Dr Sione Ma’u

Sione Ma’u hails from the Kingdom of Tonga, and relocated to Aotearoa, New Zealand in 1991 to complete his secondary school education; before beginning his tertiary education at the University of Auckland thereafter. Sione successfully graduated with his Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Physics and Mathematics in 1997. Sione then returned to the University of Auckland to complete a Master’s in Mathematics, where he graduated with first-class honours, as well as maintaining significant connections across the Faculty of Science with his well-received grades and high-class projects.

Since marrying and starting a family, Sione later decided to further pursue his studies at the University after the encouragement and support from his partner and his previous supervisor for his Master's. He then applied, and received a doctorial scholarship for his PhD thesis, which focused on potential theory and complex analysis. Sione’s PhD journey was a collection of life-changing experiences for him, with two-thirds of his study spent overseas at universities in the United States until his final year in 2003; where he returned to New Zealand to finalise writing his thesis.

Since graduating with his PhD, Sione and his family moved to follow his work as an academic, where he was based in Indiana, USA after winning the New Zealand Science and Technology post-doctoral. This was an impressive career move for Sione, who for the next three years, utilised this scholarship to develop his research and continue building on his academic career.

In 2007, Sione returned to New Zealand looking for further work. He later discovered five vacancies were available for lecturing in mathematics in the South Pacific region, Fiji. Consequently, Sione and his family moved to Fiji where he taught mathematics for three years, including supervising a Master's student. In 2011, another opening for a mathematics academic was advertised by the University of Auckland, and although Sione didn’t receive the advertised job, there was an open opportunity for the University to receive extra funding for Māori and Pacific academics within the faculty. Sione, therefore, started his new lecturing job at the start of 2012; and has been within the faculty ever since then.

Sione has since been involved with the Tuākana programme, where he teaches undergraduate courses, and complex analysis graduate courses, as well as supervises PhD and Master’s students. His favourite part of teaching is finding ways to explain mathematics to different levels of maths knowledge that people may have. Sione believes that explaining concepts in the most fundamental way and finding out how to tailor his teaching for different people, provides a more in-depth understanding of the topic, not only for the people he teaches but for himself as well.

His advice to students starting out in their careers is to do what they are interested in.

Sione adds, “Acknowledge that the journey won’t always be easy, and you will need to be disciplined about your job but find the motivation, challenge yourself to do more and to be better than you once were. Be grateful to the people who encourage and believe in you, don’t forget that if someone believes in your journey enough to support you, they’re probably right to do so. Don’t give up!”

View Sione's university profile here.