Everdina Fuli

Everdina Fuli was born in Wellington and was raised by her maternal grandparents until the age of fourteen when her grandparents moved to Cromwell. She was the school dux and went to Wellington Teachers’ College in 1983. She enrolled at Victoria University in 1984. Everdina taught in Porirua and Ruatoria, and completed a B.A. and M. A. at Victoria University. In 1992 she gained an academic position as Senior Lecturer at He Parekereke at the School of Education, Victoria University.

Fuli is currently the Business Manager for Te Whare Kura (TWK). She is responsible for guiding the TWK Governance Group, and leading the TWK Management Team in driving TWK’s indigenous research and business strategy, university wide which includes the national and international arenas. She has played a key role in bringing Health of Research Council of New Zealand funding into the University of Auckland and working relentlessly to establish a robust international indigenous research strategy. This has culminated in two formal tripartite agreements with the Universities of Hawai’i at Mānoa, Washington (Seattle), Massey and Auckland.

Fuli has worked in research funding, contract management, government policy and strategy, directorships, and was a senior faculty member. She has completed research, published academic articles and government reports in the areas of: education; evaluation; Treaty; employment; health; gender; indigenous women; Māori and Pacific advancement; and Māori language;economic development. She has worked internationally in: Sydney and Canberra, Australia and Nadi and Suva, Fiji; Kiribati; Tuvalu; Montreal, Vancouver, and Vancouver Island, Canada; Shenzden, China; Durban, Pretoria, and Johannesburg, South Africa; and Hawai’i.

Fuli is a member of the Pacific Advisory Group for the Ministry of Social Development and Chairs their Pasefika Proud Research Advisory Kōmiti. She was also appointed to the Expert Advisory Group in October this year by Cabinet to review the family violence sector in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Government appointed her to the Ministry of Education’s Pacific Island Polynesian Education Foundation Board in November. She has sat on a number of key advisory committees and boards in the field of health; education; economic development; and indigenous languages.

In January 2014 Fuli visited the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa with a group of TWK researchers from the University of Auckland.

Biographical sources

• Phone conversation with Everdina Fuli, Sept. 1998.
• "Dr. Everdina Fuli - Ethnic Studies"- http://www.ethnicstudies.hawaii.edu/pdf/Events/FULI_BIO.pdf 9 November 2016