Associate Professor Leonie Pihama

Associate Professor Leonie Pihama is a Senior Research Fellow at the Te Kōtahi Institute, University of Waikato, and Director of Māori And Indigenous Analysis Ltd, a Kaupapa Māori research company. Her extensive research interests cover whānau, economic transformation and national identity. She has a long history of involvement in Māori education, including te kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa Māori (total immersion pre–schools and schools), and has published widely.

Leonie sits on the Government-appointed Constitutional Advisory Panel. She has received numerous academic awards, including the inaugural Fulbright-Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Scholar Award and a Hohua Tutengaehe Post-Doctoral Scholarship from the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

Leonie was the Principal Investigator on the Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga research project Tiakina Te Pā Harakeke: Māori childrearing within a context of whānau ora. She has led other NPM projects in the past, on education, eugenics, and neonatal care