Authors

Dr Leonie Pihama (Te Ātiawa, Ngā Māhanga ā Tairi, Waikato) is Professor of Māori and Indigenous Research at Ngā Wai ā Te Tūī, Māori and Indigenous Research Centre, Te Whare Wānanga o Wairaka, Unitec, and Director of Māori and Indigenous Analysis Limited, and is a leading kaupapa Māori educator and researcher. She received the Hohua Tūtengaehe Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship (HRC) and the inaugural Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Senior Māori Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Washington. In 2015, she was awarded Te Tohu Pae Tāwhiti Award (NZARE) for excellence in Māori educational research and as Director of Te Kotahi Research Institute accepted Te Tohu Rapuora Award (HRC) for significant contribution to Māori health excellence and leadership. Leonie has published widely and served on the Māori Health Committee for the HRC and a number of boards.Dr Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou, Tūhourangi) is Distinguished Professor at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi. She is a leading indigenous studies scholar, educationalist and kaupapa Māori researcher and has given many addresses and written many publications in these areas. She was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2013 for her services to Māori and education and received a Prime Minister’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Education in 2017. She was awarded the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Puawaitanga Award for Research Excellence in Te Ao Māori and Indigenous Knowledge in 2018, and she received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Winnipeg Canada in the same year.

No biography

Invested with the King’s New Zealand Honours in 2023, with an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM), (for service to ethnic communities), Te Rangi Hiroa Royal Society medal, and Duke of Edinburgh Fellowship, Fulbright alumna, Emeritus Professor Edwina Pio is New Zealand’s first Professor of Diversity.

No biography

Mark Pirie is the author of a cricket poetry blog, collections of sporting poems, a rugby and business biography and the editor of the anthology 'A Tingling Catch': An Anthology of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009. He is a current member of The Cricket Society.

No biography

No biography

No biography

TE ATAAKURA PEWHAIRANGI Ngati Porou was brought up in te ao Maori, and her home language was and still is te reo Maori. A product of kohanga reo, kura kaupapa Maori and wharekura, she not only loves her language but also understands the responsibility as a fluent native speaker and writer to further promote te reo Maori. She has worked extensively in television, and has MC'd various regional and national events such as the secondary schools kapa haka competition, Hauora Unleashed and Manu Korero national speech competition. A former senior tutor teaching te reo Maori and cultural competency at Massey University, she is now the Maori Student Recruitment Advisor at the university.