Paleoecology & Indigenous Science and Technology Studies

I am an Early Career Research Fellow with the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, housed in the Sea Grant College Program.

I use historical and paleoecology, applied through a kanaka ʻōiwi epistemological lens, to study the impacts of climate change and colonialism on Pacific marine ecosystems, as well as how minoritized communities are impacted by STEM research.

My goal in this work is to hold research accountable to Indigenous peoples and draw connections between social and environmental processes to understand the past as key to the future.

My Science

About Sara

Sara Kahanamoku-Meyer, PhD (they/them) is a Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian), Maʻohi (Indigenous Tahitian), and Catalan (white) scientist and scholar. Raised in Haleʻiwa, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, Dr. Kahanamoku’s family connections to the ocean drive their scholarship and activism. They are currently an Early Career Research Fellow in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where they work closely with with the Hawaiʻi Sea Grant Ulana ʻIke Center of Excellence.

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Education

Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley (2022)

Dissertation: “Common Era records of Santa Barbara Basin benthic foraminifera reveal nineteenth and twentieth century shifts in reproductive life history, body size, and community structure”