Noenoe Silva

Noenoe Silva is a full Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where she has been teaching since Fall 2001. Her work focuses on Native Hawaiian and Indigenous politics, Hawaiian language, and critical historiography. She is also a scholar of Hawaiian epistemologies and a proponent of developing political theory rooted in Indigenous worldviews.

• Education: PhD (Political Science, 1999), MLIS (Library and Information Studies, 1993), BA (Hawaiian Language, 1991) - all from University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Research Interests: Dr. Silva specializes in recovering Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) history and literature through underused 19th- and early 20th-century Hawaiian-language texts, aiming to reconstruct Indigenous intellectual traditions and resist colonial narratives.

Teaching Awards:

• Presidential Citation for Meritorious Teaching (2020)
• CSS Excellence in Teaching Award (2008)

She has authored two influential books: Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism and The Power of the Steel-tipped Pen: Reconstructing Native Hawaiian Intellectual History, both published by Duke University Press.