Episode 12 — "HUI SRC: Kuleana of emerging scientists"

In this episode of Become A Researcher, Halaevalu Vakalahi, PhD, talks about the Hawaii Pacific University (HPU) Undergraduate Infrastructure Student Research Center (HUI SRC).

Vakalahi is currently the President and CEO of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). She is the former Dean of the College of Health and Society at HPU, where she also served as the principal investigator for five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health that trained undergraduate students in biomedical research (HUI SRC).

HUI SRC encourages entrepreneurship and independence for students in their program. Students are made to take ownership of their projects as the lead, with faculty mentors as a support to help the students navigate biomedical research.

Vakalahi described some of their research projects, which included students: taking samples from the Ala Wai Canal freshwater river in Honolulu; studying homelessness and mental health; and studying Native Hawaiian young adults and mental health.

“[The] most exciting for me is the fact that they're finding ʻāina — land, this land, Hawaii, this sacred space we call Hawaii and home, they [are] finding things to connect back to it to make sure that it's healthy,” Vakalahi said.

Vakalahi called these emerging scientists also as emerging leaders, because they are “one in the same.”

“Their Kuleana, or responsibility, to society is to create... healthy communities that in the future will produce and cultivate and nurture healthy individuals,” Vakalahi said. “[Kuleana] is something that I received from those [on] whose shoulders I stand, and something the next generation is going to receive from us [on] whose shoulders they stand.”

To learn more about HUI SRC, visit https://www.hpu.edu/cncs/huisrc/info.....

Learn more about the Become A Researcher series here: http://bit.ly/3YZKZzz

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Enhance Science is a digital media project visualizing inclusive excellence in #STEMM​​​ through digital media. It is created by the Coordination & Evaluation Center (CEC) at the University of California, Los Angeles, and funded by the NIH Diversity Program Consortium under NIH Award U54GM119024​​​.

For more information visit www.enhancescience.org or contact [email protected].

Executive Producers
Jameelah Nuriddin
Hansook Oh
Cynthia Joseph

Producer & Editor
Jameelah Nuriddin

Composer
EmmoLei Sankofa

Featuring
Halaevalu Vakalahi