Through her mother, Keaka is Kanaka Maoli, Kanaka ʻŌiwi from Na 'Ohana o Kalama of La'ie Hawai'i. Through her father, she is Cherokee from Bohannon Mountain in Northwest Arkansas...and a few other things.

Keaka was appointed as the first Assistant Vice-Chancellor Pacific at the University of Waikato in February 2019. This role provides strategic leadership for the university's ongoing efforts to improve success for Pacific learners, staff, families and communities through tertiary education. Keaka's team includes roles closely aligned with the UoW Pacific Strategic Plan 2021-2025, including the Dau ni Talitali Pacific Engagement Manager, the Taki Ako Pacific Lecturer and the 'Atia'e Su'esu'ega Faale-A'oa'oga mo Pasefika Research Fellow.

Prior to this role, Keaka served as the Associate Dean (Undergraduate) at Te Piringa Faculty of Law at the University of Waikato. Keaka's teaching includes Pacific people and the law, indigenous rights, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, human rights, legal theory, and comparative law. Her research draws on these subjects and explores issues like climate change, health and education that present wicked challenges to notions of equality and non-discrimination. She is currently a chapter author on the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade-funded Pacific Ocean Climate Crisis Assessment project covering 16 countries in the Pacific region, researching in the areas of social-ecological resilience and human rights. She is also an investigator on the NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment-funded Tauhokohoko: Indigenising Trade Policy and Enabling Mana Motuhake through Indigenous Trade research programme.

Given education's power to multiply negative and equitable outcomes, Keaka is especially passionate about building leadership, pathways and success for Pacific and indigenous learners in tertiary education through indigenous cultural legacies of success and evidence-based approaches. She served as the chair of Komiti Pasifika at Universities New Zealand, a body representing the Pacific leads at all of NZ’s universities, from 2021-2023 and was part of the Ministry of Education's NCEA Pacific Peoples Review Panel from 2020-2023.

Keaka is also a big believer in the power of communities that come together to work on better outcomes for all.  She has been on the board of K'aute Pasifika Trust, an innovative Waikato-based Pacific health, employment, education and social services provider since 2023.  She has also been a director for Fatu Lalaga, another innovative Pacific inspired health provider partnership and a trustee for the Waikato Housing Initiative since 2024.

Keaka and her team have also partnered with Te Huataki Waiora School of Health and the Cook Islands Directorate of Climate Change on STEM workforce development and working with Te Whatu Ora and other stakeholders on health workforce development.