Anna Marie Christiansen received her B.A. in English from BYU-Hawaii (1992), her M.A. in English from the University of Hawaii (1996), and her D.A. in English from Idaho State University (2003). In her doctoral work, she focused on mixed-race identity in African American literature and the classroom dynamics of teaching multicultural texts in a monocultural classroom. Her research interests include Oceanic literatures, African-American literature, Native literatures, cultural studies and critical pedagogy. Since 1992, she has taught courses at BYU-Hawaii, and Idaho State University. Born in Australia and raised on the U.S. mainland, Dr. Christiansen is Maori and affiliated with the Nga Puhi tribe.