Dr. Dean Mahuta is an Associate Professor and Associate Director of Te Ipukarea Research Institute. In 2019 he was appointed as one of two Vision Mātauranga Advisors at AUT and has influenced successful research project applications across the University. The foundation of Dean’s work is his identity as Waikato and his chosen medium is te reo Māori. His BA(Hons) dissertation and his master’s thesis were written in te reo Māori and focused on the Kīngitanga and raupatu (land confiscations of the Waikato region) respectively. In 2010, Dean graduated with his PhD on Waikato identity and its connection to the Waikato River. Dean was the first PhD written in the Māori language at AUT.