The Royal Society of New Zealand named 11 fellows on 17 October, only one of whom is a woman.
The lone woman is Juliet Gerrard from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury.
The researchers from universities and Crown institutes are active in fields that include linguistics, criminology, immunology and nanotechnology, the Society said in a statement.
Two honorary fellows, including Michael Murphy from the Mitochondrial Biology Unit at the University of Cambridge in the UK, were also named.
The Royal Society of New Zealand has 382 fellows and 58 honorary fellows.