| Rosemary Du Plessis |
Rosemary Ann Du Plessis is a New Zealand academic sociologist, and is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Canterbury. In 2020 she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to women and education.
Du Plessis completed a Masters degree in sociology at the University of Canterbury, which she began in 1973.[1] [2] Du Plessis has worked at the University of Canterbury since 1974, and as of 2024 is an adjunct associate professor in the Sociology, Anthropology and Human Services Department of the Faculty of Arts.[3] Du Plessis's gender studies courses were some of the first in New Zealand, and she co-established the University of Canterbury's Feminist Studies programme.
Du Plessis has research interests in gender, family and paid and unpaid work, and ethical implications of new technologies.[4] She led a multidisciplinary study into genetic testing and biobanking, and an oral history project recording women's stories about the Canterbury earthquakes.
Du Plessis was the theme editor for Social Connections at for two years.[5] She spent five years as the Commissioner for Social and Human Sciences at the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO, and has served on the Council of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, as well as chairing its Social Science Advisory Committee. Du Plessis has held national roles on committees or boards for the National Council of Women of New Zealand, the National Advisory Committee on the Employment of Women, the Ministry of Women's Affairs Advisory Committee, the Women's Studies Association and the New Horizons for Women Trust.
In 2019 Du Plessis was invited to launch Past Caring? Women, Work and Emotion, a social history book by Barbara Brookes, Angela Wanhalla and Jane McCabe, in Dunedin.[6]
In the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours, Du Plessis was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to women and education, with the citation noting that she was a "pioneer of gender studies" and "contributed to the advancement of women’s rights and education for the past 45 years".[7] Du Plessis was the research coordinator for an oral history of women's stories about the Canterbury earthquakes, which won the Mary Fran Myers award for research into gender issues in disasters and emergency management in 2014.