Christine Rubie-Davies is a Professor of Education at the University of Auckland. She is the world leader on high expectation teaching and teachers who have high expectations for all students. Christine is interested in how teacher beliefs and practices increase or decrease expectation effects and primarily focuses on teacher expectation effects for disadvantaged groups, particularly Māori. She is a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, of the American Psychological Association and of the Association for Psychological Science. Christine has been recognised as among the top 2% of education researchers globally.

Hana is Tumu Whakarae of Tātai Aho Rau | Core Education, bringing 30 years of expertise working with her people and many organisations to advocate for and lead indigenous language revitalisation and education responses to inequities that Māori and other groups experience. Her mahi on The Waitangi Tribunal and other inquires means she deeply understands the impact of embedded and enduring system inequities on the lives of New Zealanders. 

Pam is the Research and Design Lead at Tātai Aho Rau. She brings an extensive background in education with roles in professional learning design, policy development, executive leadership and research. She draws on the extensive relationships and experiences that these roles have provided to be critically conscious of the complex barriers to educational equity. Currently she works alongside Māori as a community-led researcher, with a particular focus on equity design for impact. 

Georgia is passionate about promoting the wellbeing and development of young people, employing strengths-based approaches to address social and educational inequities. A key focus of her work is highlighting the significant role that researchers play in shaping the research process and outcomes and therefore the importance of researcher reflexivity and criticality for conducting ethical and meaningful research.  

I’m a doctoral candidate who identifies as Aotearoa wahine Māori, Atiuan and Japanese. Focusing on the Māori concept ‘tohu’ (signs, omens and extra-rational proofs), and how it is described in whakapapa kōrero, my research considers how our Indigenous ontological practices, such as tohu, challenge what counts as methodology and method. My research is influenced by kaupapa Māori and decolonial approaches and reflects my interest in the inter-relational aspect between research, policy and practice and the impact on Indigenous research.  

As a research assistant on this project, I contribute a unique Māori English-medium primary teacher and researcher perspective. I fluidly navigate research, theory and the pragmatic potential benefits of this project resource in a contemporary classroom/school setting. 

Melina is a doctoral student at the University of Auckland. She lectures in the BEd programme, including courses in Te Ao Māori. Melina’s doctoral research is on Kura Kaupapa graduate’s student mathematical identity in tertiary STEM and how kura kaupapa Māori supports learners to develop a positive mathematics identity. She is interested in exploring the socio-cultural perspectives of whānau Māori, kura and raukura can support tamariki in pāngarau. 

Prof Amor undertakes research in the field of Construction Informatics, with a passion for the application of beneficial computer science techniques to the Architectural, Engineering and Construction industries. Achieving interoperability is his core research interest and to achieve this he investigates integrated environments which covers information modelling (e.g., BIM), digital twins, code compliance checking, AI, process modelling, user interaction, VR/AR, implementation frameworks, information mapping, and communication strategies.