greetings!
I am an Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Studies at Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikōlani College of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. Click on any of the links in the column to the left to read about my work.
Outside of my work at the College, I am very active in the Hawaiian music community. I am the webmaster of NahenaheNet, a Hawaiian music news site, and am a DJ on Alana I Kai Hikina, a Hawaiian language radio program which is broadcast every Sunday evening on KWXX FM in Hilo. I am a voting member of both the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences ("Grammy Awards") and the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts ("Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards"), and also serve on the HARA Board of Governors.
I attended Kīhei Elementary and St. Anthony High School on Maui. Our family moved to Hilo in 1994 when I enrolled at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. I received a Bachelor of Arts in Hawaiian Studies in 1999, and Master of Arts in Hawaiian Language and Literature in 2003. In my MA thesis, I compared stress patterns in Hawaiian language as spoken and sung, by analyzing the compositions and musical performances of John Kameaaloha Almeida. I will be attending The University of Otago in Aotearoa (New Zealand) in the Spring of 2008 in order to begin studies in their doctoral program in Ethnomusicology.
In the summer of 2002, my wife and I travelled to Ireland to research the state of the Irish language and the programs working to perpetuate it. I documented this trip in a travel blog which is only available in Hawaiian. There are some nice pictures, however, for the ‘ōlelo-impared.
