Meet Our Team
Gina McGuire
Gina is currently a PhD candidate with the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa Department of Geography and Environment, born and raised Big Island girl. She is humbled to continue her work in Indigenous methodologies and coastal ecology here on Hawaiʻi Moku, ka ʻāina hānau of her kūpuna. Her research background focuses on ethnographic work with Indigenous communities and landscape ecology to guide resource management. She's been blessed to work on Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), Queensland, Australia and Kuaihelani (Midway Atoll), Papahānaumokuākea and is excited to bring these experiences together as a student of Hawaiian medicine and wellbeing under Kumu Keoki Baclayon. She is currently a research ethno-ecologist with the Akaka Foundation and the Native Climate Fellow with Native Climate. |
Dr. Alexander Mawyer
Alexander Mawyer is an Associate Professor at the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, Editor of The Contemporary Pacific: A Journal of Island Affairs, and Co-Director of the University of Hawai‘i’s Biocultural Initiative of the Pacific. He has conducted fieldwork with the Mangarevan community in the Gambier and Society Islands of French Polynesia and with Chuukese and Mortlock communities in the Federated States of Micronesia. His work has focused on language at the intersection of culture, nature, and history. He has recently published on the semantics of natural kinds and landscape terms in Eastern Polynesian languages including forests and insular fresh waters, on biocultural indicators for linked human and ecological wellbeing, on Tahitian practices of marine resource governance, and on issues of conservation and sovereignty. He has served as an adviser to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) West Hawai‘i Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) and is a member of the Scientific Council of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme du Pacifique. |
Kumu Keoki Baclayon
Kumu Keoki teaches Lāʻau Lapaʻau at Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies. His mission is to advocate for the preservation and innovation of Hawaiian medicinal practices through teaching, providing learning experiences that empowers exponential learning of Lāʻau Lapaʻau, and by supporting local grass-root communities whose missions work toward one of five divisions of Lāʻau Lapaʻau knowledge: botany, horticulture, phytopharmacology, medicine, and hoʻoponopono.
Kumu Keoki teaches Lāʻau Lapaʻau at Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies. His mission is to advocate for the preservation and innovation of Hawaiian medicinal practices through teaching, providing learning experiences that empowers exponential learning of Lāʻau Lapaʻau, and by supporting local grass-root communities whose missions work toward one of five divisions of Lāʻau Lapaʻau knowledge: botany, horticulture, phytopharmacology, medicine, and hoʻoponopono.
2021 PIPES Interns
Ka’i’inipu’uwai Keliihoomalu-Holz
My name is Ka’i’inipu’uwai Keliihoomalu-Holz. I come from Kaimū on the Big Island of Hawaii. I’m a student at Chaminade University of Honolulu working on my bachelors degree in Environmental Studies and Minoring in Business. I love the āina we are blessed with and I await the great opportunities to come. |
Grant Kaʻehukai Goin
Aloha mai kākou, My name is Grant Kaʻehukai Goin, I grew up in the concrete jungle of Makiki, Oʻahu. I graduated from Hawaiʻinuiākea in Hawaiian studies focusing on mālama ʻāina. My goal is to help lāhui sustain itself through traditional subsistence fishing as well as helping to protect our generational resources. |
We are currently looking for research partner(s) with ties to Puna, Hawaiʻi. Interests in archival research (Hawaiian newspapers, legends, oli, genealogies), field work in remote coastal areas, and commitment to community co-production.
Contact Us
If you'd like more information about this ongoing research or would like to
get involved please don't hesitate to get ahold of Gina at mcguire2@hawaii.edu
get involved please don't hesitate to get ahold of Gina at mcguire2@hawaii.edu