Meet the Team

Co-Founder / Instructor, CSM Mana
Program Services Coordinator / Instructor, CSM Project Change

Dr. Finausina Teisa Tovo is an educator, scholar, and advocate whose work is grounded in equity and the lived experiences of Pacific Islander students in the diaspora. As Co-Founder of the Mana Learning Community at the College of San Mateo, she has helped shape a model that integrates Pacific Studies frameworks with community-rooted pedagogy. Her teaching is guided by her original pedagogical theories, which draw on the Tongan Ta-Vā Theory of Reality, spatiotemporal analysis, and ecological-sociological approaches to knowledge production. Through this lens, she emphasizes relational learning, cultural responsibility, and critical inquiry that link student success to broader struggles for justice. Dr. Tovo is also a member of the Tonga Research Association executive committee, where she supports research centered on lived experiences and climate justice topics that critically impact Tonga and the Pacific Islands. In her downtime, she enjoys exploring science museums with her son, watching horror documentary films, and weightlifting.

Counselor / Instructor, CSM Learning Communities
Honors Project | Mana | Project Change | Umoja

Melissa Manuofetoa serves at the College of San Mateo as the Learning Communities Counselor for Honors, Mana, Project Change and Umoja. Born and raised in the Bay Area, she is a College of San Mateo alumni completing three associate degrees before transferring. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her master's in science counseling from San Francisco State University. As a first-generation Samoan and Tongan educator, Melissa is known for her growing decade of experience and leadership in community organizing within the Pacific Islander Community and larger solidarity movements. She is most passionate about being a wife, serving in ministry at her local church, and spending time with family.

Instructor, CSM Mana
Retention Specialist, Project Change

Dr. Wesley Hingano is a scholar practitioner, and community leader whose work is grounded in equity, cultural sustainability, and the lived experiences of Pacific Islander and Justice System Impacted Students. His pedagogy is rooted in vā—the sacred relational space between people—and informed by Research Justice and Critical Pacific Studies frameworks, centering relational learning, collective responsibility, and the validation of lived experience as knowledge. Guided by his own journey as a first-generation Tongan immigrant, Dr. Hingano’s work connects faith, culture, and education to advance pathways of leadership, healing, and transformation within the Pacific Islander community. In his downtime, he enjoys hiking and creating through faiva—the Tongan art of embodied performance and storytelling.