William Tanner Allread, Ph.D. Student in History, Stanford
Tanner Allread is a fifth-year Ph.D. Candidate in History at Stanford University and holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School. His current research focuses on early nineteenth-century Native American legal history, with a specific interest in southern Native nations’ transition to written law and constitutionalism during the era of Indian Removal. He also works on issues of federal Indian law and its history, and his work has been published (twice) in the Columbia Law Review. Tanner is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Megan Bang, CNAIR director; Professor of Learning Sciences, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University
Megan Bang (Ojibwe and Italian descent) is a Professor of the Learning Sciences and Director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research. Dr. Bang studies dynamics of culture, learning, and development broadly with a specific focus on the complexities of navigating multiple meaning systems in creating and implementing more effective and just learning environments in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics education. She focuses on reasoning and decision-making about complex socio-ecological systems in ways that intersect with culture, power, and historicity. Central to this work are dimensions of identity, equity and community engagement. She works closely with Indigenous communities. She conducts research in both schools and informal settings across the life course. She has taught in and conducted research in teacher education as well as leadership preparation programs. Dr. Bang currently serves on the Board of Science Education at the National Academy of Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Education.
Bryan Brayboy, Dean/Carlos Montezuma Professor, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University
Brayboy came to Northwestern from Arizona State University, where he was the President’s Professor in the School of Social Transformation and vice president of social advancement. He also served as senior advisor to the president, director of the Center for Indian Education, and co-editor of the Journal of American Indian Education. From 2007 to 2012, he was visiting President’s Professor of Indigenous Education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. A member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the American Educational Research Association, Brayboy’s research focuses on the role of race and diversity in higher education, and the experiences of Indigenous students, staff, and faculty in institutions of higher education. His most influential scholarship is Tribal Critical Race Theory or TribalCrit, a groundbreaking framework he developed in 2005 to help explain Indigenous peoples’ complex experiences with education, colonization, and racism. He is the author or co-author of more than 110 scholarly documents, including nine edited or authored volumes, dozens of articles, book chapters, and policy briefs for the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and the National Academy of Sciences. He has been a visiting and noted scholar in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway. His work has been supported by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, the Ford, Mellon, Kellogg, and Spencer Foundations, and several other private and public foundations and organizations.
Erin Delaney, Professor of Law, Northwestern University
Erin F. Delaney is Professor of Law with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Political Science. Her scholarship explores constitutionalism in comparative perspective, focusing on federalism and judicial design. She was named the 2022 Federal Scholar in Residence at Eurac Research’s Institute for Comparative Federalism in Bolzano, Italy, and held the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in the Theory and Practice of Constitutionalism and Federalism at McGill University. She has also held research fellowships at Edinburgh University and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She has been honored with a number of teaching awards, including the 2015 Childres Award for outstanding teaching at Northwestern, and the 2020 Harvard Law School Student Government Teaching and Advising Award.
Stephanie Fryberg, Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan, and incoming director of CNAIR 2025
Dr. Stephanie A. Fryberg is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. As a social and cultural psychologist, her primary research interests focus on how social representations of race, culture, and social class influence the development of self, psychological well-being, physical health, and educational attainment. Dr. Fryberg provided testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs regarding the impact of racist stereotypes on Indigenous people, served as an expert witness in the Keepseagle v. USDA class action lawsuit, and consults with National Tribal TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). She also received the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Louise Kidder Early Career Award, the University of Arizona Five Star Faculty Award, and in 2011 was inducted into the Multicultural Alumni Hall of Fame at Stanford University.
Joseph P Gone, Professor of Anthropology and Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard University
Joseph P. Gone, PhD, is an international expert in the psychology and mental health of American Indians and other Indigenous peoples. He is Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University; Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Faculty Director, Harvard University Native American Program; and immediate Past President (2023-25) of the Society of Indian Psychologists. Gone has collaborated with tribal communities for nearly three decades to critique conventional mental health services and to harness traditional culture and spirituality for advancing Indigenous well-being. He has published over 100 scientific articles, and received more than 20 fellowships and career awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship. An enrolled member of the Aaniiih-Gros Ventre Tribal Nation of Montana, he also served briefly as the Chief Administrative Officer for the Fort Belknap Indian reservation. Gone received the 2021 APA Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Applied Research from the American Psychological Association, and the 2023 Gold Medal Award for Impact in Psychology from the American Psychological Foundation. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Emily Kadens, Edna B and Ednyfed H Williams Memorial Professor of Law, Vice Dean, Pritzker School of Law, Northwestern University
Professor Kadens is a legal historian working on the history of commercial law and practice. She has a JD from the University of Chicago and a PhD in medieval history from Princeton. She has also written on custom, the concept of the law merchant, and the early history of English bankruptcy. Another current project involves building an AI model to automate the transcription of 16th- and early 17th-century English secretary hand with a high degree of accuracy.
Doug Kiel, Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University
Doug Kiel (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2012) is a citizen of the Oneida Nation and studies Native American history, with particular interests in the Great Lakes region and twentieth century Indigenous nation rebuilding. He is working on a book manuscript entitled Unsettling Territory: Oneida Indian Resurgence and Anti-Sovereignty Backlash. Prior to joining the Northwestern faculty, he taught at Williams College, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlebury College. He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Ford Foundation, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the Newberry Library, and the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, NM, among others. Beyond the university, Kiel has worked in several museums, testified as an expert witness in regards to Indigenous land rights, and in 2008 was an Indigenous Fellow at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva, Switzerland. He currently serves on the advisory committee for the renovation of the Field Museum’s exhibition on Native North America.
Tiffany Lee, Professor, Native American Studies, UNM
Tiffany S. Lee is Dibé Łizhiní (Blacksheep) Diné from Crystal, New Mexico and Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Dr. Lee is a Professor and the Chair of Native American Studies at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Her research examines educational and culturally-based outcomes of Indigenous language immersion schools, the relationship of Diné language learning to wellbeing, and Native youth perspectives on language reclamation, and socio-culturally centered education. Her work has been published in journals, such as the American Journal of Education, Harvard Educational Review, the Journals of Language, Identity, and Education and American Indian Education; and in books, such as Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World, The Yazzie Case: Building a Public Education System for our Indigenous Future, and Indigenous language revitalization in the Americas. She is a former high school social studies and language arts teacher at schools on the Navajo Nation and at Santa Fe Indian School. She is currently collaborating with colleagues on a recently opened Diné language nest in Albuquerque and to prepare Dinélanguage immersion educators through the Diné Language Teacher Institute. She is also the current President of the American Indian Studies Association.
Hayley Negrin, Assistant Professor, History, UIC
Hayley Negrin is a historian of early America and the Atlantic world with a focus on Indigenous history and slavery. She is a non-Native researcher who works with contemporary Native people to research, write, and teach Indigenous history. Her book manuscript in progress Fugitive Lands: Sovereignty and Slavery in the Early American South is forthcoming with the University of Pennsylvania Press. Fugitive Lands charts the relationship between sovereignty and racial slavery in American History. The book explores how European conceptions of Black and Indigenous sovereignty shaped the development of the early American plantation complex and Black and Native people’s resistance to dispossession. Her work has appeared in the William and Mary Quarterly and Environmental History She has served as a researcher on a federal Indian law case and has published several pieces in the Washington Post on Indigenous children, racial representations of Native people, and federal Indian law. At UIC she has developed an upper-level undergraduate class on the Indigenous History of UIC and Chicago in coordination with the Native American Support Program. She also teaches an introductory survey of Early American history for undergraduates, a 200-level survey of Native American history and various graduate classes pertaining to her research topics. She works to educate the public in her adopted home of Chicago on the Indigenous history of Chicago and the contemporary Native people who currently call the city home.
Beth Redbird, Associate Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University
Beth Redbird is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University. She is also a faculty fellow with the Institute for Policy Research and the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research. Her work focuses on how between-group boundaries impact interaction, conflict and inequality. Boundaries can be as formal as borders between nations, or as informal as cultural differences. Whether they are geographical, political, legal, or social, boundaries create inequality because they limit the free flow of resources; restrict knowledge and ideas; and draw distinctions between 'us' and 'them'. Her current work focuses on two areas: (1) The ways in which modern settler-colonial boundaries constrain and influence native nations; (2) The flow of human movement within and between spaces.
Alex Red Corn, Assistant Professor Educational Leadership, Kansas State University
Alex Red Corn (Ed.D) is a citizen of the Osage Nation, where he is a member of the Tsi.zhu.wah.shtah.geh (Gentle Sky/Peacekeeper) clan, with family roots in the Wa.ha.xolin district near Pawhuska, Oklahoma (USA). In the College of Education at Kansas State University, he serves as an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, Coordinator of Indigenous Partnerships, Co- Chair of the Indigenous Faculty and Staff Alliance, Executive Director of the Kansas Association for Native American Education (KANAE) and Program Coordinator for the Indigenous Educational Leadership Graduate Certificate. His scholarship and service are focused on building capacities for Native nations to take on a more prominent role in the education of their citizens. As a member of the College of Education faculty, Dr. Red Corn has consulted with school and tribal leaders across the region on a variety of topics related to the education of Indigenous peoples. He has also developed the new Indigenous Educational Leadership Graduate Certificate program, as well partnership programs with the Osage Nation that has graduated two cohorts of Osage leaders with master’s degrees in Educational leadership. Additionally, Dr. Red Corn teaches courses in qualitative research methods, specializing in critical Indigenous approaches to research and autoethnography.
Lauren Van Schilfgarde, Assistant Professor of Law, UCLA
Lauren van Schilfgaarde (Cochiti Pueblo) is Assistant Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. Her research focuses on Tribal sovereignty and federal Indian law. She previously was the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Tribal Legal Development Clinic Director at UCLA Law wherein she supervised live-client projects concerning tribal governance and justice systems, ethics, cultural resource protection, voting, child welfare, and more.
Raphael Wahwassuck, Member, Tribal Council, Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation
Raphael 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, Wahwasuck worked in the tribal judicial system for a number of years; he also worked on federal grants for different tribes throughout the country. Currently he serves on the Tribal Council for the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. He enjoys the opportunity to share his traditions and educate people about his culture.
Geri Wisner, Attorney General, Muscogee (Creek) Nation
Geri Wisner is the Attorney General for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, the 4th largest Native American tribe in the United States, whose 2020 historic legal victory, U.S. v. McGirt, recognized the 1866 treaty that reinstated the reservations criminal jurisdiction. Ms. Wisner is citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, a United States Marine veteran and a mother. She is nationally recognized as the Indian Country Prosecutor. Victims of crime want her in their corner because she has a reputation of fighting the good fight to ensure voices of marginalized and vulnerable victims are heard. Law enforcement want her to prosecute their cases because she aggressively fights for law and order. Tribes want her as their prosecutor because she serves as a role model committed to justice and safety within indigenous communities while strengthening Tribal sovereignty. Geri is in high demand as a national speaker presenting to Tribes, state and federal agencies, professional organizations and communities throughout the country to develop and improve the child abuse responses and justice systems. She trains child abuse professionals on advanced investigative and prosecutorial techniques utilizing a victim-centered approach. Ms. Wisner previously served as the Attorney General for the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska and the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma. She has prosecuted for the following tribes: Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma; Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma; Citizen Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma; Absentee Shawnee Tribe; Blackfeet Nation; and the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. She also served as the Executive Director for the Native American Children’s Alliance (NACA) and the Wisner Law Firm. Ms. Wisner has been appointed to serve on a number of Congressional committees focusing on the improvement of Tribal justice, the protection of Native children and safer communities throughout Indian Country. Geri was appointed the first Ambassador to the United Nations for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, making presentations to the UN in Geneva, Switzerland and New York City. Her experience and perspective on indigenous issues provides a global context for her work with Indigenous people, as well as domestic and foreign governments. A 2001 graduate of Oklahoma State University with a B.A. in Political Science and an American Indian Studies Certificate, Geri received her Juris Doctorate and Native American Law Certificate from the University of Tulsa College of Law in 2003. Geri attends her ceremonial grounds of Tvlvhassee Wokokyv and her Muscogee church, Hvcecupv.
Cliff Zimmerman, Professor of Practice, Pritzker, NU
As a professor of practice, he focuses on innovative and inclusive pedagogies, team-based learning, formation of professional identity, and leadership. His civil rights lawyering, teaching experience, and service as dean of students in the law school form the foundation of his teaching methods, substantive areas of teaching, and research and writing. He teaches a wide range of skills and substantive courses including legal writing, evidence, civil rights litigation, torts, civil procedure, anti-discrimination law, legislation, federal Indian Law, leadership, and formation of professional identity. His academic work ranges from government accountability to teaching methods to identity to leadership. His forthcoming book, Leading in the Law with Emotional Intelligence, will be published in 2024. He is also an avid runner and facilitator of mindfulness sessions with students.
