Dr. Joni Māramatanga Angeli-Gordon

PhD | Senior Research Fellow, Te Wananga o Aotearoa | Co-Director (Paemanu) | Creator, Mauritau Child Development Model | Lead, Pipi Paopao Research Nest | Indigenous Education Innovator

Joni Angeli Gordon created the Mauritau Child Development Model because she kept working with children for whom the existing frameworks were simply not designed. Of Ngapuhi, Ngati Whatua, and Te Roroa descent, she recognised that Maori children's development and flourishing required frameworks rooted in matauranga Maori rather than adapted from Western developmental models. The Mauritau model is the result of that conviction.

As Senior Research Fellow at Te Wananga o Aotearoa and Co-Director (Paemanu), she leads the Pipi Paopao Research Nest, a kaupapa Maori research environment advancing whanau-centred approaches to child and community flourishing. Her work bridges matauranga Maori and contemporary research methodology to influence education policy and practice at a systems level, with a long-term vision of Indigenous-led systems that uplift mokopuna across generations.

At academyEX, she brings the depth of Indigenous educational leadership and research innovation to the MCE programme, helping educators understand what it means to design learning from and with matauranga Maori rather than alongside it.