Marjorie Mau, a University of Hawaiʻi Native Hawaiian health professor, has become the first Native Hawaiian woman to be recognized with the title of “master” physician by the American College of Physicians. She was welcomed into the ranks of mastership in a convocation ceremony at the American College of Physicians’ annual meeting for internal medicine May 5–7, 2016 in Washington, D.C.
In addition to treating patients on Molokaʻi and at the Lau Ola Clinic in Honolulu, operated by University Health Partners of Hawaiʻi, Mau is a prolific scientist who has conducted groundbreaking research in metabolic disorders among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. She is one of the top-funded researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi John A. Burns School of Medicine, having brought more than $20.9 million in external funds to the medical school, helping to fuel Hawaiʻi’s biomedical research economy.
A busy mother of twin toddlers, Mau received her mastership recognition a year late. She was selected into the 2014–2015 class but was pregnant at the time and couldn’t travel.
More about Marjorie Mau
Mau is a graduate of Kalani High School and Creighton University, where she earned her undergraduate and medical degrees. She also holds a master’s degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.
She is principal investigator and director of the Center for Native and Pacific Health Disparities Research and holds the Myron P. Thompson Endowed Chair for Native Hawaiian Health at the University of Hawaiʻi medical school. She was the first Native Hawaiian female endocrinologist, and founding chair of the Department of Native Hawaiian Health at JABSOM.
In 2010, The National Institutes of Health featured Mau and seven other U.S. researchers as worthy mentors for young scientists through the BioMedical Faces of Science program.
—By Tina Shelton
