Center for Pacific Island Studies

core faculty

• terence wesley-smith

• tarcisius kabutaulaka

• lola quan bautista

• julie walsh

staff

• managing editor

• outreach director

• administrative asst

• graduate assistants

• affiliate faculty

• graduate students

graduate assistants

Jocelyn Josie Howard
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Graduate Assistant
Center for Pacific Islands Studies

e-mail: howardj@hawaii.edu

Jocelyn Jose Howard, or “Josie” to friends, is from Onoun Island in the Namwonweito Atoll in Chuuk State, Federated States of Micronesia. Her love of learning developed at home, largely from her grandfather’s stories about different places and navigation, which made her want to venture beyond the horizon of her home island. She attended Xavier High School in Chuuk and went on to study at the Community College of Micronesia and the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. For more than 10 years, she worked with community organizations such as Goodwill Industries of Hawai‘i, Inc and the Imi Loa Program, helping immigrants with employment services. She is currently pursuing an MA in social work at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa focusing on Micronesian populations.

Jocelyn feels lucky to have coaching from her children Lienkainam, Inekissi, and Upulengi and husband Joshue Howard, who offer input to help her improve herself everyday.

Jesi Lujan Bennett
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Graduate Assistant
Center for Pacific Islands Studies

Jesi Lujan Bennett is a Master’s candidate in the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa. She graduated from the University of California, San Diego (USCD) with a BA in Ethnic Studies and a BA in Critical Gender Studies. At UCSD, Bennett discussed the militarism and proposed military build-up of Guam through the Ethnic Studies Honors Program and McNair Scholar Program.

Bennett is a Chamorro woman from San Diego, but has family ties to Dededo and Barrigada, Guam. She is vice-president of UH’s Marianas Club and an active participant in the Pan-Pacific Association and Micronesian Connections. She looks forward to writing a thesis that brings a voice from the Chamorro diaspora to the larger discourse of Pacific Islands Studies.

Kelea K. Levy
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Graduate Assistant for Student Services
Center for Pacific Islands Studies

e-mail: klevy@hawaii.edu

Kelea K Levy is Kanaka Maoli born and raised in California. She earned a BA in development studies with a focus in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2010, and is now pursuing a master’s degree in Pacific Island studies. In her current research, she is continuing work in the area of economics with a goal to record knowledge about Pacific Islands people’s economic epistemologies and thinking related to practices of trade and resource development.

Candi Steiner
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Graduate Assistant for Publications
Center for Pacific Islands Studies

e-mail: candices@hawaii.edu

Candi Steiner earned a BA in music composition from Centre College of Kentucky. While at Centre, she was selected for the school's prestigious John C. Young Scholars Program and, as a part of the program, conducted a year-long independent study of Hawaiian music and the 1970s Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance. Though the program only lasted one year, her interest in the Pacific Islands continues to this day. Far from her native Kentucky, she has earned an MA in ethnomusicology at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, where she is now pursuing a PhD in the same field. Her research focuses on the relationship between music and diaspora in Tokelauan communities.

Though she spends most of her time researching and listening to other people's music, Candi continues to compose her own. Her primary instruments are piano, guitar, and voice, and her specialties are children's music and digital music production.