Veronica Ogata
University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI·Education Research
Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Filipino students, and women, are badly underrepresented in economics at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa (UHM). These same groups were hit hardest by COVID-19 in Hawai‘i.
- Fields
Education Research
Social Science
- Topics
economics education
Indigenous knowledge
Native Hawaiian
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Sep 2027
What they work on
- Redesign first- and second-year economics courses at Kapiolani Community College to connect Indigenous and Western knowledge systems, through a five-year faculty development program.
- Create five summer bridge courses at UH Manoa in which transferring students research biocultural restoration and climate change, leading toward BA and MA economics degrees.
- Develop peer mentoring, recruitment, and retention strategies that build a sense of belonging, with the goal of transferring 100 students from COVID-affected underrepresented groups.
- Produce a KCC–UHM transfer agreement, an eight-course economics sequence, handbooks on community-based learning, and an "Indigenizing Economics" concept paper.
More about the research
Their islands and communities also face growing environmental threats from climate change. This project asks how economics education can bring these students into the field while preparing them to address climate resilience and biocultural restoration, which means restoring ecosystems together with the cultural practices tied to them.
Why it matters
The program aims to close degree-completion gaps in economics for Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Filipino, and female students. It also aims to prepare graduates to work on climate resilience, biodiversity conservation, and community enterprise in Hawai‘i and across Oceania. Its curricula and handbooks could serve as models for other campuses that want to connect Indigenous knowledge with economics.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
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The school
University of Hawaii at Manoa: 23 labs on PI Pages, $376M a year on research, 182 research doctorates a year.
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