Professor Ngahuia Te Awekotuku and Associate Professor Linda Waimarie Nikora lead the Tangi Research Programme at the University of Waikato. The researchers are committed to studying tangi, conscious of the belief that such work in itself carries the inherent risk of "karanga aitua" or calling down misfortune by drawing attention to it. Contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand is constantly influenced by tangi practice, through the popular media and through personal exposure; elements of tangi engage people every day.
Dr Shane Wright (Te Āti Hau, Tūwharetoa) is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Auckland. He has produced a number of prominent papers and articles on the rates of evolution in different environments.
Māori researchers have created exciting ways to approach and carry out research over the past 25 years. Early new research methods were underpinned by Māori cosmology and mātauranga, and these approaches are still in use today.
In 2009 Whakauae Research for Māori Health and Development (WRMHD) in association with Te Oranganui Iwi Health Authority and the Health Services Research Centre (HSRC) began a two year project.
The many works of esteemed Māori scholar, the late Dr Pei te Hurunui Jones, have provided the catalyst for this research into the management, conservation, care and display of mātauranga Māori in a digital context.
The purpose of the quantitative LiLACS NZstudy is to (i) establish how life is, (ii) what is important to ongoing wellbeing and (iii) record the pathways of living during the next 10 years for 600 Māori people aged 80 to 90 years old and 600 non-Māori people aged 85 years old living in Bay of Plenty, New Zealand.