Ānei rā te mihi ki a koutou! He uri au nō Ngāti Mutunga ō Wharekauri me Te Āti Awa.

I was raised in Wharekauri / Rerekohu and am now living in Ōtautahi where my whānau moved for education opportunities. As a mokopuna of Taranaki Mounga, I wish to reconnect with our whenua, whanaunga, marae and to serve Taranaki Māori research aspirations.

Being a kōhanga kid then trained by the western disaster science system, I think my superpower could be connecting people and knowledge systems. My passion for community resilience and rangatiratanga of disaster risk management was ignited by my tupuna, flared by lived experiences of the Ōtautahi earthquakes and is fuelled by a decade of studying and working in this interspace.

My PhD kaupapa is to assemble a Māori-centred pathway for eruption foresight and planning. How can Taranaki Māori weave Mātauranga-a-iwi and volcanic risk science to support Māori-led eruption planning and future-proofing?

I began my part-time PhD in 2021, funded by a UC Matariki Doctoral Scholarship with support from He Mounga Puia and Te Toi Whakaruruhau o Aotearoa. I’m also part of the Te One Kakara kaupapa and 2022 Māori and Indigenous Leadership (MMIL) Taranaki cohort. I’m supervised by Prof Tom Wilson, Dr Acushla (Dee) Sciascia, Dr Sarah Beaven and Prof Christine Kenney. I’m also lucky to be mentored by a wider research whānau and would love to connect, learn and contribute in ways I can to Taranaki kaupapa.