Meet the Pacific Student Success team , Te Tima Tauira Pasifika Angitu

Janice Ikiua-Pasi is based at Fale Bilong Iumi on the Wellington campus. She is here to support and advocate for all Pacific distance learning students and answer questions to make sure your journey within Massey University has a positive impact in your life. If she does not have an answer then she will track down the person who does.

Janice is proud of her Niue culture. She has studied and worked in various tertiary institutions around New Zealand, is a published poet, and dabbles in spoken word and tinkering with niu ideas for niu journeys.

Igelese Ete is passionate about the Pacific creative and performing arts and its ability to inspire, empower, educate, and uplift the world.

Before being appointed Associate Dean: Pacific at Massey, he was the Head of Performing Arts at the Oceania Centre for Arts Culture and Pacific Studies at the University of Pacific, Suva Fiji.

In 2009, Ete was awarded the prestigious Creative New Zealand Senior Pacific Artist Award for his contribution to the promotion and performance of Pacific music in New Zealand and the Pacific. The Fiji Government also appointed him in 2017 to be Chairperson of the Fiji Arts Council Board.

With extensive conducting, composition, and teaching experience Ete was the New Zealand Choirmaster for 'The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring', working with composer Howard Shore and director Sir Peter Jackson. In 2016 he was contracted as ‘choirmaster’ & music/choral consultant for the latest Disney animation ‘Moana’ , featuring the talented Pacific Voices from the Oceania Centre For Arts Culture and Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific.

Ete is currently completing his PhD at the Auckland University of Technology. As part of his thesis, he’s creating and composing an original Samoan and Pacific musical production and creative work, which speaks about ‘Creative exploration of traditional and contemporary Samoan musical structures, instrumentation and performance, expressing genealogy through the realms of self-identity’.

His musical production Malaga: The Journey: A Choreographed Choral Celebration has been used since its premiere in 1998 as a powerful motivational tool for students and communities, especially those of pacific descent.

Velonika connects Pacific students to the right academic support within the College of Science. Being a scientist herself allows her to engage and support Massey's Pacific students in the College's different schools. Velonika is based at the Auckland campus and is a Creationist.

Kotalo is Samoan and Tuvaluan, and still to discover Niuean and Hawaiian roots. She helps to navigate the waters of Massey University with College of Humanities and Social Sciences Pacific students, Psychology students in particular, and welcomes students to get in touch.

Kotalo's role also includes being the Research Officer and Youth lead for the ‘Caring for our Pacific Wisdom Bearers study’ with Dr Siautu Alefaio-Tugia.

Professor Rukmani Gounder comes from Nadi, Fiji, and obtained her primary and secondary education in Nadi and Bachelor’s degree in Economics (Fiji Government Scholar) from the University of the South Pacific (Suva).

Rukmani’s research has largely been in the areas of economics and social development with an applied economics framework in the Asia-Pacific nations.

She was elected as a chairperson of the Pacific@Massey Network in 2007, and until 2013 served as a member of Pacific Research and Policy Centre. She also served as a Chairperson of the Pacific Development Working Committee, Massey Business School (MBS). Now she serves as the Massey Business School (MBS) representative in the management group at the School, MBS and University levels, and as a member of the Pacific Research and Policy Centre.

Rukmani can advise Pacific students on their courses, assist in their needs, provide clarification about Economics courses, and address any academic concerns.

Read more about Rukmani's research, background and qualifications

Peter studies the adaptive potential of plants, pests and pathogens. He co-leads a joint French-New Zealand project with the CNRS (the French National Centre for Scientific Research), which is a laboratory-without-walls investigating the adaptive potential of New Zealand alpine and French Kerguelen Island plants.

He is coordinator of a UNESCO UNITWIN Network Science for Sustainability in Oceania that is developing in-field DNA diagnostics for plant, animal and human health. His scientific achievements earned him an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship and New Zealand Royal Society Fellowship.

Learn more about Peter's research expertise, projects and outputs

Ko Pārengarenga te moana
Ko Tawhitiahi te maunga
Ko Awapoka te awa
Ko au ko Nicole Mincher.

Fakalofa lahi atu.

Nicole is a registered educational psychologist and came to Massey from the Ministry of Education and Explore Specialist Advice. She has a particular interest in equity in education, and how schools and systems can best support our tamariki, kaiako and whānau. She hopes to have the opportunity to learn alongside you.

Any students interested in anything educational psychology related, or with any questions about course content, training pathways or working as an educational psychologist, should get in touch with Nicole.

More about Nicole's research expertise, projects and outputs.

Lara Thompson is one of the BASE+ Pacific Student Advisors and focuses on helping students with academic questions. She runs one-on-one academic advice sessions and is passionate about enabling Pacific students to achieve.

Lara loves to chat and believes that a 'Talk to Write' approach works well for enabling students to find their voice and way through writing tasks. Her Master's degree focused on postcolonial theory and literature.

Lara is Samoan through her mother, Lineta Eti Eves and is proudly linked to the villages of Vailima, Sa’anapu, and Satuipa’itea (among others). She worked in Malifa, Samoa near a giant mango tree that stood near the site of a fale that her family lived in, her grandfather being a former school inspector many moons ago.
When not at work helping students, Lara dedicates her time to her children, wider fanau, fixing her old house, and making her garden behave.

John is originally from Tonga, (of Tongan and Fijian descent) and was educated in the United States. He teaches courses in mathematics and education, and his research focuses on enhancing Māori and Pacific students' achievement in mathematics, as part of the Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities (DMIC) initiative.

John is available to mentor Pacific students throughout their education. His other research interests include analysing advanced mathematical thinking and teaching and learning discrete mathematics (more specifically, the algorithmatising approach).

Read more about John's research outputs, expertise and other information

Krushil grew up in South Auckland, and came to university in her early 20s. She became interested in philosophy as an undergraduate, particularly in political philosophy and questions around wellbeing, development and justice.

Krushil was appointed to the United Nations 2020 Human Development Report Advisory Board, and was awarded a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship in 2018. Her grandfather was from Hunga in the Vava'u islands group of Tonga. He came to New Zealand as a boxer in the 1950s and travelled to Britain to box there before returning to New Zealand in the 1970s.

Anyone interested in philosophy, or any of the courses in the School of Humanities, Media and Creative Communication, can see Krushil in the Atrium Building.

More about Krushil's research expertise, projects and outputs.