Associate Professor Alayne Mikahere-Hall

Rātonga Hapori | Community Service

Associate Professor Mikahere-Hall (Ngāti Whatua, Te Rarawa, Tainui-Maniapoto) maintains a strong commitment to her whānau and hapū marae and has provided long‑standing leadership within Whaiora Marae in Ōtara, serving on the Board of Trustees since 2014 and as Chair for the past eight years. She is deeply involved in Māori communities through both urban and rural marae and is an active member of Te Kotahi a Tāmaki, an Auckland‑based marae collective "The mission of Te Kotahi a Tāmaki is to reinforce marae as centres of cultural excellence and enterprise. The collective provides essential resources, net working opportunities, training and support to help marae grow and thrive."Te Kotahi a Tāmaki – Marae Collective. She recognises marae as vital anchors of Māori identity, healing, and community wellbeing, and is committed to strengthening these spaces as centres of connection, development, and hauora for current and future generations, as reflected in initiatives and whānau responsiveness such as Kua whakahōutia ngā whakairo kei Te Whaiora marae available here Kua whakahōutia ngā whakairo kei Te Whaiora marae and Grieving whānau struggle to find marae for tangihanga 

Hauora Oranga Tonutanga | Health and Wellbeing 

Improving health and social outcomes for Māori and Indigenous peoples is central to Alayne's career. Alayne advocates for Māori health by understanding the dynamic social realities and environmental context of people's lives. Alayne has contributed to leadership across both academic and community organisations. Her academic leadership roles have included Associate Head of School Māori Advancement in the School of Public Health and Interdisciplinary Studies, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences (FHES) Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Co-director of Taupua Waiora Research Centre working to develop a growing team of Indigenous lecturers and researchers and is Head of Hauora Māori where she manages the delivery of undergraduate and postgraduate Indigenous Māori health studies and Violence and Trauma studies. As a senior lecturer and academic Alayne works to deliver academic supervision, lecturing support and mentorship. Alayne's leadership responsibilities are both strategic and operational contributing to organisational activities that promote the advancement of tauira Māori (Māori students) and hauora Māori (Māori health). This involves participation in structural changes, implementation and the development of teaching curricula to better streamline Māori undergraduate and postgraduate course papers by ensuring research findings are integrated into the teaching environment. Alayne actively engages with Indigenous research methods and methodology to seek solutions to reduce family violence, strengthen interventions for Indigenous children and young people and harms resulting from psychological and emotional trauma. Her health advocacy seeks to increase cultural responsiveness, build workforce capacity across several domains that include teaching, research and professional practice. The aim is to assist in building healthy communities and resilient Indigenous people through research and academic advancement. Alayne strives to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Te Aronui as foundational principles to guide all her academic responsibilities and advocay work Te Tiriti for the benefit of all - AUT News - AUT . 

Rangahau | Research Activities

Associate Professor Mikahere-Hall is a qualitative researcher engaging with Indigenous mātauranga (knowledge), methodology and mixed methods. Alayne's research advocates for the advancement of culturally informed interventions for Māori and Indigenous peoples to address inequities in health. This includes advocating for whānau Māori improvements in social outcomes and reducing the burden of preventable deaths of children and young people. She has expertise in rangatahi (youth) suicide prevention, psychological and emotional trauma, historical trauma and solutions to overcome the negative impacts of intergenerational trauma, family violence and sexual violence. Associate Professor Alayne Mikahere-Hall recently completed a Health Research Council (HRC) funded project as the lead investigator, Tūhono - First We Connect: Promoting Secure Whānau (family) Relationships for Traumatised Mokopuna (Grandchildren). The project investigated tūhono (attach/bond), tūhonotanga (attachment/connectedness) to recognise the importance of the environment and the places we belong to as core Māori concepts of attachment to develop an Indigenous perspective of secure emotional attachment. As part of a kaupapa Māori knowledge translation approach, findings from the Tūhono – First We Connect study findings were transformed into a series of original oriori compositions,  developed as commissioned research artefacts to translate key themes of connection, nurturing relationships, and whānau wellbeing into culturally grounded musical forms that embodied and communicated the study's insights and whānau-centred wellbeing (Mikahere-Hall & Wilson, 2020; Mikahere-Hall, Wilson, & Fletcher, 2020; Mikahere-Hall, Wilson, & Middleton, 2019).   A/P Mikahere-Hall is a named investigator on several completed research studies. A completed Marsden funded research project, E Tū Wāhine, E Tū Whānau – Māori women keeping safe in unsafe relationships, which contributed new perspectives to working with Māori women affected by violence. The second is a Ministry of Social Development (MSD) Intimate Partner Violence Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) funded project, A longitudinal analysis of intimate partner violence: Dynamics of abuse within families with children, exit from abusive relationships, and risk and protective factors. Alayne is one of nine investigators on a recently completed (2025) HRC funded research study Kei roto tō tātau rongoā: A community/whānau-based approach for wellbeing Kei roto tō tātou rongoā. She is a research team member of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) funded Abuse of older people lead by Professors Gael Pacheco and Denise Wilson. 

Alayne joined with a team of four AUT researchers led by Professor AIlsa Holloway  in an international research collaboration between the University of Arizona USA, Stellenbosch University South Africa, Consejo Superior Universitario Centroamericano South America on the Climate Adaptation Research Program (CARP). CARP provides impact-driven and locally applied research funds and complementary networking and training opportunities to young and early career scholars at higher education institutions.Developing young South Pacific based researchers was the aim of the AUT based team bringing research and scholarly expertise to specifically focus on collaborative engagement with three other Pacific universities to collectively advance capacities for climate change adaptation research  with a focus on impacts and implications for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) policies and strategies to promote localised humanitarian responsiveness. Funding cut-backs to USAID the worlds largest foreign aid agency in 2025 led to the completion of the 2023 -2028 research program.

Associate Professor Mikahere-Hall believes that mātauranga and kaupapa Māori hold transformative potential as enduring knowledge systems that, when respectfully engaged, can generate benefits for all by broadening perspectives, strengthening collective wellbeing, and informing more just and sustainable outcomes.