Lupematasila Misatauveve Dr Melani Anae, QSO is Associate Professor in Pacific Studies, at the University of Auckland. 

Professor Anae was Director of the Centre for Pacific Studies (2002-2007), a recipient of the Fulbright New Zealand Senior Scholar Award (2007) and was awarded the Companion to the Queen’s Service Order for services to Pacific communities in New Zealand (2008). 

In 2014 she was one awarded a Marsden Grant from the Royal Society of NZ, for her project ‘Samoan transnational matai (chiefs)’.  

Dr Anae is the author and editor of several recently published books, including  The Platform: The Radical Legacy of the Polynesian Panthers,… Women, Power and Place: Articulations from Samoa and Aotearoa, …and A Handbook for Transnational Matai (Chiefs): Tusi faitau o matai fafo o Samoa. She is part of a large extended Samoan aiga -she hails from the villages of Falelatai, Apia, Lalovaea and Siumu, and is a grandmother of two and mother of three children.