Tasileta Teevale

Tasileta "Leta" Teevale (22 March 1973 – 21 April 2023) was a Samoan New Zealand academic, and was the inaugural director of the Pacific Development Office at the University of Otago. In 2021, she was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to Pacific education and public health research.

Early life and education
Teevale was born in Apia, Samoa, to Reverend Fuifui Teevale and Roberta Leisam-Teevale, and was the second of four children. When Teevale was eight years old, her father earned a scholarship to study at the University of Otago and the family moved to Dunedin in New Zealand. Teevale first attended Opoho School, where she learned English, and later went to Brockville Primary School, Kenmure Intermediate and Kaikorai Valley College. The family moved to Christchurch when Teevale's father graduated, and she finished her schooling at Hillmorton High School. Teevale discovered a love of volleyball at high school, and was in the team at Hillmorton that won the secondary school nationals.

Academic career
Teevale completed a Bachelor of Physical Education degree at the University of Otago, after which she lectured in exercise science at the Universal College of Learning in Palmerston North. She then undertook a Master of Business Studies in Sports Management at Massey University, and worked for the Tertiary Education Commission first as a regional advisor and then as a national advisor in the Research Evaluation Unit. Teevale completed a PhD titled Obesity in Pacific adolescents: a socio-cultural study in Auckland, New Zealand at the University of Auckland in 2009, followed by postdoctoral research in Auckland's School of Population Health. Teevale then joined the faculty of the University of Otago, being appointed as the first Director of the Pacific Development Office in 2013. She was responsible for monitoring the university's delivery on its Pacific Strategic Framework, and established a number of Pacific groups and roles throughout the university, such as divisional Associate Dean Pacific, the University of Otago Pacific Islands Students' Association, and a Pacific Leadership Group.

Teevale's research covered physical education, health, youth and topics such as investigating the barriers to Pacific educational achievement at university. She carried out a national survey of youth health and wellbeing, and a study of school-based interventions to manage weight.

In 2022, Teevale was diagnosed with cancer, and she died in Dunedin on 21 April 2023.

Honours and awards
In the 2021 New Years Honours Teevale was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Pacific education and public health research.