Tina runs a small Development and Research consulting company in Rarotonga. Prior to setting up Akairo Consulting, Tina worked on the New Zealand Aid Programme in Rarotonga. She worked for a number of years as a Social Worker, Social Work Educator and Researcher. She is currently undertaking a postdoctoral fellowship in Pacific Studies at Auckland University. She is also teaching part time at the University of the South Pacific.

Tina's qualifications include a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Auckland. Her research examined the Cook Islands case of climate change mobility and led to use of Vakamoana as a cultural metaphor to conceptually and analytically structure the research. Tina chose to go to Auckland University because it provided her with the rare opportunity to be supervised by another Cook Islands woman, a senior academic in Development Studies and a critical feminist geographer, Associate Professor Yvonne Underhill-Sem. Her other supervisor was Cook Islands based Professor John E. Hay - environmental scientist and climate change expert. She completed a Masters in Social Science Research at Victoria University of Wellington. Her research explored the blended paradigm of Cook Islands women's spirituality in their social service practice. But it was her Diploma in Social Work, also from Victoria University of Wellington, that set her on a path to make sense of the injustices, inequities and adversities faced by people of the Pacific that has sustained her ongoing research and consultancy interests.

What are those research interests?

What are my research interests? That's easy... all things Cook Islands particularly as they relate to the development of island states and territories, their economies, sovereignties, mobilities, indigeneity and trans-indigeneity. Climate change and

migration, climate change trauma and mental wellbeing, Pacific epistemology, indigenous relationality and ocean ontology.

What new work have you got coming up?

I’m working on a project with my family to produce a publication of our Aue Katuke 2020 family reunion. The other project is the New Zealand Health Research Council funded project Climate change, mental health and wellbeing for Pacific Peoples. This is led by Dr Jemaima Tiatia-Seath and includes PhD Candidate, Eliza Puna, and Associate Professor Yvonne Underhill-Sem.

Share your favourite quote and why it’s particularly meaningful to you.

This week I was remembering my dear friend, the late Ta‘i George and her poem 'Where the coconut tree does not grow'. It was a timely moment to reflect that no matter where we are in the world, our connections stretch across an immersive oceanic world to places where 'we emerge to claim our place in the sun'. From a research perspective, there is much to be narrated from those different geographic and conceptual places.

Final words for the Association?

As a closing thought, Te Vairanga Kite Pakari can play a key role in facilitating those connections, curating the narratives and supporting research efforts across the multitude of topics and disciplines about our Cook Islands and our peoples. I’m looking forward to being involved with you all.