PhD Candidate
University of Denver
Kristina “Tina” Leilani Hulama (she/her) is a Native Hawaiian feminist scholar whose work interrogates how historical, structural, environmental, and contemporary forms of oppression shape health-seeking behaviors and outcomes among Native communities and women. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work and a licensed social worker with a BA and MSW in Health from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Tina has over a decade of experience in social services, including more than three years of post-master’s clinical social work practice, and plans to obtain clinical licensure by June 2026.
Her scholarly trajectory is grounded in the disproportionate morbidity and mortality experienced by Native Hawaiian women within Hawai‘i’s healthcare system—realities marked by dismissal, disposability, and dehumanization. These experiences drive her commitment to examining healthcare structures that perpetuate inequities and to advancing frameworks rooted in justice, liberation, and healing.
Situated within Critical Indigenous Feminism, Necropolitics, and Abolition Medicine, her dissertation employs qualitative, mixed-methods, and arts-based approaches to theorize healthcare oppression and to disseminate knowledge through Indigenous poetic forms. Tina has over four years of graduate research experience, including federal, state, and foundation-funded projects. As an independent scholar, she has secured $26,600 in external funding, authored two first-authored manuscripts (under review), co-authored eight publications—including one that received the 2022 Most Thought-Provoking Article Award from the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association—and presented at nine national and international conferences, including as a keynote panelist.
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Poetic Medicine – An Anthology to Healthcare Providers from Native Hawaiian Women
Sunday, October 26, 2025
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM MT