2024 Summit Keynote Speakers

Denise is an Associate Dean of Māori Advancement and Professor of Māori Health at Auckland University of Technology. She advocates for health and social outcomes improvement for whānau Māori (Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa). Her research focuses on whānau Māori living with violence, improving health and social service engagement, cultural responsiveness, and workforce development. Denise is a member of Te Pūkotahitanga (Māori Ministerial Advisory Group for Family Violence and Sexual Violence Prevention). Denise served on the Family Violence Death Review Committee, chaired the Family Violence Prevention Investment Advisory Board, was the Deputy Chair of the Family Violence Prevention Expert Advisory Group, and was a member of the Health Quality & Safety Commission’s Te Rōpū Māori (Māori Advisory Group).

Mona Lisa Bourque Bearskin nitisiyihkâson êkwa amiskosâkahikan nêhiyaw peyakôskân, ostêsimâwoyasiwêwin nikotwâsik ohci niya mâka lək̓ʷəŋən traditional territory e-wîkiyân mêkwâc.

Hello, greetings to all. My name is Mona Lisa Bourque Bearskin from Beaver Lake Cree Nation, in Treaty 6 Territory colonial known as central Alberta but I live on the lands of W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples, colonially known as Victoria BC. 

Dr. Mona Lisa Bourque Bearskin, a Cree Métis Registered Nurse from Beaver Lake Cree Nation, is an Associate Professor and inaugural Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) Indigenous Health Nursing Research Chair holder at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. She is known for her expertise in Indigenous health nursing leadership, access to healthcare, and Indigenous knowledge in nursing. Her relationship with the community and students is a generative process to advancing Indigenous health nursing knowledge. The collective research she is leading focuses on relational, rights, and strength-based inquiry approaches to advancing Indigenous health rights. She was a former president of the Canadian Indigenous Nursing Association (CINA) and has led organizational changes and program development across the nursing discipline. Her current research focuses on reconciling parallel pathways of Indigenous health nursing leadership research in the context of community wellness within local traditional knowledge systems that aligns with her apprenticeship as a medicine helper for the past 20 years.

Dr. Lowe is the Joseph Blades Centennial Memorial Professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing. He is a Native American tribal member of the Cherokee (Echota) and Lenape (of Delaware). Dr. Lowe currently serves as a member of the Advisory Council to the National Institutes of Nursing Research (NINR). He co-authored with Dr. Roxanne Struthers (Ojibwe) the Conceptual Framework for Nursing in Native American Culture. Dr. Lowe was the first Native American man to be inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and currently serves as a member of the selection committee. He is an alumnus of the Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) at the American Nurses Association and has served as the Chair of the National Advisory Council to the MFP. He developed and studies interventions for the prevention and reduction of substance use and other risk behaviors among Native American and Indigenous youth and young adults globally. These studies and other health programs are guided by models that Dr. Lowe developed which include the Cherokee Self-Reliance, Native Self-Reliance and Native-Reliance theoretical framework and models. Dr. Lowe also developed the first manualized Talking Circle intervention to reduce substance use and other risk behaviors among Native American/Indigenous youth in the United States and globally in countries such as Canada and Australia. His research projects have been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, and other organizations and foundations such as the Rita & Alex Hillman Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Talking Circle intervention has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs as a “Promising Evidence-Based Program” for the well-being of youth, recognized as the first manualized Talking Circle intervention, featured as one of the American Academy of Nursing’s “Edge Runners,” and most recently featured in the National Academy of Medicine report of The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity. He developed the first Center for Indigenous Nursing Research and hosted the first International Indigenous Nursing Research Summit in 2017. Dr. Lowe’s work also has been acknowledged through numerous awards such as the American Nurses Association Luther Christman Award, Florida Nurses Association Cultural Diversity Award, Great 100 Centennial Research Award, Nursing Educator of the Year Award, Nurse of the Year Award, Lifetime Achievement In Education & Research Award, the Researcher of the Year at the Professor Rank Award, and most recently induction into the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame. Dr. Lowe has presented nationally and internationally and has published several articles and books.

Professor Odette Best is an Aboriginal Australian woman with multiple Aboriginal bloodlines and is currently Pro-Vice Chancellor: First Nations Strategy at the University of Southern Queensland. Odette commenced her career as a registered nurse and holds a PhD in Aboriginal women’s labour force histories as nurses and midwives. Dr Best’s leadership in Indigenous Health and Indigenous nursing is acknowledged nationally and internationally; she is a Churchill Fellow (2002), a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (2018), a Fellow of the Australian College of Nurses (2021) and a Fellow of the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives (2019). Dr Bests research interests are in Aboriginal women’s labour historiography, racism in nursing, perimenopause and menopause experienced by Indigenous women and cultural safety.

Ray Lovett is a Ngiyampaa/Wongaibon Social Epidemiologist. Improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health has been the purpose of Ray Lovett’s work and research for over two decades. He is the Director of Mayi Kuwayu: The national study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Wellbeing that follows thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to examine how culture is linked to improved health and how the processes of settler-colonisation harm health and wellbeing. He is based at the Yardhura Walani Centre within the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at The Australian National University (ANU).

Ray’s research leadership through Mayi Kuwayu has informed and influenced policy at state and national levels in Australia as well as empowered communities at the local level.  As the Mayi Kuwayu Study progresses, new insights will be generated to inform and influence program, service and policy development.

Tahu Kukutai FRSNZ (Ngāti Tiipa, Ngāti Māhanga, Ngāti Kinohaku, Te Aupōuri) is Co-Director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, Aotearoa’s only Māori Centre of Research Excellence, and Professor of Demography at The University of Waikato. Tahu specialises in Māori and Indigenous demographic research and data sovereignty. She has undertaken research for numerous tribes, Māori communities, and Government agencies, and provided strategic advice across a range of sectors. Tahu is a founding member of both the Māori Data Sovereignty Network Te Mana Raraunga and the Global Indigenous Data Alliance, and is a founding Trustee of Pūhoro STEMM Academy. Recent books include Indigenous data sovereignty: Toward an agenda (ANU Press), Indigenous data sovereignty and policy (Routledge), and The Oxford handbook of Indigenous sociology (Oxford University Press).

Ngaropi is a mother of five and kuia to nine mokopuna. She is the foundation member, Director, Senior Family Violence Programme Educator and community researcher for Tū Tama Wahine o Taranaki Inc. Tangata Whenua Development and Liberation Service (TTW). TTW works to ensure that Taranaki whānau have a secured sense of identity and connection to each other, where all are able to contribute in the maintenance of a peaceful, prosperous community - www.tutamawahine.org.nz. TTW is a provider of social justice services within the Taranaki region of Aotearoa (New Zealand).

Ngaropi is a former member of the national Māori advisory group Te Rōpū for the Government’s Joint Venture Business Unit, this group was tasked with helping to transform the whole-of-government response to family and sexual violence. She has been involved in numerous local and national community development projects implementing a variety of Kaupapa Māori services, trainings and resources. She is a former member of the Ministry of Justice Domestic Violence Programme Approvals Panel, a former member of the Māori Reference Group to the National Taskforce on Family Violence; and former member of the central region Family Violence Death Review Panel. Ngaropi is a former general and obstetric nurse, whānau/hapū/iwi (family and tribal) practitioner and current member of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC). She has worked in health and social justice in a variety of environs for 40+ years and is a recipient of The Nursing Network on Violence Against Women International Award 2011.

Leonie Pihama (Te Ātawa, Waikato, Taranaki) is a preeminent scholar of kaupapa Māori and mana wahine. Her body of work encompasses three decades of intentional research in the areas of kaupapa Māori, mana wahine, inter-generational trauma, healing and whānau well-being. She has been an important figure in establishing these areas as legitimate and exciting ways to pursue knowledge and to include kaupapa Māori and mātauranga Māori in the wider research arena. She has been an outstanding voice for drawing on te reo Māori, tikanga and mātauranga Māori as a source of theories, methodologies, inspiration and solutions. Her theoretical work on kaupapa Māori has helped lay the foundations for what has become a vibrant Māori approach to research across many disciplines and fields. Her body of work on inter-generational trauma and healing has stretched from exploring healing strategies, definitions and framing of issues such as sexual violence and strategies for whānau well-being. Pihama has a strong community focus in her research with collaborations with Māori social service providers and her impact is in their application of her research, the capacity of which she has developed and mentored. Leonie has directed a number of research institutes including the International Research Institute for Māori and Indigenous Education (IRI, University of Auckland) and Te Matapunenga o Te Kotahi (Te Kotahi Research Institute, University of Waikato).