PhD in Public Health (Kaupapa Maori) | Researcher, Massey University | Chair, National Kaitiaki Group | HRC-Funded Researcher | Co-editor, AWRY2 Journal | Artist & Story Catcher
Teah Carlson works at the intersection of research, art, and Indigenous knowledge in ways that challenge what research is supposed to look like. As a kaupapa Maori researcher and evaluator at Massey University's SHORE & Whariki Centre, she has spent her career catching and telling the stories that conventional science doesn't know how to hold, applying Indigenous methodologies to some of the most urgent questions in Maori health and community wellbeing.
She chairs the National Kaitiaki Group, which ensures Maori women's health data is used in ways that genuinely benefit Maori communities rather than simply serving research interests. Her HRC-funded programme is pioneering Wairua methodologies for climate adaptation with rangatahi Maori, developing research frameworks that most institutions haven't yet found the language for. She is also co-editor of the AWRY2 Journal.
What Teah offers at academyEX is a fundamentally different way of seeing: a research lens that starts with Indigenous knowledge systems rather than treating them as supplementary, and an artistic sensibility that knows some truths require forms other than data. She asks the questions that need asking.