Tūāpapa Rangahau (Research & Enterprise Office) kaimahi to create and lead research capability development activities consistent with her professional and community-partnered, applied, and Te Tiriti-based research portfolio.

“Helen’s career in interdisciplinary research makes for a person who is not just focused on academic rigour, but aiming that rigour toward the long game of improving practice with a strong focus on research with impact,” Emeritus Professor Williams says.

Prof Gremillion’s address reflected on collaborative research she has undertaken in New Zealand since moving here from the United States in 2008.

“My transition seventeen years ago from a research-intensive context at Indiana University to an ITP context in Aotearoa, supporting student and community-led research initiatives, has led to my engagement in a range of applied research activities linked to my teaching, research oversight roles, and programme leadership positions at Unitec.

“I find working in the polytechnic (ITP) sector to be very conducive to such culturally and community-partnered research.”

The research projects highlighted included a look at the rich interplay between Narrative and Māori approaches to relationships; another delving into Talanoa Research Methodology with Master of Applied Practice ākonga; research into student success within the Bachelor of Social Practice programme; and more recently, projects examining diverse sexuality and gender inclusivity working with Unitec’s ALLY Network.

“One of the main reasons I moved to New Zealand was to deepen my long-standing study of narrative therapy and community work while also being able to teach in these areas,” she says.

Prof Gremillion has also contributed to research projects aiming to improve research ethics policies and processes.

A central provocation for the address focused on the question “how can research here be defined and pursued in ways that truly benefit communities and professions?”

“My research bridges theory and practice by asking, simultaneously, ‘big questions’ about gender and practical questions about, for example, how to improve therapies.

“Drawing on my background in medical anthropology, much of my research has explored medical practices not as ‘objective’ interventions but rather as culturally situated practices,” she says.

In her recent research professional development roles with kaimahi at Unitec and MIT, Prof Gremillion has striven to be a research leader and mentor who facilitates collaborative research cultures and who places people, and beneficial practices, at the forefront.

One of her observations of the polytech sector in Aotearoa was that student voices, community work, and research with real impact are highly valued.

“Unitec and the New Zealand polytech sector generally is a fantastic context for truly collaborative, Te Tiriti-based, and impactful research,” Prof Gremillion says.

“Along the way, I’ve been able to mentor junior researchers, centre student voices, and co-author with recent graduates.  I’ve also been able to pursue social justice causes in ways that are evidence-based.”

Professor Gremillion exemplifies why we need a professoriate in the vocational training and education sector, says DCE Academic, Professor Martin Carroll.

“She has partnered up endlessly and through those partnerships she looked at the world, drew on theoretical perspectives and skills, and asked, how can we take what we see and make it better?” he explained.

Emeritus Professor Williams says the themes that have emerged across Professor Gremillion’s career reflect her upbringing.

Born in California in 1965 as the daughter of an engineer who worked at NASA and a hospital patient relations Director, she received a Bachelor of Arts from Boston University in 1988 and a Master of Arts in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1991.

Prof Gremillion completed a PhD in Cultural Anthropology (specialising in gender studies and medical anthropology) from Stanford University in 1996.

Prior to arriving in New Zealand, Prof Gremillion was the inaugural Peg Zeglin Brand Chair of Gender Studies at Indiana University.

Her published works champion innovative approaches to overcoming eating disorders and to gender-affirming healthcare, while also being a frequent presenter at both national and international conferences.

“From a family that clearly valued education and civil responsibility very highly, Helen’s passion for complexity and her sense of social justice has led to an immensely diverse and practice-based academic career,” Emeritus Professor Williams says.

Professor Gremillion described aptly as a “person who started off as they mean to continue, and never lets up the pace - how lucky are we to have her.”