Associate Professor Leonie Pihama (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Māhanga, Ngā Māhanga a Tairi) is director of Te Kotahi Research Institute at the University of Waikato, and director of Māori and Indigenous Analysis Ltd, a Kaupapa Māori research company. She has worked as an associate professor in education at the University of Auckland teaching in the fields of policy analysis, Māori women's issues, and the politics of representation of indigenous peoples. Leonie is a leading kaupapa Māori educator and researcher and has been working in the intersecting fields of education, health, whānau wellbeing and Maori immersion education for a number of decades.