Dr Spero Manson
Guest Speaker
Little Shell Chippewa
Spero Manson PhD, directs the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health, and occupies The Colorado Trust Chair in American Indian Health at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Center. His 10 national centres pursue research, program development, training and collaboration with 225 Native communities. A medical anthropologist, Dr Manson has acquired $293 million to support this work and published more than 350 articles on the assessment, epidemiology, treatment, and prevention of health problems over the developmental life span of Native people. He has served on the National Advisory Councils of three NIH institutes, National Advisory Committees to the NIH and CDC Directors, and received 35 awards from the NIH, CDC, APHA, NAM, and numerous other professional organisations. Dr Manson is acknowledged as one of his nation’s leading authorities in regard to American Indian and Alaska Native health.
Dr Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwo'ole Osorio
Guest Speaker
Kanaka Maoli
Dr Osorio is a Native Hawaiian historian, educator, composer, and leading voice in the Kanaka Maoli movement for ea (sovereignty). He holds a PhD in History from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and his research and teachings centre Indigenous knowledge systems, Hawaiian political history, and cultural revitalisation through mele (music), language, and law.
Under the theme “I Kūʻē Kūpono: From Struggle, Excellence”, Dr Osorio will share insights into the diverse yet unified Kanaka Maoli efforts toward sovereignty — including political independence, language revitalisation, education reform, health and environmental justice, and resistance to ongoing American colonialism.
His life’s work is a living testament to Indigenous excellence — born of struggle, rooted in culture, and powered by the enduring strength of the lāhui.
Rosa Hibbert-Schooner
Guest Speaker
He uri tēnei nō Te Arawa, Ngāti Awa, me Ngāti Whakaue.
He uri nō te whenua. He mokopuna nō te ao Māori.
I am a proud Māori wāhine, grounded in whakapapa and rising with purpose. I am a poet - inspired by the generations of those who did rāranga, mahi toi, whakaairo, build Wharenui that spoke stories words could never tell. I am a dancer - moving with the winds of tīpuna. I am a kaitiaki - holding space for whenua, for wairua, for whānau. Creating mārā and hoping for a day where our kai is sovereign. I am a descendant - shaped by those who walked before. I am an ancestor - planting seeds for those yet to come. I am a builder - of futures, of whakapapa, of collective hope I am a kairangahau Māori - seeking truth through our own lenses. I am a youth worker - walking beside our rangatahi. I am a rangatahi - dreaming of a world where ALL Indigenous people stand tall, free and liberated.
Ka pū te ruha, ka hao te rangatahi
As the old net rests, the new net rises.
And I, with others, rise too.