My research record shows that I have an established global reputation in the areas of Critical Indigenous and Pacific Studies leading to opportunities which contribute to the institution’s positive image nationally and internationally. The Marsden Fast-Start project (2021-2025) spans three geographical locations in Hawaiʻi, Tahiti, and Aotearoa New Zealand and is the first to analyse the ancestral lineages and contemporary stories of Pacific women voyagers from the canoes Hōkūleʻa, Makaliʻi, Kānehūnāmoku, and Faʻafeite. This research makes a crutial contribution to the rematriation of Oceania and the reestablishment of mana wāhine.

I am regarded as a Kanaka Māoli (Native Hawaiian) academic with a focus on Hawaiian methodologies. Within the edited collection, The Past Before Us: Moʻokūʻauhau as Methodology (2019), I brought together eleven Kānaka Māoli from across the globe to articulate how their research is guided and informed by mo’okū’auhau, their genealogies. The book is now used interdiscipliarily across the globe.

My research comes from a place of deep aloha, love, respect, and compassion, best expressed through a variety of outputs including art, curation and filmmaking. This is exemplified in the co-curation of the exhibition E Hina e! E Hine e! Mana Waahine Maaori/Maoli of Past, Present and Future at Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, Waikato Museum (2019), which resulted in the making of my first four short documentary films, Po’ele and Kumulipo, Moloka’i Nui a Hina, Laka, and Moloka’i Nui a Hina-Creative Activation. I also co-edited a book with the same title, E Hina e! E Hine e! Mana Wāhine Māori/Maoli of Past, Present, and Future (2021).

Since arriving to Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, I co-curated Vaiei Tupuna meaning “heritage of our ancestors” at Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery (2024) which was a landmark exhibition in collaboration with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa focusing on the intergenerational practice of traditional tapa making from Moana Nui. My curation in the exhibition featured the animated film Hina Sings (2022) by artists Sue Pearson and Pauline Reynolds. Hina Sings and the poetry that I wrote for the curation inspired me to create the animated film Vā Hina (2025). 

My research has always been interdisciplinary and at the cutting edge of innovation since I designed the first major in Indigenous Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1998. I have remained steady in my research trajectory since the turn of the millennium. For example, upon completion of the doctorate, I turned the research into a children’s book that I wrote and illustrated called Ka Makana (2019). This was because I wanted the research to more immediately reach the next generation. This is also the reason why I turned the Marsden project into the animated film Vā Hina. I am presently working on a documentary film focusing on the contemporary stories of Pacific women voyagers from the canoes Hōkūleʻa, Makaliʻi, Kānehūnāmoku, and Faʻafeite. It will parallel a monograph on the same topic. I am immensely proud of my diversification of academic outputs.