2025 - 2026
Luka Koens
A Masters student in Geospatial Science at the Auckland University of Technology, Luka Koen's research investigates how community conservation groups in Tāmaki Makaurau can effictively use drones. By developing best practices and guidelines to enable local communities to care for the Tūpuna Maunga, Koen's research seeks to empower conservations groups to leverage drones as a tool that increases their practical capabilities.
This research is currently ongoing.
Jean Yern (Ngāti Tamaoho)
An artist, musician, and kaupapa Māori researcher, Jean Yern’s research project is grounded in the whakataukī; ‘E hoki koe ki tō ūkaipō, kia purea koe e ngā hau o Tāwhirimātea’, return to your mountain, there to be cleansed by the winds of Tāwhirimātea.
Understanding the Tūpuna Maunga as sites of healing, Yern’s project seeks to capture true indigenous ecological audio of the maunga. Recording the tōiriiri (frequencies) of each maunga, Yern works to grow ecologies of creative practice and imaginative activism, capturing the maunga in a moment in time, as a creative expression of kaitiakitanga.
This research is currently ongoing.
Karla Beazley (Ngāti Te Ata, Waiohua)
Following the discovery of a midden in Roskill South in 2021, Karla Beazley serves as the project lead on an ongoing collaboration between mana whenua and May Road School, around the archaeology, history and geology of Puketāpapa / Pukewīwī / Mount Roskill and the surrounding whenua.
With the goal of May Road School pupils feeling better connected to the whenua that they call home, this project is interdisciplinary and intertwined with the school’s curriculum, producing an education programme that places students on the maunga, to learn, connect, and celebrate the whenua.
This research is currently ongoing.
Hinewaimarama Reihana-White (Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Hineāmaru)
A PhD candidate at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland, Hinewaimarama Reihana-White’s research explores the connections between Ōwairaka Maunga / Te Ahi-kā-a-Rakataura and Te Waiunuroa o Wairaka, an aquifer-fed puna that emerges on the Unitec Wairaka campus, sourced from the basalt aquifer beneath the maunga. The focus of this research is to explore how Ōwairaka, its basalt aquifer, and the puna Te Waiunuroa o Wairaka are connected as sources of waiora (health). Reihana-White’s research aims to strengthen ecological knowledge while upholding cultural values and demonstrates how Indigenous frameworks can guide environmental practice.
This research is currently ongoing. Read more about Hinewaimarama’s work here.
For more information about any of the participants work, please contact us at [email protected].