Siautu Alefaio-Tugia

Associate Professor of psychology and Associate Dean Pacific in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Massey University

Associate Professor Siautu Alefaio-Tugia (Samoan lineage from the villages of Matautu-Tai, Sāsina, Manunu ma Fagamalo)

Siautu is an Associate Professor of psychology and Associate Dean Pacific in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Massey University. She is a Rutherford Discovery Fellow and Global Fellow of the Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Studies at Brown University. As an experienced psychologist practitioner she has worked across education, health, social services, community, family violence, forensic rehabilitation and disaster humanitarian response. Siautu redeveloped Saili Matagi, the Department of Corrections Pacific forensic rehabilitation programme for Pacific men in prison convicted of violent offences. As a scholar-practitioner she combines extensive practice and academic experience to re-inform psychology from Pacific-Indigenous knowledge frameworks. Siautu founded NIUPATCH (Navigate In Unity Pacific approaches to Community-Humanitarians) in 2016, a virtual practice-informed research collective that shines a light on Pacific-Indigenous community responses of innovation to humanity’s challenging needs across climates of change in Oceania. She currently leads research focusing on Pacific diasporic responses to COVID-19 in Aotearoa New Zealand.

RELATED PUBLICATIONS AND RESEARCH

Mobilizing the Pacific diaspora: a key component of disaster resilience

Escape from Working Poverty: Steps toward Sustainable Livelihood

Pacific-Indigenous community-village resilience in disasters

Alefaio-Tugia, S., & Havea, S. (2016). Formative evaluation of Pacific faith-based family violence services: Formative evaluation of Pacific faith-based family violence services (1). New Zealand: Pasefika Proud. Retrieved from http://www.pasefikaproud.co.nz/

Alefaio-Tugia, S., Carr, S., Hodgetts, D., Mattson, T. and van Ommen, C. (2015). Ending Poverty and Inequality? Toward Psychologies of Sustainable Development. Psychology Aotearoa, 7(1), 32-36.