For Mrs Schaaf (44), successfully completing the doctorate also marks the end of a "sometimes tumultuous and challenging" time in her personal life and academic career.
She will be among about 300 graduands in arts, music and theology to graduate from the university in a ceremony at the Regent Theatre, Dunedin, at 3pm today.
"I feel privileged to be graduating with a PhD and to have contributed not only to the academic community but to the Pacific community also," she said.
Graduation also marked the start of a positive new chapter in her life, "full of opportunities".
This was the first Otago University PhD to be formally endorsed in the subject area of Pacific studies.
Pacific studies had became a formal doctoral option for Otago students last year, she said.
She is also the first member of staff at Te Tumu, the Otago School of Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies, to gain an Otago PhD endorsed in Pacific studies.
She has been teaching at Te Tumu since 1998.
Auckland-born and of Samoan and Tongan ancestry, she has lived in Dunedin and been a member of the city's Pacific community for more than 35 years.
She was also the first person to have gained a PhD in Pacific studies, who had been raised in Dunedin and had continued to live in the city, she said.
Beside the "normal personal and individual rewards" associated with this degree, it also had a broader significance.
This was not only a success for her extended families but also marked a success "for all our Pacific communities here in Aotearoa/New Zealand" and also in the Pacific itself.
This PhD further validated "the importance and significance of Pacific people's contribution to the academic, social, political, economic and historical landscape" of New Zealand, she said.
Pacific cultures placed great value on family.
As well as undertaking teaching during her doctoral research, which began in 2003, she had also had to grapple with her many family roles and responsibilities, including helping raise four sons, now aged 19, 17, 15 and 8.
• Her thesis explores how Pacific women "negotiate and grapple with family, church, culture, education, physical education, sport and their body image" in relation to their participation in netball.
