Faumuina Professor Fa'afetai Sopoaga leads the New Year's Honours list for Pacific recipients.
She was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to Pacific health and tertiary education.
She was the inaugural Pacific Associate Dean, Division of Health Sciences at the University of Otago between 2009 and 2020.
Faumuina has championed medical and public health education for Pacific communities since the 1990s.
Education was always important to her parents, she said.
