Rosanna
Alegado

Oceanography Professor Rosie Alegado’s work involves meaningful academic collaborations and partnerships with Indigenous communities. So, when SOEST undertook a significant curriculum revision towards a required immersive course to ground all incoming graduate students in an understanding of working as marine biologists within the Hawaiian culture, it was under Alegado’s intellectual leadership. Its success has been recognized by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with multi-year funding to foreground Indigenous knowledge, practices, and values and to transform and Indigenize higher education in STEM. Dr. Alegado states that “by challenging my students to integrate multiple didactic frameworks, one can achieve the most comprehensive understanding of a subject.” Her colleagues propose that “Rosie is not popular by being easy,” that “her efforts are the epitome of teaching exceptionalism.” “The respect and gratitude Professor Alegado offers speakers, even those who may have differing viewpoints from her, is a model for how we can better listen and learn from one another.” Professor Rosie Alegado is regarded as an influential educator for other teaching faculty as well as for her students.