Halaevalu F.O. Vakalahi, PhD, MSW, MEd, is a Pacific Islander woman born in Tonga and raised in Hawai’i. She is currently the President and CEO of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). Prior to joining CSWE, she was a Professor and Dean of the College of Health and Society at Hawai’i Pacific University (HPU). Prior to HPU, she was a Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Social Work at Morgan State University; Associate Professor and MSW Program Director at George Mason University; Lecturer and BSW Coordinator at San Francisco State University; Assistant Professor and Department Chair at BYU-Hawai’i; and Assistant Professor at New Mexico State University. She earned a BS in Business Management from BYU-Hawai’i, MSW from University of Hawai’i-Manoa, and MEd and PhD in Social Work from University of Utah.

Dr. Vakalahi has been privileged to serve in various professional organizations across disciplines and in communities in which she has lived and worked. Her areas of teaching include social policy, human behavior and the social work environment, and organizational leadership. Her two areas of research/scholarship are: Pacific Islander culture and community, and Women of Color in academia, in which she has contributed extensively to the existing literature through peer-reviewed articles, chapters, references, books, etc. including their most recent work titled Mentoring Women for Leadership: Empowering the Next Generation (Starks, Mallinger, Countee-Gilliam, Vakalahi, & Schmitz, 2021). With a passion for mentorship, she was the Principal Investigator on an NIH-funded Student Research Center that provided tiered-mentorship to support entrepreneurial undergraduate research in the biomedical and health sciences. Also, as a mentorship tool, as colleagues from Morgan State University, Lehman College, and New York Community Trust, they co-founded and co-edited “Urban Social Work”, a peer-reviewed journal published by Springer Publishing. In essence, her deep commitment to the future and the advancement of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion has been shaped by extraordinary people and places that have invested in her. For that, she is eternally grateful. 

Hilary N. Weaver, DSW (Lakota) currently serves as President of the Indigenous and Tribal Social Work Educators’ Association, Chair of the Council on Social Work Education board of directors, and Global Indigenous Commissioner for International Federation of Social Workers. She is a career-long member of the National Association of Social Workers. She was inducted as an NASW Social Work Pioneer in 2020 and was named the American Public Health Association’s Public Health Social Worker of the Year in 2020. Dr. Weaver is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Work, University at Buffalo (State University of New York). She received her BS from Antioch College in social work with a cross-cultural studies focus and her MSW and DSW from Columbia University. Her teaching, research, and service focus on cultural issues in the helping process with an emphasis on Indigenous populations. Dr. Weaver received funding from the National Cancer Institute to develop and test a culturally-grounded wellness curriculum for urban Native American youth, the Healthy Living in Two Worlds program. Dr. Weaver has presented her work regionally, nationally, and internationally including presenting at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations in 2005-2008, 2013-2019, and 2021-2024. She has numerous publications including the text, Explorations in Cultural Competence: Journeys to the Four Directions (2005), the edited book, Social Issues in Contemporary Native America: Reflections from Turtle Island (2014), Trauma and Resilience in the Lives of Contemporary Native Americans: Reclaiming our Balance, Restoring our Wellbeing (2019), and the edited volume Routledge International Handbook of Indigenous Resilience (2022).

Kathy is Anishinaabekwe from Flying Post First Nation. She is a Full Professor in the Faculty of Social Work Indigenous Field of Study at Wilfrid Laurier University. She has been engaged in Indigenous social work education for over 30 years and has a wholistic practice that is influenced by her experiences of growing up close to the land. She describes herself as being “bush raised “ and the spirit of the land strongly informs her knowledge and practices. Kathy is also a knowledge seeker and carries a curious spirit. As a result she searched for Indigenous teachers and Elders in her search for identity, teachings, and guidance. Through the generosity of others she grew a knowledge of indigenous ways of coming to know and completed her doctoral work searching and articulating Indigenous re-search methodologies. Her publications Kaandossiwin How We Come to Know: indigenous re-search methodologies (2022 & 2011), Fernwood Publications are available. She has also multiple other publications on Indigenous wholistic theory and wholistic knowledge in many areas of practice. Kathy is also loves being a Kokom and spending time with her family and community of amazing people. She is passionate about living “Mino bimaadisiwin” and is proud to live her beautiful Anishinaabe teachings. Kathy is a storyteller at heart and a community helper at best. Her Anishinaabe name Minogiizhigokwe describes herself nature & spirit. She is the One who brings goodness to the day, Shining Day Woman.