About

Born in Hilo and raised in a sugar plantation town, Pāhala, Kaʻū, I was exposed to an array of languages and cultures from a young age. As a child of a kumu hula, I danced before I learned to crawl and learned about my Hawaiian culture and language through hula - Hawaiian traditional and performative arts. I continued my education at Kamehameha Schools on Kapālama campus in Honolulu and later attended the University of Arizona. While I resided in Tucson, I received my B.A. in Linguistics, M.A. in Native American Linguistics, and Ph.D in Language, Reading, and Culture. I was also the Program Coordinator at the American Indian Language Development Institute - a program that reignited my passion in language learning and inspired my dissertation research on Indigenous language revitalization and digital technology. Upon graduation, I returned back to Hawaiʻi Island, where I was a Visiting Assistant Professor in Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawaiʻi Hilo. I now reside in Vancouver, Canada where I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education (Faculty of Education) and the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies (Faculty of Arts) that comprise of First Nations and Indigenous Studies, and the First Nations and Endangered Languages Program at the University of British Columbia. My research and scholarship focus on Hawaiian language and Indigenous languages at the intersection of education, revitalization, digital technology, well-being, traditional and cultural practices, and policy and planning; and decolonizing and Indigenizing the academy to create pathways for Indigenous thinkers and scholars, and scholarship – locally, nationally, and globally.