Associate Professor Cherie Chu-Fuluifaga | |
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Other names | Cherie Chu |
Awards | Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit |
Academic background | |
Education | Victoria University of Wellington (MA, PhD) |
Thesis | |
Doctoral advisor | Kabini Sanga, Jenny Neale |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Victoria University of Wellington |
Cherie Maria Chu-Fuluifaga ONZM is a Chinese Tahitian New Zealand academic,and is a senior lecturer in education at Victoria University of Wellington. In 2024,Chu-Fuluifaga was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to education.
Chu-Fuluifaga is of Samoan,Chinese and Tahitian heritage. [1] [2] Her mother was a cleaner and her father did not attend school. [3] [1] Despite saying she struggled and 'felt invisible' at school,and a career counsellor suggesting she train as a secretary,Chu-Fuluifaga went on to complete a PhD titled Mentoring for Leadership in Pacific Education at Victoria University of Wellington in 2009. [4] [1] [3]
Chu-Fuluifaga joined the faculty of the School of Education at the university in 2003. [5] Between 2005 and 2020,she grew the Pacific education leadership cluster from an initial five students to more than 200,one of the largest cohorts of Pacific students in the country. [1] She established mentoring programmes in Humanities and Commerce at the university,and run cultural training programmes for professions including lawyers and midwives. Chu-Fuluifaga was the director of Victoria's Bachelor of Arts in Education from 2009 to 2011,and she is also a researcher at tertiary education support organisation Ako Aotearoa. [2] [6] [7] [3]
Chu-Fuluifaga volunteers at the Graeme Dingle Foundation,which promotes life skills and wellbeing in young people through New Zealand. [8]
In the 2024 New Year Honours,Chu-Fuluifaga was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to education. [9] Chu-Fuluifaga was a finalist in the education category for Wellingtonian of the Year in 2024. [10]