Merryn Tawhai FRSNZ is a New Zealand engineering scientist. She is a professor at the University of Auckland,[1] director of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, where she was a fellow from 2002, and a former director of MedTech CoRE.[2] She is known for the development of mathematical models of the lungs that will help scientists understand differences between physiologically normal lungs and the pathological changes that might occur in a disease. She was inducted into the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering in June 2018.[3] In November 2018, Tawhai was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.[4]