Dr Heather Came
Activist scholar at large

Dr Heather Came is a seventh generation Pākehā New Zealander (tangata Tiriti) who grew up on Ngātiwai land. She has worked for 30 years in health promotion and/or public health and has a long involvement in social justice activism. Heather is a founding member and co-chair of STIR: Stop Institutional Racism, and affiliated to Tāmaki Tiriti Workers. 

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She embraces life as an activist scholar and in 2023 set up Heather Came & Associates a consultancy specialising in pursuing racial justice. She has prepared expert evidence for the WAI 2575 health kaupapa Waitangi Tribunal claims and has led shadow reports to United Nations human rights committees around institutional racism. She is co-convenor of Te Tiriti based futures + Antiracism a series of open-access virtual conferences.

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As a scholar she has published over 60 peer reviewed journal articles and has an H-index of 22 with 1590 citations of her work. She has published in journals such as Social Science and Medicine, Ethnicity and Health and Critical Public Health. She is a regular contributor to the NZ Medical Journal. She is currently a co-Principal Investigator on a prestigious Marden grant focused on re-imaging anti-racism theory for the health sector. Her research focuses on critical policy analysis, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, anti-racism and institutional racism.

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Heather is an experienced Te Tiriti and antiracism trainer.  She previously worked at Auckland University of Technology for eleven years where she won a Vice Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award. In 2021 she was joint winner of Kāhui Hauora Tūmatanui Public Health Champion Award for her lifetime contribution to public health.

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In 2022 Heather was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to Māori, education and health.