Kāwika Riley is a Research Fellow with the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development. His research with the Harvard Project is currently focused on Indigenous peoples' management of land and water, and more generally the connection between public policy and Native wellbeing.

Riley has over 17 years of experience in public policy and nonprofit leadership, most of which has focused on Indigenous people. He is currently the Vice President for External Affairs at Kupu, a leading youth-focused conservation nonprofit based in Hawaiʻi. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science (Indigenous Politics and Law and Policy) from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, his M.A. in Political Management from the George Washington University, and is an honors graduate of the University of Northern Colorado. He has lectured at various universities, and was recently the Program Director for the George Washington University's INSPIRE Pre-College summer program, which served American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian high school students and rising college freshmen.