Dr. Kamanamaikalani Beamer is the Director of Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa, and the inaugural Dana Naone Hall Endowed Chair in Hawaiian Studies, Literature, & the Environment at Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge. He serves a dual appointment in the Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge and in the William S. Richardson School of Law as part of Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law. 

 

Dr. Beamer’s research interests and publications focus on indigenous agency, governance, Native Hawaiian land tenure, Hawaiian resource management, and land and resource law of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Dr. Beamer has an ongoing international collaboration in the study of the Circular Economy (CE) in partnership with colleagues from the University of Augsburg. This international knowledge exchange has guided recent work exploring how aloha ʻāina as an indigenous philosophy, and the CE as a modern economic approach, can inform each other in enacting systemic economic change and transitioning to a more sustainable and equitable society.

 

Dr. Beamer is the President and one of the fourteen co-founders of ʻĀina Aloha Economic Futures (AAEF), an initiative with the goal of uplifting Hawaiian values to guide economic recovery efforts. By prioritizing community-centered engagement, AAEF has advised economic development strategies centered around aloha ʻāina since April 2020. In June 2021, he concluded two consecutive terms as a Commissioner on the Hawaiʻi State Water Resource Management Commission. After eight years of service, accomplishments include restoring water for forty-five streams across Hawaiʻi. Dr. Beamer was also an inaugural Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority member and served from Sept. 2022 through June 2024.

 

In addition to numerous academic publications, in 2014 Beamer published “No Mākou ka Mana: Liberating the Nation,” which received multiple awards, including the Samuel M. Kamakau Book of the Year Award from the Hawai‘i Book Publishing Association. His second book, “Islands and Cultures How Pacific Islands Provide Paths to Sustainability,” an edited volume in collaboration with Dr. Peter Vitousek of Stanford University, and Dr. Te Maire Tau of the University of Canterbury, was published in 2022 with Yale University Press.  His most recent book is “Waiwai–Water and the Future of Hawaiʻi” is a collaboration between many of Hawaiʻi’s premier experts in water, published with the University of Hawaiʻi Press in 2025.