Dr. Mary Therese Perez Hattori is Interim Director of the Pacific Islands Development Program, East-West Center. Prior to this, she was a Scholarship Program Specialist in the East-West Center’s Education Program; Director of the Center for Teaching & Learning and Associate Professor of Education at Chaminade University; Outreach Director of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at UHM; and Associate Professor of Information Technology and Director of the Center for Excellence in Learning, Teaching and Technology at Kapiʻolani Community College. She is Affiliate Graduate Faculty of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the USC Rossier School of Education. Dr. Hattori is Chairperson of the Board of the Hawai'i Council for the Humanities and a Director on the Board of the Honolulu Printmakers.

A native Chamoru of Guåhan (Guam), she is a community organizer and advocate for Pacific islanders in Hawaiʻi, co-organizer of cultural events such as the Annual Cultural Animation Film Festival, the Annual Celebrate Micronesia Festival, Micronesian Women’s Summit, and Oceania on the Reel, and is a teacher/mentor of students in Pacific Studies, Learning Design & Technology, and the UHM & San Francisco State University Educational Doctorate programs. She is also an author, poet, public speaker, and philanthropist. Follow her on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, read more about Dr. Hattori and the Pacific Islands Development Program