Rate My Professor Tess Moeke-Maxwell

Dr Tess Moeke-Maxwell is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Nursing within the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland. She is a founding member and co-director of the Te Ārai Palliative Care and End of Life Research Group. Her research focuses on Māori palliative and end-of-life care, including traditional customs, contemporary adaptations, whānau resilience, digital storytelling approaches, and the development of indigenous resources to support understanding of assisted dying and paediatric palliative care.

Dr Moeke-Maxwell holds a PhD, a Bachelor of Social Science with first-class honours, and is a member of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors. Her doctoral thesis examined Māori women’s bi/multi-racial post-colonial identity. She previously served as an HRC Research Fellow at the University of Waikato and has held governance roles with Hospice New Zealand since 2011, contributing to the revision of palliative care standards. She has led major studies such as Pae Herenga on traditional Māori end-of-life care and secured significant Health Research Council funding for projects exploring Māori end-of-life experiences. Dr Moeke-Maxwell regularly contributes to national conferences and international collaborations in palliative care research.