Rate My Professor Sharnee Diamond

Sharnee Diamond serves as Kaiwhakaako | Teaching Fellow at the Kōhatu Centre for Hauora Māori, University of Otago, within the Faculty of Medicine. An accomplished Oral Health Therapist practicing at Community Oral Health Services, she brings clinical expertise to support Hauora Māori programs. Hailing from Whangarei in Te Tai Tokerau with whakapapa to Ngāti Wai, Ngāpuhi, and Ngāti Raukawa, Sharnee is dedicated to addressing oral health disparities among Māori communities. As an executive member of Te Ao Mārama, the Māori Dental Association, she advocates strategically and on the ground for culturally safe oral health services. Her primary focus involves educating the oral health workforce about the specific needs of Māori people, ensuring equitable and culturally safe spaces for whānau to engage with services.

Sharnee's academic journey began unconventionally; leaving school at 16, she trained as a dental therapist in a practice in Sydney, Australia, after missing a connecting flight. Returning to New Zealand, she worked several years for Lumino the Dentist in Auckland while studying NCEA exams at night school and taking supporting papers at Auckland University of Technology. Encouraged by her boss, she and her brother became the first in their family to enrol in university, moving to the University of Otago to pursue a Bachelor of Biomedical Science (BBiomedSc) majoring in Functional Human Biology. She valued the flexibility and relevance of her degree, particularly research-based assignments in the third-year physiology paper PHSL 345. In her current teaching role, she serves as contact for the postgraduate paper MAOH401 Hauora Māori Advanced Practice, a practice-oriented course that strengthens knowledge of Māori health equity through Te Ao Māori, leadership, whānau-centred care, and innovative service design aligned with Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Her research specializations include rural health and social support, highlighted by the 2019/20 Otago Medical Research Foundation Summer Research Scholarship project 'Aging in rural communities: access to specialized support,' supervised by Associate Professor Chrystal Jaye. A key publication is Diamond, S., & Jaye, C. (2020). Meeting the social support needs of older rural people in Central Otago: The impact of a pilot social work position. Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 32(2), 131-141. Through these contributions, Sharnee positively impacts health and education systems for rural Māori communities.