UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Pacific University launch collaborative student research project on climate

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The vision of the joint project is not only to produce the important student research, but also to inspire other Hawaiʻi and Pacific region universities to launch the same type of collaborative courses.

Students and faculty at an overlook of the pali.
Through a partnership between UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Pacific University, students from the two schools met on Oʻahu, April 17, to connect with each other in person and present their joint research on climate stories. Above, the students at the Nuʻuanu Pali lookout with HPU professor Barbara Quimby (left) and UH Hilo professor Joe Genz (right). (Courtesy photo)

By Susan Enright/UH Hilo Stories.

In response to last year’s termination of federal funds that for years supported a regional program producing STEM research conducted by Hawaiʻi and Pacific Island students, former leadership of the program have been hard at work figuring out how to continue the highly successful projects. One idea with a strong collaborative component is developing with great success this semester.

The Islands of Opportunity Alliance (IOA) developed several years ago as a network of higher education institutions in Hawaiʻi and the greater Pacific region within the federal Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program, which was launched by the National Science Foundation in 1991 with a mission to encourage and facilitate access to careers in STEM fields for underrepresented populations.

The alliance was headed by the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, led by the Office of the Chancellor and directed by UH Hilo Professor of Anthropology Joe Genz. The group included a dozen partner universities and colleges from Hawaiʻi and the Pacific region; in 2024 the alliance had received its 4th cycle of funding for a five-year period.

The program produced independent student projects of great benefit to the students’ home communities. The projects covered a wide range of topics such as medicinal plants, digital coding, ancestral knowledge, diets and breast cancer, and sustainable fish farming. Many used the new knowledge and skills they gained during the program to then help their people and communities navigate the future more effectively.

A new way, new collaboration

Group of students pose at base of majestic mountainside.
On April 17, 2026, UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Pacific University students met at HPUs Makapuʻu branch campus at the Oceanic Institute for a workshop to share their joint climate project in person. (Courtesy photo)

So after the funding cut, the need was urgent to figure out how to adapt and keep the student research going.

“One way we are doing this is a partnership between UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Pacific University, who were the co-leads on an alliance-wide (climate-related) research project and have (now) moved that project into our courses,” says Genz who is now teaching an adapted anthropology seminar course (ANTH 435). Barbara Quimby, an assistant professor of marine science and policy at HPU and former IOA campus coordinator, is teaching a similar seminar course.

“We developed an inter-campus research project on climate stories, stories from community members and practitioners on resilience, where students learned via distance learning how to conduct ethnographic interviews, and then they conducted interviews in UHH-HPU teams as well as in-person on Hawaiʻi Island and on Oʻahu,” explains Genz about the project’s focus on climate impacts.

“This is a community-based project, led by UH Hilo alumnus Jermy Uowolo (MA, Heritage Management, 2025), who connected our group to key community members and also helped to co-design the project, serve as an interviewer and translator, and also shared his own stories as a narrator,” adds Genz.

UH Hilo student Sam Lee says what makes Genz’s ANTH 435 class so special to them is how deeply grounded it is in real relationships to people and place that will continue to exist long after the semester ends. “As an undergraduate anthropology major, being able to collaborate across an ocean with graduate students, marine science students, Indigenous Pacific Island community members, and a poet to honor the knowledge we hold, opened my eyes to what anthropology can be.”

In addition, Genz’s graduate class on oral history research (ANTH 631) focuses on issues that the Remathau — an Indigenous name for the outer islands of Yap — diasporic community in Hawaiʻi is facing, to gain insights into some of the possible social impacts of climate migration in the future.

Reconvening, sharing knowledge, connecting

On April 17, students in Genz and Quimby’s courses met at HPUs Makapuʻu branch campus at the Oceanic Institute for a workshop. Students presented their work and connected with fellow students and faculty. Mentorship from both graduate and doctoral students who also attended the workshop inspired the undergraduates to consider graduate school as a pathway.

“The vision that my colleague Barbara and I share, born out of the Islands of Opportunity Alliance, is to unite other campuses in this important work of chronicling the storied experiences of climate resilience across the Pacific, and the success of this student workshop represents a very tangible step in that direction.”

Four students at front of room present their work, slide titled Pacific Islander Histories of Climate Change.
UH Hilo students Briana Gaylord and Sita Hale (center) with Hawaiʻi Pacific University students Olivia Eagle (left) and Nico Palop (right) co-present their work at HPU, Oʻahu, April 17, 2026. (Courtesy photo)

In addition to the student presentations, the event was attended by UH Mānoa doctoral candidate in English, Arielle Taitano Lowe, who has published a book on poetry called Ocean Mother.

“Lowe led a workshop on how students could move their experiences in interviewing on climate stories into creative poetical expressions, and we are considering using the results of this as a complementary text to the interview transcript analysis,” says Genz.

In a classroom setting, five students seated around author as she reads from book.
Gathered with students, UH Mānoa doctoral candidate Arielle Taitano Lowe reads from her book on poetry called Ocean Mother. (Courtesy photo)
Students pose while seated at picnic table set up on a porch, everyone has a plate of food.
Students take a break with poet Arielle Taitano Lowe (at left). (Courtesy photo)

The collaborative workshop and activities were a grand success.

“We ended the day with a visit to Waimanalo Beach to help foster those connections,” says Genz, noting that for students in the ANTH 435 class who are are earning a certificate in Pacific Islands studies, the day was a culminating experience for their certificate program.

“I am really proud of our students for their dedicated work in partnership with our HPU colleagues and for taking seriously their role in sharing and curating the voices of our community narrators with care.”

The event was funded by a UH Hilo College of Arts and Sciences professional development award.

Story by Susan Enright, public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.

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