Hilary Lapsley

Lapsley was born in Auckland in 1949 to Robin and Sylvia Lapsley, a minister and a teacher respectively.^[1] Lapsley attended the University of Auckland, where she completed a Master of Arts with honours in 1979 followed by a PhD titled The origins of modern social psychology at the University of Auckland in 1980.^[2]

Lapsley worked as a research officer for the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, rising to deputy director, and then in 1988 was appointed as a lecturer in psychology at the University of Waikato.^[1] In 2001 she became a senior analyst at the Mental Health Commission of New Zealand. Most recently Lapsley was a senior researcher at the University of Auckland, and contributed to the Ageing Well National Science Challenge.^[3][4] Lapsley was a National Convenor of the Women's Studies Association, and as of October 2024^[update] serves on the committee.^[5][1] Lapsley wrote a book on the professional and personal relationship between anthropologists Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, which was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2001.^[6][7][8]

Lapsley used to live on Waiheke Island, but bought into the Cohaus co-housing development in Grey Lynn with her partner Lois Cox. They divide their time between Auckland and Cox's home in Wellington.^[9] Lapsley and Cox have written three lesbian mystery novels together, under the pen name Jennifer Palgrave.^[10][11]

In 1992 Lapsley was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship,^[12] and in 1993 she was awarded a New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal.^[13] The medal was given to recognize those people who had made a significant contribution to women's rights or women's issues in New Zealand. She was awarded the Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for lesbian non-fiction in 2000 for her book on Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict.^[1]