Ella Orr Campbell

Ella Orr Campbell used to be taken for the matron when she became the first woman faculty member at Massey Agricultural College in 1945.¹ No other women were appointed for years, and Campbell found the situation academically isolating as other faculty didn’t know how to treat a female academic. Campbell, who had moved from Otago University, felt women were more accepted there.

Campbell was a specialist in liverworts, ferns and orchids, had wide-ranging research interests and published 130 scientific papers. She co-authored the textbook Agricultural Botany, made many contributions to other books, and travelled to study vegetation all around the world.² She retired from teaching in 1976, but continued to publish research right up until the age of 90. In 1997 she was named a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit and in 2003 the herbarium at Massey University was named the Dame Ella Orr Campbell Herbarium in her honour.³

References:

1. Paula Martin, ‘Profiles of Senior New Zealand Women in Science’, Lives with Science, 1993, p. 4.

2. ‘NZBotSoc No 22 Dec 1990 - NZBotSoc-1990-22.Pdf’, accessed 19 September 2017, http://www.nzbotanicalsociety.org.nz/newsletter/NZBotSoc-1990-22.pdf.

3. ‘Ella Orr Campbell’, Wikipedia, 5 May 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ella_Orr_Campbell&oldid=778882943.

This profile is part of the series 150 Women in 150 Words that celebrates women’s contributions to expanding knowledge in New Zealand, running as part of our 150th Anniversary.