Ridvan Firestone

Ridvan Tupai-Firestone (known as Riz) is a Samoan–New Zealand academic, and from January 2025 is a full professor in the Centre for Public Health Research at Massey University. Tupai-Firestone works on social and cultural health inequalities.

Early life and education Tupai-Firestone was born in Samoa, and moved to New Zealand with her family in 1976. She has links to the villages of Falealupo on Savai'i island and Matautu on Falealili. In 2020 she was awarded a Marsden grant to lead a team from five institutions to investigate associations between culture, food systems, diet and traditional practices, and diet-related diseases.

Tupai-Firestone was the Pacific Strategy Leader for the A Better Start National Science Challenge, and was also part of the Healthier Lives challenge.

She was appointed Chair of the Lottery Health Research Committee in 2020. She was also on the jury of the 2024 Falling Walls Lab.

Selected works