Miwa Tamanaha holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Economics from the University of California and has spent the last 20 years working in environmental policy and environmental justice advocacy in Central and Southern California, Mexico, Tanzania and Hawaiʻi. Her ancestors first came to Hawaiʻi from Okinawa in the late 1800s to work sugar plantations, and she is the fifth generation of her family to call Hawaiʻi home. She formerly served as the Policy and Communications Director for the Santa Monica Bay Commission (National Estuary Program), Executive Director of KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, and today serves as a Co-founder and Co-leader of Kua‘āina Ulu ‘Auamo (KUA), a non-profit committed to bringing the expertise and voice of Hawai‘i’s fishers, farmers, gatherers, and families to bear solutions to some of Hawai‘i’s most complex environmental and social problems.