The Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Center specifically aims to meet the following goals:
- Provide applied critical thinking dialogue for Native Hawaiian students around Hawaiʻi-focused issues,
- Prepare Native Hawaiian students for careers in research and applied thematic content areas like education, policy, health and governance
- Promote a Hawaiian place of learning through convening critical research opportunities
- Promote faculty and student scholarship
- Increase opportunities for Native Hawaiian students and faculty to present and publish their scholarship and research
These goals are aligned to several institutional objectives, namely outcomes from the University of Hawaiʻi System Hawaiʻi Papa o ke Ao and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Ke Au Hou Native Hawaiian Advancement reports:
- “Foster multidisciplinary (Hawaiian Studies) research” (Ke Au Hou, p. 19)
- “Collaborate with the Hawaiian community to develop and initiate research on problems important to the Hawaiian community” (Ke Au Hou, p. 19)
- “Establish a broad based research collaborative effort” (Ke Au Hou, p. 19)
- “Create opportunities for interactions…hosting at least one conference…each year” (Ke Au Hou, p. 36)
- “Innovative programming (curriculum) using Hawaiian language and culture” (Hawaiʻi Papa o Ke Ao, p. 10)
- “Provide resources for Native Hawaiian undergraduates to attend conference; provide research support, academic support” (Ke Au Hou, p. 30)
- “Create and publish a quarterly journal” (Ke Au Hou, p. 19)
LHRC Student Conference
The Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Center Student Conference provides a venue for undergraduate and graduate students to present and ideate on their scholarship and research. The conference is held on the UH Mānoa campus, during the spring semester, over the course of 2-3 days. Any native Hawaiian student may submit a presentation proposal or register to attend the conference.
The presentation submission portal will open in January, with registration to follow not long after.
For more information contact us at (808) 956-4288 or by email at nhss@hawaii.edu
2026 9th Annual Student Conference
“Hoʻi i ka Piko”
April 16 & 17, 2026 at Imin Conference Center, UH Mānoa
Native Hawaiian Student Services (NHSS) invites you to the ninth annual Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Center Student Conference—Hoʻi i ka Piko.
Kuʻu ēwe, kuʻu piko, kuʻu iwi, kuʻu koko (ʻŌN 1932).
The phrase, “Hoʻi i ka piko,” is a call to physically return to ʻāina or connect to cultural practice from abroad, to ground ourselves in ʻike kūpuna and (re)member all our relations to a homeland. Native intelligence serves as a piko, ensuring biocultural resources for future generations to build upon, and provides a pathway to navigate our way home. ʻŌiwi scholar and artist kuʻualoha hoʻomanawanui writes that piko is the navel, the point of connection between one generation to the next.” Piko represent central spaces of birth and sources of movement, a place to gather, and ultimately, places that hold and nurture.
This year’s Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Conference–Hoʻi i ka piko–is a call to return home and look for the kuleana with each other, ʻāina, and kūpuna. It is a kāhea to dig for (k)new ʻike, to know and find value in ʻike kūpuna, and to strengthen our pilina to piko.
The 2-day conference seeks to feature research from undergraduate and graduate students from UH Mānoa and across the UH System. We invite individual, poster, panel and roundtable presentations. This year’s conference will be in-person at the IMIN International Conference Center at UH Mānoa on April 16 & 17, 2026.
Abstract submission and conference registration are now open.
Tentative Schedule:
Wednesday, April 16, 2026 (In-person at Imin East West Center) from 10 am – 4 pm
Thursday, April 17, 2026 (In-person at Imin East West Center) from 10 am – 4 pm
Both the conference registration and presentation submission portals are now open.
We invite you to submit an abstract to present at our 9th annual Native Hawaiian Student Services Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Center student conference. Interested presenters for this year’s conference are invited to submit for the following presentation formats:
PRESENTATION: You will present for approximately 15 minutes (either by yourself or with others, as you indicate in your submission) and your presentation will be assembled by NHSS with two other presentations in a one hour time block (leaving 15 minutes for Q&A.)
PANEL: You and your group/team will have a dedicated one hour time block to be moderated and arranged by those indicated in the submission. You will need to identify who is the point person for the panel presentation. Please submit just one abstract per panel group.
POSTER: You will prepare a poster to be printed (NHSS can help you lay it out and pay for it!) and showcased at the conference. You are expected to be with your poster to mingle with participants during the poster session time slot. This will be on Thursday, April 10.
EARLY ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 15, 2026
FINAL ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 22, 2026
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION DEADLINE: APRIL 9, 2026
For any questions or concerns, please contact us at nhss@hawaii.edu.
*** ALL LHRC PRESENTERS MUST ALSO REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE***
Registration for the 2025 conference is now open.
Check back in March for more information the conference program.
“We live in the future. Come join us.”
April 6 – 7, 2018
Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies building
with keynote presentations by Kalei Nuʻuhiwa & Punihei Lipe
The second annual Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Center Student Conference was held on April 6 & 7, 2018 at UH Mānoa and brought together 65 presenters and almost 300 attendees over the two days. NHSS aims to bring together haumāna kanaka ʻōiwi, kumu, and the community to highlight and discuss some of the many exciting and relevant research projects that kanaka ʻōiwi have taken up in service of their lāhui.
The theme for this year’s conference was inspired by Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada’s 2015 article and blog entitled “We live in the future. Come join us.”
Kamaoli so eloquently reminds us that:
“We always have our ancestors at our back. That certainty gives us a wider possibility of movement, a more supple way to navigate through the world. Standing on our mountain of connections, our foundation of history and stories and love, we can see both where the path behind us has come from and where the path ahead leads. This connection assures us that when we move forward, we can never be lost because we always know how to get back home. The future is a realm we have inhabited for thousands of years. You cannot do otherwise when you rely on the land and sea to survive. All of our gathering practices and agricultural techniques, the patterned mat of loʻi kalo, the breath passing in and out of the loko iʻa, the Ku and Hina of picking plants are predicated on looking ahead. This ensures that the land is productive into the future, that the sea will still be abundant into the future, and that our people will still thrive into the future.
This is the future we are leading the way to, the future we are going to live in, the future our ancestors fought for, the future we still fight for. Come join us.”
To download this year’s conference program: LHRC 2018 Conference Program.
To download a Word document version of this page, please click here.
Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina
March 29 & 30, 2019
Imin Conference Center, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Growing Hawaiian leaders,
Strengthening Hawaiian research,
Empowering the Lāhui.
ABOUT LHRC Student Conference
Native Hawaiian Student Services (NHSS) hosted the third annual Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Center (LHRC) Student Conference, held at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa at the IMIN’s Center from Friday, March 29 to Saturday, March 30, 2019.
The conference opened with a great keynote by Dr. Kamanamaikalani Beamer and Dr. David Chang and was moderated by Dr. Kealani Cook followed by four different concurrent sessions and lunch. In the afternoon conference attendees enjoyed a beautiful reception in honor of the late Dr. Isabella “Izzy” Abbots 100th birthday. At the reception an inaugural group of Kānaka ʻŌiwi Scholars were celebrated with a $500 scholarship by Native Hawaiian Student Services and some of our program partners. The second day started with another awesome keynote panel talking about climate change featuring four wāhine scientists, Dr. Rosie Alegado, Dr. Noelani Puniwai, Dr. Kiana Frank and Dr. Oceania Francis moderated by another great wāhine scientist, Dr. Kealoha Fox. Immediately after the keynote was a concurrent session followed by lunch and poster presentations.
View the 2019 Conference program here: LHRC Conference 2019 Program Final (1)
ʻIke 2020: A conference for undergraduate and graduate students at UHM
Thursday, March 18th & Friday, March 19th, 2021 via Zoom
It is a pleasure to invite you to ‘Ike 2020, a conference organized by the Lahui Hawaii Research Center under Native Hawaiian Student Services. The conference will take place online via Zoom from March 18-20th. The conference will be half-day on each of the 2 days and will include a range of presentation formats, including keynote presentations and break-out sessions.
This time last year, we sent out a similar announcement with the conference theme ʻIke 2020, inspired by a culmination of events that have caused major shifts in both the political and social landscape of Hawaiʻi. Last year, we hoped our conference would help to illuminate the expanse of Hawaiian knowledge that has facilitated a sense of intellectual clarity among the lāhui, igniting action and invigorating the proliferation of a Hawaiian national consciousness. In this time of rapid change, a commitment to ʻike Hawaiʻi guides our visions of sustainable and just futures for both Hawaiʻi and the world. Today, this theme is still relevant as we reflect back on the huli and hulihia of 2020.
As this year’s theme, ʻIke 2020 is a call for presentations on scholarship that addresses the importance of engaging in kuleana to continue the growth of both Hawaiian knowledge and a Hawaiian national consciousness. This is a call for presentations on scholarship done by undergraduate and graduate students who engage in this kuleana in order to build sustainable futures for the next generations to come. We also invite presentations on scholarship that engage the huli of our time and possibilities for our future.
Although presentations are limited to UH System students and faculty, registration is open to both the UH community and the general Hawaiian community. Registration is free! The first 200 conference registrations will receive a free pin (sent after conference attendance).
For any questions or concerns, please contact us at lhrccon@hawaii.edu.
Call for abstracts! All undergraduate and graduate student presentations submit here!
ʻĀINAMOANA
April 11 & 12, 2024 | Imin Conference Center, UH Mānoa
Native Hawaiian Student Services (NHSS) invites you to the seventh annual Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Center Student Conference—ʻĀinamoana.
The term ʻĀinamoana appears in an 1840 publication “He Mau Palapala ʻĀina a me Nā Niele e Pili Ana” authored and published by S.P. Kalama and Kapehoni, Hawaiian students & apprentices at the Hawaiian Kingdom’s first college, Lāhaināluna. The cartographic project mapped the physical and political world, providing Hawaiian translations and visual representations of the earth’s natural features along with the administrative subdivision of states and provinces that bound the globe.
In this publication, ʻĀinamoana is used to describe what was traditionally known as Moananuiākea, characterizing a far reaching body of water that produced an ancestral pathway that connected an expansive society, culture, and cosmogony. The term also resonates with Oceania, derived from “Terres océanique” or “Oceanic lands.” ʻĀinamoana is also a geo-political marker, reflective of the Pan-Oceanic policies of the 19th century used by Hawaiian diplomats to avert colonial projects. Renowned anthropologist Epeli Hauʻofa later expounded on this notion: “As I watched the Big Island of Hawaiʻi expanding into and rising from the depths, I saw in it the future of Oceania, our sea of islands.”
The 2-day conference seeks to feature research from undergraduate and graduate students from UH Mānoa and across the UH System. We invite individual, poster, panel and roundtable presentations. This year’s conference will be in-person at the IMIN International Conference Center at UH Mānoa on April 11 & 12, 2024.
“He Aupuni Palapala Koʻu”
April 9 & 10, 2025 at Imin Conference Center, UH Mānoa
Our next Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Center (LHRC) Student Conference for 2025, “He Aupuni Palapala Koʻu”, honoring the bi-centennial of Kauikeaouliʻs speech in 1825, is happening on Wednesday, April 9th and Thursday, April 10th in persosn at Imin Conference Center, UH Mānoa.
In 1825 Kamehameha III Kauikeaouli delivered an impassioned speech in Honolulu that laid the cornerstone for universal education policy in the 19th century:
ʻO koʻu aupuni, he aupuni palapala koʻu.
ʻO ke aliʻi, ʻo nā keiki a nā aliʻi a me nā keiki a nā makaʻāinana e aʻo i ka naʻauao, a mālama hoʻi i ka pono, ʻo koʻu kanaka ia…
No laila, e nā aliʻi a me nā makaʻāinana, e aʻo ʻoukou i ka palapala.
Kauikeaouli, Honolulu, 1825
With support from other aliʻi, this mandate prompted what Samuel Kamakau described as “he kaula uila” (a streak of lightning) in the hearts of the Hawaiian citizenry across all social classes, in embracing and fulfilling the chiefsʻ mandate of an educated populace. This educational policy elicited a rapid commitment, interest and investment in literacy and education.
Hawaiians were the architects of the educational system that developed in the 19th century, producing a unique and largely unprecedented network of schools, laws, policies, practices, and programs not found in many places around the world at the time. Hawaiian leadership aligned educational goals with national goals of democracy, concepts of the “public good,” as well as the preservation, protection and future possibilities of the country.
This famous speech “He Aupuni Palapala Koʻu” remains a treasured motto today, symbolizing leadership, ownership and engagement in Hawaiian education. This yearʻs Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Conference recalls this Hawaiian educational legacy and situates our work at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa today while also illuminating the continuation of Kauikeaouliʻs endeavor 200 years ago.
The 2-day conference seeks to feature research from undergraduate and graduate students from UH Mānoa and across the UH System. We invite individual, poster and panel presentations. This year’s conference will be in-person at the IMIN International Conference Center at UH Mānoa on April 9 & 10, 2025.