Rate My Professor Ken Taiapa

Dr Ken Taiapa is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, within the Faculty of Medicine. He holds a PhD, Master of Public Health with Distinction, Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health, and Bachelor of Arts. Taiapa's research centres on the relationships between healthy environments and healthy people, incorporating kaupapa Māori methodologies to explore climate health, mātauranga Māori, kai sovereignty, eco-health, and indigenous values. He is involved in the Climate Health Aotearoa project, a multi-institutional effort to build capacity in climate and health research, and serves as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the SHORE & Whāriki Research Centre, Massey University, on the Health Research Council-funded Tangata Whenua Tangata Ora programme, which investigates hauora arising from whenua initiatives.

Taiapa's career encompasses extensive public health research and evaluation experience at Whāriki Research Centre, covering Whānau Ora, Māori health workforce development, health service design and delivery, sexual and reproductive health for young Māori males, media and racism, and positive youth development. His PhD examined a hapū mārakai initiative, documenting healing through reconnection to whenua. Notable publications include "Climate change and mātauranga Māori: making sense of a western environmental construct" (Kōtuitui, 2025, with H.M. Barnes and S. Wright), "Tension without tikanga: the damaging face of the treaty claims settlement system" (AlterNative, 2021, with H.M. Barnes and T. McCreanor), "Mārakai as sites of ahi kaa and resistance" (MAI Journal, 2021, with H.M. Barnes and T. McCreanor), and "Participants’ and caregivers’ experiences of a multidisciplinary programme for healthy lifestyle change" (BMJ Open, 2021, with Y.C. Anderson et al.). Earlier contributions address Māori responses to racism (MAI Journal, 2013) and anti-Māori themes in journalism (Pacific Journalism Review, 2012). Of Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau ā Apanui, and Rongowhakaata iwi, Taiapa advances Māori perspectives in public health.