• Maile Arvin, Ph.D.

    Project Director

  • Avis Kuuipoleialoha Poai

    Research Partner

  • Derek Taira, Ph.D.

    Research Partner

  • Eliana Massey

    Student Research Assistant

  • Kinny Torre

    Graduate Student Research Assistant

Our Team

Maile Arvin, Ph.D.

Project Director

I am Kānaka Maoli, and my ʻohana are the Awos from Waimānalo. My tūtū Lilia Awo (maiden name Mahi) worked at Koʻolau Girls School (formerly Kawailoa) in the 1960s and 1970s. Through doing this research, I have recently learned that my great-grandmother, Rachel Simerson Mahi, was herself held at the Girls’ Industrial School in Mōʻiliʻili in the 1920s.

I am currently an associate professor of history and gender studies, and director of Pacific Islands Studies, at the University of Utah. My first book, Possessing Polynesians: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawaiʻi and Oceania, was published with Duke University Press in 2019.

Read more about my work at the University of Utah here.

Avis Kuuipoleialoha Poai, JD

He loio ‘o Avis Kuuipoleialoha Poai a he manakia ma ke Keʻena Hana Noiʻi a Unuhi ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Institute of Hawaiian Language Research and Translation - IHLRT) ma ke Kulanui o Hawai‘i ma Mānoa. Mai ia kula ho‘okahi ‘o ia i puka mai ai me ke kēkelē laepua (BA) ma ka ‘ōlelo Beretānia a me ka ‘epekema kālai‘āina, a ma hope mai, me ke kēkelē laeo‘o (MA) ma ka noi‘i ‘ike kūmole, a ma laila nō ‘o ia i puka hou mai ai me ke kēkelē lae‘ula (JD) ma nā ha‘awina pili kānāwai. Ma mua o kāna hana ma IHLRT, no Kuuipo ke kuleana ho‘olauka‘i no Punawaiola—he waihona pūnaewele no ka ‘ike kūhohonu e pili ana i ke kānāwai Kanaka Maoli. Ma ka makahiki o 2018, ua wae ‘ia ‘o Punawaiola no ka makana “International Guardians of Culture and Lifeways Award for Indigenous Archives Institutional Excellence.” 

Avis Kuuipoleialoha Poai is an attorney and manager at the Institute of Hawaiian Language Research and Translation (IHLRT) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She received a BA in English and political science, a master’s degree in library science, and a juris doctor from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Prior to her work at IHLRT, Kuuipo was responsible for Punawaiola, a digital Hawaiian legal history archives repository that received the “International Guardians of Culture and Lifeways Award for Indigenous Archives Institutional Excellence” in 2018.

Derek Taira, Ph.D.

Born and raised in Kailua-Kona, Hawaiʻi, I am of Okinawan heritage and come from a long line of public educators. I am fascinated with the history of education in Hawaiʻi as schools in the islands have long been sites of conflict where issues of race, colonialism, and indigenous sovereignty have collided. These clashes continue to inform contemporary debates over equitable access to educational opportunities, resources, and success. 

I am an associate professor of history in the College of Education at the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa and hold affiliate positions in the Center of Pacific Island Studies and the Indigenous Politics Program in the Department of Political Science. My first book, Forward Without Fear: Native Hawaiians and American Education in Territorial Hawaii, 1900-1941, is set to be released in the summer of 2024 through the University of Nebraska Press.

Community Advisory Board

Student Research Assistants

Eliana Massey

I am Kanaka Maoli and come from the Keaweiwi, Kamai, and Paiaina families who were/are primarily rooted in Waipiʻo Valley and Niuliʻi. Through my work on the Nā Lei Poina ʻOle project, I learned that my great-great grandma, Meleana “Emma” Paiaina, was institutionalized at the Industrial School for Girls at Mōʻiliʻili. I also have roots in Mexico (along the Tó Ba’áadi/Atmaú Pakmaú/Río Bravo river), Spain (along the Guadalquivir river), Germany (near the Saale drainage basin, a tributary of the Elbe River), and England (near the coast of the English Channel and North Sea).

I was born in San Antonio, Texas and grew up in Wichita Falls, Texas, about 90 miles south of Riverside Indian School. I grew up unaware of the history of nearly 100 Indian boarding schools that once existed nearby. I also grew up fairly disconnected from Kānaka Maoli history and culture. I feel a kuleana (relational responsibility) to learn more about and share the history of child institutionalization in Hawaiʻi. I am currently pursuing bachelor’s degrees in museum studies and philosophy of science at the University of Utah. I am engaged in projects to improve the experience of Pasifika students at the University of Utah, create K-12 educational resources about Pasifika Utah history, and support Pasifika community gardening in Utah.

Kinny Torre

I am a CHamoru PhD student from Guåhan (Guam) in Communication at the University of Utah. My research is concerned with how Indigenous Pacific Islanders create communities in transnational contexts, how knowledge and memories are passed down through generations, and how sovereignty is expressed through daily acts. In summer 2023, I participated in and researched a CHamoru language revitalization program in Guåhan. 

Nayra Grace

I am a senior studying Middle East Studies and Political Science at the University of Utah. My ancestors were brought to the U.S. involuntarily as enslaved people. Colonialism extracted them from culture, land, and kinship. This disembodiment has sparked my interest in creating place-based identity, reclaiming and practicing knowledge that was stripped from my culture. Beyond my undergraduate studies I hope to pursue a degree in political geography, studying the relationship between prisons, dispossession, and racial hierarchies. I currently work at the Utah Prison Education Project where I help develop programming for youth incarcerated in Utah. I hope to grow a greater understanding of Native Hawaiian relationality, resilience, and identity. I am thrilled to join the Na Lei Poina ‘Ole project to create space for intergenerational healing and collective liberation.


Former Research Assistants

Callie Avondet

After working with us for over a year (2023-2024), Callie Avondet is off to graduate school in the History of Education at the University of Urbana-Champagne. We are grateful for her hard work with us!

Her previous bio: I am an undergraduate at the University of Utah studying history and sociology. I mostly grew up in Kansas, but also lived in Utah and Massachusetts. I am connected to Hawaiʻi and the history of colonization because my great aunt and uncle moved back and forth between Utah and Hawaiʻi as Mormon missionaries and church leaders before he became the superintendent at Kalaupapa. My research interests are broadly in the history of education with a focus in race, student and educator protest, and curriculum.

Mahalo (Gratitude)

  • Funders

    National Endowment for the Humanities Chair’s Grant

    American Council for Learned Societies Digital Justice Seed Grant

  • Mentors in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language)

    Lalepa Koga

    Kalikoaloha Martin

  • Partners & Supporters

    North Shore Community Land Trust

    Families of all our team members