advisory board

John Utanga is a senior journalist with Television New Zealand's Tagata Pasifika programme.

He is a Cook Islander, born and bred in Rarotonga. He moved to New Zealand to attend Auckland University and "never went home". 

He has been a journalist in New Zealand for more than 15 years and joined Tagata Pasifika in 1994 after a few years on newspapers. With a background in hard news reporting, John has carried that on into his television career.

John was also one of the founders of the Pacific Islands Media Association (PIMA) as well as being a founding member of AUT's Pacific Media Centre advisory board. He has been the PMC board chair since 2009.

His interests include politics, sport and all things Cook Islands.

John's TVNZ page

Ruth DeSouza is Coordinator and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Asian and Migrant Health Research at AUT University.

She is committed to undertaking interdisciplinary research that forges new partnerships between academic, community and cultural groups.

She is coordinator of the Aotearoa Ethnic Network (AEN) and editor of the AEN Journal. Her research has focussed on access to health services, help-seeking and women’s health, 

Ruth is interested in advancing a social justice agenda in research.  She is committed to the dissemination of research findings in ways that can advance quality outcomes for consumers, develop the capability of the health workforce and that increases the self-determination of consumers, their families and communities.

Profile

Dr Camille Nakhid is from Trinidad and Tobago. She has a BSc in Chemistry from New York, and completed a Diploma in Secondary Teaching in Chemistry and Mathematics, a Masters in Education Administration (Hons), and a Doctor of Education (EdD) in New Zealand.

Camille's research interests include: the sociology of education; the social construction of identity; appropriate research methodologies for marginalised and minority groups; race and ethnicity; and Māori and Pasifika academic achievement.

She is a senior lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, AUT University.

Profile at AUT

Since the inception of the first women's group at AUT in the early 1980s, Tui has been an advocate and member. Tui joined AUT more than 20 years ago and became the equity coordinator in science and engineering and lectures in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and community work issues.

She was appointed equity adviser for the Faculty of Creative Technologies and has played a strong role in encouraging equity in the School of Community Studies.

She has a Bachelor of Arts, MEd (Maori), a Diploma in Professional Ethics and a Diploma in Teaching.

Professor Wendy Bacon is a well known Australian investigative journalist and non practising media lawyer.

She worked at Channel 9 (Sunday Programme and Sixty Minutes), John Fairfax and Sons (National Times and Sun Herald) and SBS (Dateline) and won a Walkley Award for feature writing.

She has a long history of campaigning around free speech issues. Current research interests at the University of Technology, Sydney, include the reporting of Asia-Pacific humanitarian and environment issues, finding innovative ways to combine investigative journalism with scholarly research and developing e-learning projects around simulation games and blogs.

She is currently director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) and a contributing editor to the Pacific Journalism Review and the Sage journal Journalism, Theory, Practice and Criticism.

Profile at UTS