DAY 2:
TUESDAY 2 OCTOBER
(Registration: 8:30am until 9:15am)
9:15am until 5pm
Keynote speaker: Dr Siautu Alefaio
Dr Siautu Alefaio is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Psychology, Massey University and International Fellow of the Humanitarian Innovation Initiative (HI2) – Watson Institute, Brown University. She is the first woman of Samoan and Pacific descent to become an Educational psychologist.
Trained in Educational psychology Siautu is an experienced psychologist practitioner who has worked across various applied psychology contexts in education, health, social services, community, family violence-prevention, forensic rehabilitation and disaster humanitarian response across New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific.
She is Founding-Director of New IndigenoUs-innovation of Pacific Humanitarians (NIUPacH), a virtual research collective based in Oceania focused on improving the effectiveness and accountability of disaster preparedness, risk resilience and management, humanitarian response, and post-emergency reconstruction. Understanding that traditional psychology does not inevitably reflect indigenous cultures has been well documented.
Siautu’s work pioneers a new way forward in psychology that encompasses experiences, values and beliefs of Oceania for reforming psychology. Her research expertise draws on extensive applied psychology experiences to develop a NIU (New Indigenous Understandings) psychological research platform for re-informing psychological theory and practice.
