Victoria Lesatele

Masters | Pacific Health Researcher & Evaluator | PhD Candidate, Massey University | Shore & Whariki Research Centre | Health Service Delivery Specialist

Victoria Lesatele is one of Aotearoa's leading Pacific health researchers, with a career spanning evaluation and applied research across an unusually wide range of health contexts: child health, cardiac rehabilitation, youth mental health, problem gambling, family violence prevention, and more. That breadth reflects a consistent underlying commitment to understanding what health service delivery actually looks like for Pacific communities, and what it would take to make it genuinely equitable.

Based at the SHORE & Whariki Research Centre at Massey University, she is currently completing a PhD examining Samoan people's experiences of cardiovascular disease care pathways. The research brings both quantitative rigour and deep community connection to a question that has direct implications for how services are designed, funded, and delivered. It is the kind of work that changes systems.

At academyEX, she brings that combination of methodological depth and community-rooted purpose to the MCOR programme, helping leaders understand what equitable change actually requires when the communities affected are Pacific peoples.