LEADERS
Melinda M. Adams, Langston Hughes Assistant Professor, Indigenous Studies and Department of Geography and Atmospheric Science, University of Kansas, 2025 University of Arizona Indigenous Data Sovereignty, Ethics, and Governance Fellow.
Dr. Adams' research focuses on the revitalization of cultural fire (prescribed fire led with TEK) with Tribes in California and more recently with Tribes in the Midwest. Her work with Indigenous communities lives at the nexus of environmental science, environmental policy, and Indigenous research methodologies and she has recently developed a framework on Indigenous Fire Data Sovereignty, towards protecting Indigenous fire knowledge.
Chief Benjamin Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe was elected to his position in 2019. Prior to that, he served the Shawnee Tribe as Second Chief for seven years and was a leader in the tribal gaming industry for 20 years. The roots of Chief Barnes’ service go back to his volunteer efforts to revive the Shawnee language. Upon taking office with only a few fluent Shawnee speakers remaining, Barnes declared 2021-2030 the Decade of the Shawnee Language.
Chief Barnes passionately advocates for truth, accountability, reconciliation, justice, education, and human rights. His work, however, extends beyond service to his nation, bringing together truths and traditions in framing and crafting tribal policy and law. Most recently, Barnes co-edited the book Replanting Cultures: CommunityEngaged Scholarship in Indian Country
Susan Bayro has been working with the Osage Nation since 2011. Her first eight years were spent as a Business Systems Analyst and Business Relationship Manager in the Information Technology department. She then served for five years as the Strategic Planning Analyst for the Self-Governance and Strategic Planning department.
Currently, as the Cabinet Secretary of Administration, Susan oversees and coordinates the daily operations of eight departments under her Cabinet, ensuring efficiency and effectiveness. She supervises department directors and managers by providing evaluations, guidance on annual plans, budgets, and overall operations. She recommends policies, procedures, staffing, and funding requirements as appropriate.
Tobin Beal is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation, and is currently the CIO of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. He is an experienced global technology leader known for transforming global IT organizations to improve performance, increase innovation, and raise organizational ROI. He is a change agent and sees IT as a medium to change the culture of a company. He has served as the CIO of General Motors China and the CIO of General Motors International. He is taking ITKN on a journey towards tribal sovereignty. He is working with several large enterprise companies to prepare them to leverage sovereignty for their strategic advantage and to benefit the citizens of Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska.
Kelly Nalani Beym (Diné) is a 2024-2028 Self Graduate Fellow pursuing a Ph.D. in Geography at The University of Kansas. She is an enrolled citizen of the Navajo Nation with family from Tuba City, and Rock Point, Arizona. She received her bachelor’s degree in individualized studies with a minor in Agricultural Business Management and Distinction in University Honors in 2022. Her research focuses on the expansion of tribal self-determination within the United States Department of Agriculture and commodity food programs serving Indian Country. Additionally, she is interested in pathways to self-governance that enhance traditional food systems within Indian Country to combat food insecurity and chronic health conditions. Her work focuses on the economic, environmental, and cultural impacts of tribal procurement within the self-determination demonstration project in the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR). She also seeks to identify the impact of tribal geopolitics within federal, state, and tribal relations regarding agriculture. Her career aspirations include working as a tribal policy researcher in either the government or tribal nonprofit sector following graduate school. She also seeks to one day become a faculty member at a Tribal College and University (TCU) to support the mentorship of future Indigenous scholars in STEM. Ultimately, she seeks to integrate Indigenous Knowledges into policy research to enforce tribal autonomy in Indian Country.
Amy June (Eastern Shawnee) is a farmer, seed keeper, artist and researcher born and raised in the mid-Atlantic and currently based in Lawrence, Kansas. She works with Local Contexts to promote data sovereignty and affirm Indigenous People's rights to their own materials, collections and knowledge. Assisting adoption of the Labels and Notices through the Local Contexts Hub, she and her colleagues pursue more just methodologies in research, collections and archives.
Jon Boursaw, Citizen Potawatomi Nation, is a native of Topeka, KS and a graduate of Highland Park High School and Washburn University where he earned a Bachelor of Business Administration. Jon was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Air Force, serving for over 24 years, retiring as a Colonel. Following retirement from the Air Force, he worked for health care management organizations for 13 years, returning to Topeka in 1999 where he served as the Executive Director for the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation for 6 years. In 2006 Jon became the Director of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s Cultural Heritage Center in Shawnee, OK for 2 years. After retiring in November 2008, Jon and his wife, Peggy, returned to Topeka.
In June 2013, Jon was elected to serve as one of 16 Legislative Representatives for the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. He represents District 4, which is the state of Kansas, with over 3,000 Citizen Potawatomi Nation tribal members residing in the state. He is a member of the Kansas State Historical Foundation Board of Directors, where h as Treasurer and is a member of the Combat Air Museum Board of Directors. Jon is also a member of the Kansas Academic Council for Indigenous Education.
Travis Campbell, citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and of Choctaw and Delaware descent, completed his bachelor’s degree in Indigenous and American Indian Studies at Haskell Indian Nations University in 2017, and completed a master's degree in library and information science with an emphasis in Archival Studies at Emporia State University in 2019. In May 2023, he was appointed Director of the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum at Haskell Indian Nations University, combining over a decade of experience working in archives and museums to lead this internationally known institution.
Ryan Clasby is the Curator of Global Indigenous Art & Lifeways, Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas. He is an anthropological archaeologist specializing in Andean and Amazonian prehistory with a research interest in interregional interaction and exchange, complex societies, ritual and religion, human adaptations to tropical forest landscapes, and the importance of provincial museums in Latin America to cultural identity and scientific investigation. His research has been supported by an NSF as well as postdoctoral fellowships (e.g., Dumbarton Oaks, American Council of Learned Societies), published in journals such as Latin American Antiquity, and is exemplified in his edited volume The Archaeology of the Upper Amazon. Complexity and Interaction in the Andean Tropical Forest which brought together scholars working in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador to demonstrate the complex cultural accomplishments of the upper Amazon’s indigenous people. Before coming to KU, Ryan was a Postdoctoral Research Associate, NAGPRA Office, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Research, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He holds a PhD in Anthropology and an MPhil degree in Anthropology, both from Yale University.
Jackie Counts is the Director of the Center for Public Partnerships and Research at the University of Kansas. Counts received her Master of Social Work at the University of California-Berkeley before coming to KU in 2004, where she served as the assistant director of the Institute for Educational Research and Public Service. She earned her doctorate from the KU School of Social Welfare in 2010 and became the Region VII project officer for the Early Childhood Health and Development Branch of the Maternal Child Health Bureau of Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in Kansas City, Missouri. Counts returned to KU as director of AAI’s Center for Public Partnerships & Research in 2013.
Under her leadership, CPPR grew by over 300% from $3.5 million to $14.2 million annually, with team growth of 35 employees to over 100. Counts has launched several futures initiatives, including Kansas Future Fellows.
Jennifer Dumpert is the Human Research Protection Program Coordinator at the University of Kansas in the Office of Research. She is responsible for supporting the Institutional Review Board (IRB) administrative processes, reviewing research applications, and serving as the first line of response to investigators' questions, concerns, consultations and education related to human subjects research compliance.
Jenny Flinders is a Research Project Manager for the Center for Public Partnerships & Research at the University of Kansas.
Chamisa Edmo (she/her) is a citizen of the Navajo Nation, born for Blackfeet and Shoshone-Bannock. She is a computer scientist and developer specializing in the ethical integration of Indigenous values into technology. Currently pursuing a graduate degree in Computer Science at the University of Kansas, Chamisa’s research focuses on developing decentralized tools to support Indigenous data sovereignty, AI bias mitigation, and ethical AI/ML systems. Her work is rooted in principles of equity, social justice, and the intersection of Indigenous culture and technology, building on her BA in Indigenous and American Indian Studies from Haskell Indian Nations University. As a graduate researcher, Chamisa is advancing protocols and tools for Indigenous technological sovereignty, including the development of an AI bias simulation tool and decentralized data management frameworks. Her research integrates Indigenous knowledge systems with emerging technologies, addressing data ethics and cultural protocol within AI systems. Chamisa also collaborates on projects that promote ethical technology design projects that promote ethical technology design and equitable STEM participation, including curriculum development and outreach initiatives aimed at empowering Indigenous youth to engage with AI and data science. Chamisa’s expertise extends to international forums, where she advocates for the recognition of Indigenous rights and data sovereignty in global technology policies. Through her research and advocacy, she seeks to decolonize technology, promote inclusive AI systems, and ensure that data sovereignty frameworks honor Indigenous self-determination and cultural integrity.
Nico Franz is the Krishtalka Director of the Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum and Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Kansas. Dr. Franz is an evolutionary biologist and insect systematist specializing in weevils. His research program also focuses on developing innovative, equitable biocollections infrastructure and biodiversity data science services. Visit the Symbiota website for more information. He holds a Ph.D. in Systematic Entomology from Cornell University, an M.Sc. in Biology from the University of Costa Rica and a Prediploma in Biology from the University of Hamburg.
Sofía Galarza Liu is the Spencer Museum of Art Head of Collection Management at the University of Kansas where she has worked since 2002. She received a BFA in the History of Art and an MA in Museum Studies from the University of Kansas and is an alum of the Getty Leadership Institute, Los Angeles. In 2006 she completed a twoyear IMLS grant funded project to digitize the museum’s collections and was actively involved in the development of the museum’s on-line collection. Sofía has taught courses on collection management for the University of Kansas Museum Studies Graduate Program. Sofía is an active member of the Association of Registrars and Collections Specialists (ARCS) and currently serves on the Mentorship Program Subcommittee. Sofía has presented at numerous conferences including the European Registrars Conference, the American Alliance of Museums, the MountainPlains Museums Association, and the Kansas Museums Association.
George Gottschalk (Muscogee Nation) is Head of Acquisitions and Resource Management at Kansas State Libraries. He is a past president of the American Indian Library Association and is active with the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums. He previously served as the director of acquisitions at the University of Illinois and also has held other positions in acquisitions and collection development at Rogers State University, University of Washington Libraries and the Oklahoma State University Medical Library. Gottschalk has served on several committees regarding library collections and improvement. He holds a Master of Library and Information Studies and a Bachelor of Arts in art history, both from the University of Oklahoma.
George Growingthunder is a Nakoda/ Dakota originally from the Ft Peck Reservation Poplar, MT. As a first-year graduate student at the University of Kansas in the Indigenous Studies program, George’s main focus of research is working with tribal language programs and adding their ethnobotanical knowledge to the USDA plant database website. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Arts with an emphasis on design and fabrication from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico 2023. George currently lives in Kansas City, MO with his wife and two youngest daughters.
Alyssa Haase is the Research Compliance Manager for the Office of Research at the University of Kansas. Alyssa provides administrative support and oversight to core components of the program including training and education, quality assurance, IRB reliance processes, and other researcher initiatives involving human participants, human data or biospecimens.
Crystal LoudHawk-Hedgepeth, a member of the Diné (Navajo Nation) from Sanostee, NM, holds two master’s degrees in clinical science and health education and is currently pursuing her doctoral studies at Montana State University. As a Senior Program Officer of Research at the American Indian College Fund, she helps lead systematic research and program initiatives that contribute to the expansion of the programming and research efforts at Tribal Colleges and Universities. In her role as a consultant and board member for the Colorado Commission on Indian Affairs, her work is dedicated to improving access to services, programs, and research initiatives aimed at reducing health disparities within American Indian communities throughout Colorado. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family.
Kara Kelly is a Collections Manager, Archaeology at the University of Kansas. She is a lifelong learner living at the point of convergence between museums and data management. Kara has 20 years of collections management and archival experience combined with programming and database management. Her current interests focus on how Virtual Reality and the Metaverse will impact museums.
Kara is very happy to have come full circle, returning to her alma mater where she is forwarding the university’s NAGPRA priorities and training the next generation of museum professionals. Knowing more about Kara as a dedicated professional would include a story about the time that "other duties as assigned" included shoveling 4 feet of snow off the roof so the building wouldn't collapse!
Kelly Kindscher is a University of Kansas Professor in Environmental Studies, Affiliate Faculty in Indigenous Studies, and Senior Scientist with Kansas Biological Survey. He is best known as a passionate advocate for native plants, native landscapes and wild places. His research is focused on native prairies, prairie plants and plant communities. He is a conservationist, teacher, mentor and environmental problem-solver. Today, his primary responsibilities are as a plant ecologist for the Kansas Biological Survey, where he conducts research on plant communities throughout Kansas, the Midwest, and the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states; and in the Environmental Studies Program, where he mentors students and has taught a variety of classes, including ethnobotany and the program’s capstone course, formerly known as Environmental Impact Assessment.
Dr. Milford Muskett (Diné/Navajo) is the Vice President of Academics at Haskell Indian Nations University, Lawrence, KS. Prior to his role at Haskell, Musket was the Department Chair (Dean) of the Advanced Technical Education (STEM) department at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute. He holds a doctorate in Land Resources (Environment Resources) with a minor in Law from the University of Wisconsin, where his Research focused on Indigenous American Environmental Thought, Law and Ecology. He received a master’s in Geography with a minor in Computer Cartography and Natural Resources Management from Western Michigan University, and a Bachelors in Geography from Calvin University. His academic research areas focus on the environmental history of indigenous communities and the development of indigenous sciences and their impact on environmental policies and curriculum development in the sciences.
Martha “Marti” Only A Chief is a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and descendant of the Otoe-Missouria tribe Marti has worked the majority of her life with the Pawnee Nation in various departments. She began her career working as an administrative assistant with the Pawnee Nation Cultural Resource Division in Tribal Historic Preservation in 2014. Earning a bachelor's degree in 2019 provided Marti an opportunity to apply for her current position as the NAGPRA Coordinator, Pawnee Nation Cultural Resouce Division In 2022, she earned an associate degree in Tribal Business Management. In her work, Marti is strongly committed to working with other nations/tribes in consultations, universities, museums, and any entity that houses relatives, associated funeral objects, sacred objects, and cultural patrimony objects. Marti describes her commitment saying, “It is not about how it happened or who did it. It is about taking care of our relatives, funerary objects, sacred objects, and cultural patrimony objects now is how I feel.” She is proud to uphold the Pawnee Nation priorities of reburying relatives and funerary objects.
Christina Pacheco (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Kansas Medical Center with a secondary appointment in Population Health. Pacheco graduated from William Mitchell College of Law in 2008 with her Juris Doctor (JD) and from the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) in 2016 with her Master of Public Health (concentration in Social and Behavioral Health). She is pursuing an interdisciplinary PhD in bioinformatics and public administration at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Pacheco has worked in public health for over 14 years, policy and law for more than 16 years, and social justice and racial reconciliation for over 20 years. She has aided in the development of culturally tailored public health interventions, particularly in tobacco, environmental health, healthy eating, and physical activity. Ms. Pacheco is a community-based participatory researcher whose interests focus on health inequities faced by Indigenous, Latino, and rural communities. She wants to understand how social impediments (determinants) impact health for Indigenous, Latino, and rural communities.
Dr. Cornel Pewewardy (Comanche-Kiowa) is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Central Oklahoma, Professor-of-Practice in the School of Education at Kansas State University, Professor Emeritus in Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University and former Vice-Chair of the Comanche Nation. He has a profound belief in the power of Indigenous education and in the power of higher education and has dedicated his life’s work to bringing those two forces together to improve both.
Pewewardy retired in 2017 from Portland State University, where he served as Director and Professor of the Indigenous Nations Studies Program. Prior to joining Portland State University, he taught at the University of Kansas and was a five-time recipient of the Big XII Outstanding American Indian Faculty of the Year Award; served as the first academic dean of Comanche Nation College; and founded two transformational, award-winning public magnet schools in Saint Paul, Minnesota and founder of the Comanche Academy Charter School in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Jennifer Raff is an Associate Professor & Director of Graduate Studies, Anthropology and affiliate faculty in Indigenous Studies at the University of Kansas. Her research focuses on understanding human history through the lens of genetics. She works with Indigenous communities and tribes across North America who wish to use ancient and contemporary DNA as a tool for investigating questions of recent and more distant histories. In 2024 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (General Nonfiction) to support work on her second book, “The Ancients: The untold story of how we became human” under contract with Twelve Books. She received a PhD in 2008 from Indiana University, with a double major in Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology (with a focus on genetics) and Biological Anthropology. She completed postdoctoral work at the University of Utah, Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Molecular Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University at Chicago, and the University of Texas at Austin
Marla Redcorn-Miller (Osage/Kiowa/Caddo) is the Director of the Osage Nation Museum. She is the former deputy director of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she managed facilities, operations, security, visitor services, human resources, and finance. Since 1992, she has worked in the curatorial, education and administrative departments of museums with significant collections of indigenous arts. These museums include: the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa Oklahoma; the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma; and the Museum of Contemporary Native Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico.Marla holds a B.A. in art history from Dartmouth College and an M.Phil. in art history from Columbia University. She is a Ford Fellow and has served on the boards of the Native American Arts Studies Association and the Santa Fe Children’s Museum.
Whitney Red Corn is a Congresswoman with the Osage Nation. Congresswoman Red Corn holds a master’s in organizational leadership and is a doctoral candidate in Education Administration and Leadership. Prior to her current service with the Osage Nation Congress, Red Corn was a preschool direction for 10 years. She lives in Bixby, OK.
Matt Reed is the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) for the Pawnee Nation in Pawnee, OK. Matt graduated from Oklahoma State University with a B.A. in History and an M.A. in Applied History.
Heath Ritter is the Research Compliance Director at Kanas State University, Manhattan, KS. Heath has worked in the Research Compliance Office at Kansas State University for the past 20 years where he also served as the IRB Coordinator.
Dr. Lisa M. Rubin is a Professor in the College of Education and serves as Chair of the Institutional Review Board/Committee of Research Involving Human Subjects at Kansas State University. She is coeditor of the NACADA Journal. She was recognized as a Research Fellow by the College Sports Research Institute in 2024. Dr. Rubin is a recipient of the National Association of Academic and Student-Athlete Development Professionals (N4A) 2024 Distinguished Service, 2020 Research, 2019 Professional Excellence, and 2009 Professional Promise Awards. She received the Big 12 Faculty Fellowship and the NCAA Innovations in Research and Practice Grant in 2018. She was named one of the Top 25 Woman Leaders in Higher Education and Beyond by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education in 2017.
Matthias Salathe was named the University of Kansas Chief Research Officer and Senior Vice Chancellor in fall 2024. In this role, he is tasked with administratively overseeing and facilitating research initiatives across all KU campuses and The University of Kansas Health System.
Matthias joined KU Medical Center in 2018 as professor and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine within the School of Medicine. Since 2020, he also served in the role of Vice Chancellor for Research for KU Medical Center. When the One KU reorganization was announced in summer 2024, he assumed the Chief Research Officer role.
David Sanders is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. He was born in Pine Ridge, S.D. and grew up in the rural Oglala community on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He is the Vice President of Research, Evaluation and Faculty Development. He oversees all aspects of research and program evaluation, including the development of the College Fund’s research agenda and sponsored program lines of inquiry. He assists and guides the use of research data and evaluation to demonstrate the impact of the College Fund’s programming. David is leading the development of database infrastructure of College Fund scholar graduation and retention data and integrating programs data and outcomes. He collaborates with Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) to assist their capacity for data collection and reporting. He develops research inquiries that effectively highlights the work occurring at TCUs and which demonstrates the value of a TCU education. David’s career is situated in Indian education. He taught secondary mathematics at Chinle High School on the Navajo Nation. He also led the University of Colorado (CU) Upward Bound Program, first as the academic coordinator then as the director. The CU-Upward Bound Program worked with lowincome, first-generation high school students from 21 tribal communities across an eight-state region.
Blair Schneider is an Associate Researcher and Scientific Outreach Manager for the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas. Her work focuses on the application of near-surface geophysical methods to address archaeological and forensics investigations. She received her PhD and M.S. in Geology from the University of Kansas in 2017 and 2012, respectively, specializing in near-surface geophysics. She received a bachelor’s degree in Geology in 2009 from James Madison University. Dr. Schneider has collected geophysical data at over 15 archaeological sites across the Midwest, and has also assisted local law enforcement for investigations.
Carlton Shield Chief Gover is a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and is an Assistant Professor in Anthropology, Assistant Curator, Archaeology Division, Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum, and Affiliate Faculty, Indigenous Studies at the University of Kansas. Dr. Shield Chief Gover earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Colorado Boulder along with graduate Certificates in Museolog and Native American & Indigenous Studies. His research utilizes Pawnee and Arikara oral traditions, regarding population movement and social change, as foundational evidence for interpreting the archaeological record from the 9th to 16th centuries A.D. He has published in American Antiquity, Plains Anthropologist and Advances in Archaeological Practice.
Gwendolyn Sibley is a non-indigenous ally who works at K-State Libraries. She provides copyright and other intellectual property information, as well as advocates for open scholarship that promotes scholarly communication. Her interest in Indigenous intellectual property rights began in her undergraduate years where she had the opportunity to collaborate as a writing tutor with the writing center at Haskell Indian Nations University. She seeks to provide resources to Indigenous Peoples as they advocate for their rights, the future of copyright, and other intellectual property.
Carol Smith is the Dean of Libraries at the University of Kansas. Librarianship was a mid-career change for Smith, who spent time in leadership positions in both the oil industry and information services profession until 2004. She first served as library director at Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado. Smith was also a tenured associate professor of library services at the University of Central Missouri, where she served as the business librarian and technology initiatives librarian. She was recently the university librarian at Colorado School of Mines before joining KU Libraries. Smith’s department was awarded the Mines Diversity, Inclusion and Access progress award for Best in Shared Responsibility in 2021 and 2022. Her current areas of research interest include international comparative librarianship and academic library applications of the New Librarianship framework.
Smith holds a graduate certificate in geographic information systems from the University of Central Missouri as well as a master’s degree in information systems and a master’s degree in library and information science, both from Drexel University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and Arabic from Binghamton University.
Alex Soto (Tohono O’odham Nation) is director of the Labriola National American Indian Data Center at Arizona State University (ASU) Library. Under his leadership, the Labriola Center has developed and implemented culturally responsive library services, expanded its personnel seven-fold, and re-established its physical locations as culturally safe spaces for Indigenous library users. Alex co-authored ASU Library’s first land acknowledgement statement, is the recipient of the Society of American Archivists 2022 Archival Innovator Award, and recently was awarded a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for “Firekeepers: Building Archival Data Sovereignty through Indigenous Memory Keeping,” a three-year project to preserve Indigenous knowledge through community-based participatory archival partnerships with Arizona’s Tribal communities. He also is the treasurer for the Arizona Humanities Board of Directors and is an American Indian Library Association executive board member. Alex's journey to librarianship comes after years of success as a touring hip-hop musician and activist.
Dr. Riley Taitingfong is a Chamoru researcher and educator working on issues of Indigenous self-determination, emerging technologies, and Indigenous Data Sovereignty. She earned her PhD in Communication from the University of California San Diego, where her project focused on Indigenous governance of genetic engineering technologies. Riley is currently a postdoctoral scholar with the University of Arizona’s Native Nations Institute, where she works with leading Indigenous Data Sovereignty collectives such as the Global Indigenous Data Alliance and the Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance. Her projects focus on building tools to operationalize the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance. You can read some of Riley’s publications in the Hastings Center Report, Human Biology, Nature Biotech, and Acta Borealia.
Dr. Krystal Tsosie, PhD, MPH, MA (Diné/Navajo Nation) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. She is also Associate Director of the Biodiversity Knowledge Integration Center at ASU. She also co-founded the Native BioData Consortium, the first Indigenous-led biological and data repository operating within the jurisdictional bounds of a US Tribal Nation. Her genomics research interests are specific to Indigenous communities and people in precision health, conservation biology, and paleogenomics. She is also an expert in bioethics, data policy and governance, and developing digital data tools rooted in machine learning approaches to advance the sharing and informed consent of genomic data. Her work is internationally covered in the media, and she is on ethical advisory boards for many national and international government and science policy organizations, including work with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; the World Health Organization; the American Society of Human Genetics; and others.
Raphael Wahwassuck is a Tribal Council member for the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. Councilman Wahwassuck grew up living between Topeka and the Potawatomi reservation for most of his life. He has a degree in Organizational Management and Leadership. In his professional life, Wahwassuck worked in the tribal judicial system for a number of years and has worked on federal grants for different tribes throughout the country. He enjoys the opportunity to share his traditions and educate people about his culture.
Carrie F. Whitlow is a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and descendent from the Kiowa and Muscogee Creek Tribes and is from El Reno, Oklahoma. She currently serves as the Executive Director for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Department of Education. She has served in a leadership/management capacity for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes for the past 18 years. Ms. Whitlow is a 5th year doctoral student in the Adult Learning and Leadership Program at Kansas State University. She has completed requirements for coursework and a Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research. Carrie’s work has been published in the journal Rural Educator and in the books Rethinking Research in Social Studies Education, Sharing Leadership Stories in Rural Education: Leading Rurally Across Australia and the United States, and Unsettling Settler-Colonial Education. Carrie is a member of the Tribal Education Departments National Assembly (TEDNA), Oklahoma Council for Indian Education (OCIE), National Indian Education Association (NIEA), American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA).
Dr. Alex Red Corn (������������������������/Osage) is an Associate Professor and Director of Indigenous Studies, as well as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Tribal Relations at the University of Kansas. With a background in Educational Leadership, he also serves as Executive Director of the Kansas Association for Native American Education (KANAE) and in 2022, he became the Chair of the new Kansas Advisory Council for Indigenous Education (KACIE). His scholarship and service are focused on building interdisciplinary capacities for Native Nations to take on a more prominent role in the education of their citizens, Indigenous research methodologies and innovative forms of qualitative research.