About Me

My name is Mahinaokalani (she/her). My name means "heavenly moon"  in 'Ōlelo Hawai'i (Hawaiian language). I tend to go by "Mahina" for simplicity. I am hapa (mixed-race Native Hawaiian) which is fused in many ways with my identity as a geoscientist. As a Native scientist, I recognize the kuleana (responsibility) that I have with incorporating Indigenous knowledge into geoscience. Now that I am pursuing a space in academia, I see myself as a bridge between the worlds of Western and Native science, often at odds. 

I am currently a PhD student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in the Volcanology, Geochemistry, and Petrology Division. I graduated with my M.S.  in geology from Western Washington University (WWU, Bellingham, WA) in 2023, from William & Mary (Williamsburg, VA) in 2021 with my B.S. in geology, and from Virginia Peninsula Community College (Hampton, VA) in 2018 with my A.S. in science. I am a nontraditional student and have over a decade of experience in customer service, sales, graphic design, printing services, volunteer services, and professional portrait sketching. While I have an eclectic work history, my true passion is volcanology!

My PhD will focus on isotope geochemistry in Dr. Aaron Pietruszka's isotope lab. I will be working on the samples from the 2018 Kīlauea eruption to better understand shallow magma storage and eruption dynamics. Stay tuned for more information! 

My master's thesis focused on magmatic systems at intermediate arc volcanoes and work with Dr. Kristina Walowski at the ERVPT lab at WWU. Please visit my Research page for more details on my Current Projects. While attending William & Mary for my undergraduate degree, I was able to join the Coastal Geology Lab at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and had the privilege of working with Dr. Christopher Hein learning about the effects of decadal to centennial sediment transport along the Virginia Eastern Shore. You can read more about this work under Past Projects on my Research page.