Associate Professor Helen Moewaka Barnes
Associate Director SHORE and Director Te Roopu Whariki

Associate Professor Helen Moewaka Barnes (Ngati Wai/Ngati Hine/Ngati Manu), is the Director of Te Ropu Whariki, SHORE and Whariki Research Centre, based at Massey University in Auckland. Helen helped to develop the research team and has led Whariki since its inception. She has carried out numerous research projects from design through to data collection and analysis. Whariki has a strong focus on working alongside Maori communities and developing Maori research capacity.

Hon Tariana Turia
Co-leader Māori Party, Member of Parliament for Te Tai Hauauru

Hon Tariana Turia (Ngā Wairiki/Ngāti Apa, Ngā Rauru, Tuwharetoa, Whanganui) is co-leader of the Māori Party and the member of parliament for Te Tai Hauauru since July 2002. Currently she sits outside of cabinet as Minister for Whānau Ora, Disability Issues and the Community and Voluntary Sector, as well as holding associate ministerial positions in both health and social development and representing Māori on several cabinet committees.

Prior to Parliament, Minister Turia’s career in Māori health and development has been extensive. From her involvement in marae based training initiatives to high-level managerial positions, most notably as Chief Executive of the central regions largest Māori Health Service Provider Te Oranganui Iwi Health Authority, she has worked tirelessly for her whanau and te ao Māori. Minister Turia has dedicated much of her time to achieving improved health outcomes for Māori. For the greater part of her time in Parliament she has played a significant role in developing government policies and strategies for improving the health and wellbeing of Māori whānau, hapu, iwi and communities nationwide. Her role within the current government builds on her previous work within Māori health in and outside of Parliament.

Mr Moana Jackson
Director of Ngā Kaiwhakamārama i ngā Ture and Lecturer at Te Wānanga o Raukawa, Ōtaki

Moana is a much loved Dad and Koro to his beloved whānau and mokopuna and a highly regarded lawyer and activist throughout Aotearoa and Internationally. Moana graduated in Law from Victoria University in Wellington; was Director of the Māori Law Commission; was appointed Judge on the international People’s Tribunal in 1993 and has since then sat on hearings in Hawai'i, Canada and Mexico. He was appointed Visiting Fellow at the Victoria University Law School in 1995, and was elected Chair of the Indigenous People's Caucus of the United Nations working Group on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Moana teaches on the Māori Law and Philosophy degree programme at Te Wānanga o Raukawa and wrote about restorative justice in a highly acclaimed report in 1996, called ‘Māori and the Criminal Justice System’.

Professor Sir Mason Durie CNZM
Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Maori and Pasifika) Massey University

Professor Sir Mason Durie is of Rangitane, Ngāti Kauwhata descent.

He is currently the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Māori and Pasifika) and Professor of Māori Research and Development at Massey University. He is also Senior Advisor for Te Rau Matatini Limited which is a Māori Mental Health Workforce Development Organisation.

Mason completed a medical degree at the University of Otago before carrying out post-graduate training in psychiatry at McGill University. Subsequently he became Director of Psychiatry at Palmerston North Hospital; a Member of the Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry (1971), and Fellow of the College (in 1979). Between 1986 - 1988 he served on the New Zealand Royal Commission on Social Policy. In 1988 he was appointed Professor and Head of Te Putahi-a-Toi, School of Māori Studies, Massey University. He established Te Pumanawa Hauora at Massey Univeristy in 1993 and has led many Māori health research programmes covering health outcome measurement, Māori health promotion and Māori health service delivery.
This year he was made a Knights Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (KNZM) for services to Māori health, in particular public health services.

Professor Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal
Director, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga

Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal has recently been appointed Director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga. He has also been appointed Professor of Indigenous Development in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Auckland. Charles’s appointment commenced the 1st of December 2009. Charles is a musician and researcher with research interests in the creative potential of mātauranga Māori, particularly as this relates to the whare tapere (traditional houses of performing arts), the whare wānanga (traditional institutions of higher learning) and indigenity.

Charles is a former Director of Graduate Studies and Research at Te Wānanga o-Raukawa, Ōtaki, where he was also Kaihautū (convenor) of a graduate programme in mātauranga Māori or Māori Knowledge and conducted research into theories of knowledge and worldview. As a New Zealand Senior Fulbright Scholar and a Winston Churchill Fellow Charles conducted research into indigenous worldviews in the United States and Canada in 2001.

In 2004 he took up a research residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center in Bellagio in Italy. Charles has written or edited six books on aspects of mātauranga Māori and or iwi history, the most recent being Te Ngākau: He Wānanga i te Mātauranga (MKTA 2009), a text in Māori about knowledge.