Noa Kekuewa Lincoln is of native Hawaiian, German, and Japanese decent, born in Kealakekua on Hawai‘i Island. The Hawaiian cultural epistemology, which places environment at the core of human well-being, has been the kuamo‘o (lit. backbone) of his personal and professional accomplishments. Noa received his BS in Environmental Engineering from Yale University, and his PhD in Environment and Resources from Stanford University, where his work focused on traditional agricultural development pathways and management strategies. His postdoctoral work examined traditional values and practices of ecosystems for food in Aotearoa.

Noa has worked in marine and terrestrial ecosystem restoration and conservation around the Pacific, and has coupled these efforts with cultural and environmental education and community engagement. He has conducted analyses of land asset allocation for several organizations, bringing together concepts of cultural values, ecosystem services, and economics. For the past many years he has worked on traditional Hawaiian ethnobotany and agriculture. He was the Ethnobotany Educator for the Bishop Museum’s Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden and has implemented projects facilitated through a variety of partnerships with community organizations. He has worked to revitalize traditional dryland agricultural systems in Hawai‘i, learning from the past while simultaneously feeding and educating the present. Noa is recognized as an emerging expert in Hawaiian crops and cropping systems. He has received fellowships from the Switzer Foundation, the National Science foundation, the Ecological Society of America, the First Nations Futures Program, and the Mellon Foundation to conduct this work. His primary interests are in combining traditional and modern knowledge of land management to evaluate social utility, rather than economic, contributions. He is currently a research fellow with Ngai Tahu Research Centre at the University of Canterbury and an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa with a focus on Indigenous Crops and Cropping Systems.