Dr. Kawika Winter is a trans-disciplinary scholar who broadly operates at the intersection of science, Indigenous stewardship, and policy; and who has a research focus on elucidating the ecological foundations of Indigenous resource management. After spending more than a decade in the green sector, Dr. Winter returned to the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa in 2018, and now has various appointments at the University – including at the Hawai`i Institute of Marine Biology, as well as in the graduate programs of Botany and of Natural Resources and Environmental Management. Dr. Winter is currently the Director of the He‘eia National Estuarine Research Reserve, which is a collaborative-stewardship endeavor between the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa, the Native Hawaiian community of He`eia, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In the policy sphere, Dr. Winter serves on the federal government’s Ocean Research Advisory Panel, the State of Hawai‘i’s Endangered Species Recovery Committee, and also sits on the advisory council for the Hawai‘i Conservation Alliance.