PhD in Education | Former Director of Teaching & Learning, academyEX | Former Campus Director, USP Cook Islands | Pacific Health & Education Leader | Multinational Pacific Organisation Experience
Debi Futter-Puati has built her career at a junction that most professionals never find: where education, health, and Pacific communities intersect in real, practical terms. She has worked for multinational organisations operating across the Pacific on health, education, wellbeing, and violence prevention, accumulating cross-disciplinary depth that is genuinely rare. Her academic credentials reflect that breadth: a PhD in Education, a Masters researching how the Cook Islands eliminated tuberculosis, and a PGDip in Special Education.
As former Campus Director for the University of the South Pacific Cook Islands Campus and former Director of Teaching and Learning at academyEX, she has led educational institutions through the complex work of making transformative learning accessible across diverse Pacific communities. That experience gives her a grounded understanding of what excellent education requires, not in theory, but in the specific cultural and logistical realities of Pacific contexts.
At academyEX, she brings that combination of health knowledge, educational leadership, and Pacific community understanding to the Master of Technological Futures. She asks the questions others miss: about access, about equity, and about what technology and learning can offer when they are designed with Pacific communities rather than for them.