Rebecca Katherine Priestley CRSNZ is a New Zealand academic, science historian, and writer.

Priestley earned a BSc in geology at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) in 1990, a Bsc (Hons), First Class, in physical geography at VUW in 1992, and a PhD in history and philosophy of science from the University of Canterbury in 2010 with a thesis titled Nuclear New Zealand: New Zealand's nuclear and radiation history to 1987, supervised by Philip Catton, John Hearnshaw and Philippa Mein Smith.

Priestley took a sabbatical to do a Master of Arts in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), in the nonfiction stream, writing a book about Antarctica.

In June 2017, Priestley co-founded the Aotearoa New Zealand Science Journalism Fund, which offers funding for projects reporting on science-related issues of importance to New Zealanders.

In July 2018, Priestley was elected as a Companion of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.