Rate My Professor Dianne Wepa

Dianne Wepa serves as Associate Professor of Social Work and Head of Discipline, Social Work at Charles Darwin University within the Faculty of Health. An Indigenous Māori academic of Ngāti Kahungunu descent, she focuses her research on Māori health, Indigenous health, suicide prevention, cultural safety, mental health, and the application of digital technologies in these areas. At Charles Darwin University, she led a 2024 study examining connectedness for Māori during COVID-19, which underscored the resilience and collective strengths of Māori communities amid the pandemic. She was the lead author on a 2023 review that highlighted significant gaps in suicide prevention technologies, noting a disconnect between technology developers, researchers, and Indigenous end-users. Her recent publications affiliated with the university include '5 tips to implement self-compassion for healthcare workers' (2024), 'Digital Disparities: Tech solutions for Indigenous Communities' (2025), 'Communal to individual midwifery care: Cultural practices and the transition experience' (2026, co-authored with Daina Charnelle Fougang and Charles Mpofu), 'Towards health justice: Implementing structural competency in women's healthcare education' (2025, co-authored), and 'Māori experiences of physical rehabilitation in Aotearoa New Zealand: a scoping review' (2024, co-authored).

Dr. Wepa holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Bradford. Her scholarly impact is evidenced by over 834 citations on Google Scholar. She is the editor and author of the seminal book Cultural Safety in Aotearoa New Zealand, now in its third edition published by Cambridge University Press, a required text in nursing and midwifery programs in New Zealand. Additional key works include Struggling To Be Involved: An interprofessional approach to examine Māori whānau engagement with healthcare services (2019) and editorial contributions to Clinical Supervision in Aotearoa/New Zealand: A Health Perspective. Previously, she held the position of Associate Professor at Auckland University of Technology and roles at the University of South Australia. Her research influences nursing education curricula in Aotearoa New Zealand, Canada, and Australia, and she supervises higher degree research students across Australia, the United Kingdom, and Aotearoa New Zealand. Dr. Wepa also contributes to broader fields through publications on self-compassion in veterans' health (2021), suicide prevention education for nursing students, and reconnecting Māori in a post-COVID-19 world (2023).