At the 2023 National Diversity in STEM Conference this past October, two UH Hilo students, Taecia Kukui Akana and Shania Tamagyongfal, won awards for their outstanding poster presentations in the Traditional Knowledge category.

In her presentation entitled, “Weaving Oral Histories of Yapese Navigation with Remathau Community Engagement in Re-Establishing Voyaging Networks for Sustainable Sea Transport,” Tamagyongfal presented her master’s thesis, which focuses on documenting oral histories of Yapese voyaging relevant to the sawei system between Yap and its outer islands.

“These oral histories will help strengthen the current research literature on inter-island voyaging and its community engagement, rather than just focusing on the mechanics of voyaging, which has already been thoroughly documented,” Tamagyongfal states in the presentation’s abstract. “The data collected from the oral histories will later be used in its application as a method of climate change adaptation with the concept of voyaging for sustainable sea transport.”

Tamagyongfal says she is appreciative of the feedback from the assigned mentor judges at the conference. She valued “engaging in discussions of new ideas to relate to or build further on in my research.” Taecia Akana pictured Taecia Akana

Undergraduate student presenter Taecia Kukui Akana, a research apprentice working with Associate Professor of Education Tobias Irish and Associate Professor Anthropology Joe Genz, received an award for her poster presentation on interviewing Indigenous student scientists about their experiences.

Akana’s study, titled, “Maan Jepopo: Motivations and Goals to Pursue STEM in the Pacific Islands,” aims to understand Pacific Islander students’ motivations and goals regarding their pursuit of higher education with a STEM degree. She conducted ethnographic interviews with Pacific Islander students to collect qualitative data on their lived experiences, where she discovered participants often referred back to their experiences with family members, their ways of life as Indigenous islanders, and the passing on of cultural knowledge.

“The data reveals and highlights the value that Pacific Islander STEM students bring to the STEM community, being that they come with prior ecological knowledge and intimate connections to the land and sea,” Akana states in the project’s abstract.

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