Melinda Webber is a New Zealand academic, and is a full professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in Māori identity and ways in which race, ethnicity, identity and culture impact on young people and their success.

[1] Webber completed a master's thesis titled Hybrid Māori/Pākeha: Explorations of identity for people of mixed Māori/Pākeha descent in 2007, and a PhD titled Identity matters: Racial-ethnic representations among adolescents attending multi-ethnic high schools in 2011, both at the University of Auckland.

[3] In 2017, Webber received a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship to explore identity and success from an iwi perspective.

[5] For her Fulbright award, Webber travelled to University of Wisconsin–Green Bay to share knowledge with their First Nations Studies programme.

[5] Webber's research on reversing negative stereotypes has resulted in the publication of two books published by Auckland University Press, A Fire in the Belly of Hineāmaru, also available in te reo as Ka Ngangana Tonu a Hineāmaru, He Kōrero Tuku Iho nō Te Tai Tokerau.