Profile

Paul Spoonley

Senior Fellow

Distinguished Professor Emeritus FRSNZ ONZM

Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley was previously Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Massey University. Once he stepped down, he was appointed to advise the Police Commissioner (2022-25) and then as Co-Director of the National Centre for Countering Violent Extremism (2022-23).

He has led major research programmes on immigration, diversity and inter-group relations and been extensively involved in policy development and evaluation, both in New Zealand and internationally. Paul is a Fellow of the Auckland Museum and a Board member, a Visiting Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany and Senior Fellow at Koi Tū Centre for Informed Futures.

He was awarded the Science and Technology Medal by the Royal Society in 2009 for cross-cultural understanding and the following year, he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of California Berkeley. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2011 and was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2025. He is the author or editor of 29 books, including The New New Zealand. Facing Demographic Disruption (2021).