Beatrice Medicine Award

Eligibility

Application

Deadline

Previous Recipients

2024

Sharon Gillard

Sharon Gillard is a dual master's student in Public Health and Anthropology programs at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte). She holds a bachelor's degree from UNC Charlotte and majored in anthropology with a minor in linguistics. Her concentration in the Public Health program is community health practice. She has collaborated with UNC Charlotte faculty members, the Women's Health Equity Institute, and community partners. She has researched and advocated for the health disparities Black women experience in Charlotte Mecklenburg County, NC. Her interests include understanding inequities in holistic healthcare concerning marginalized cultural groups, the connection between mental health, and how it can often be overlooked. Cultural values and cultural identities can play a significant role in health care decisions that are made. Her research includes solutions for mental healthcare disparities and ways that public health can incorporate approaches by working with communities to identify healthcare barriers that are experienced.

Leyla Jafarova

Leyla Jafarova is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Boston University. Her dissertation project offers a critical exploration of the emergence and development of humanitarian ethics of care for unidentified dead bodies in a post-war setting of Azerbaijan, with a central focus on the complex interplay between morality, politics, and regimes of care. Her work draws attention to the multiplicity of ways that the living adopt to forge relations with their missing and/or departed kin after the acts of mass violence and to construct their truths in the absence of certainty.

Oswaldo Medina Ramirez

Indiana Reid-Shaw

Indy is a PhD Candidate in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is interested in how natural resource management and climate adaptation initiatives can be community-led and equitable. Her current research is about small-scale fishers perspective's of a new Community-Based Fisheries Management program in the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati. Here, she works closely with co-researcher, Josephine Katovai of the University of South Pacific, Fiji (they are pictured here together conducting fieldwork). Indy's past research investigated livestock herder knowledge and adaptation to Climate Change in Mongolia along with co-researcher, Azjargal Jargalsaihan.

Danlu Yang

Danlu Yang is a second-year master's student majoring in applied anthropology at Oregon State University. Her research interests focus on Science and Technology Studies, Sociology of knowledge, World Anthropologies, and Decolonizing Anthropology. Danlu's graduate research explores the challenges and opportunities posed in front of non-native English-speaking scholars from China, Brazil, Portugal, and Spain. Employing interviews, textual analysis, and participant observation, her study on a multinational Sino-Portuguese anthropological translation project explores the impact of English on multilingualism through scholarly communication and publication, highlighting academic power dynamics and the influence of English cultural hegemony in the post-colonial world. Her proficiency in Spanish, Portuguese (Brazilian and European Portuguese), Mandarin, and English made her competent to conduct cultural and linguistic research unraveling the nuances of academic exchange among scholars from semi-peripheral and peripheral nations, all within a dynamic, multifaceted transnational research landscape.

2023

Francis Commercon

Francis is a Master’s student of Environmental Science at Yale School of the Environment. His research qualitatively examines cross cultural and trans boundary environmental collaboration, with a focus on migratory shorebird conservation in East Asia. Before Yale, Francis conducted research on social norms around illegal hunting and behavioral contagion of wild meat consumption in rural southwest China. He has previous experience assisting with sustainable rubber agroforestry research and small-scale community-based ecotourism development. Originally from Highlands Ranch, CO, Francis holds bachelor’s degrees in Biological Science and Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology from Colorado State University, where he co-founded the university’s ornithology club. 

Lena Pham

Lena Pham is a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in Applied Anthropology at the University of North Texas. She graduated summa cum laude from Hendrix College with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology/Anthropology. Her research interests include the development of culturally relevant programming for AAPI and immigrant youth and community program evaluation. She served as an Applied Research Fellow for APIA scholars, and is currently working as a part-time Data Researcher for the Southeast Asian American Education Coalition. As an applied anthropologist, Lena uses mixed methods to work collaboratively with community organizations to help address their needs holistically.
 

David Gray Widder

David Gray Widder (he/him) is a Doctoral Student in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He studies how people creating “Artificial Intelligence” systems think about the downstream harms their systems make possible, and has previously conducted this research at Intel Labs, Microsoft Research, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He was born in Tillamook, Oregon and raised in Berlin and Singapore. He maintains a conceptual-realist artistic practice, advocates against police terror and pervasive surveillance, and enjoys distance running.

2022

Katelyn Sloan 

Katelyn Sloan is a junior at Christopher Newport University. As she works on her undergraduate degree, she is studying Sociology with a concentration in Anthropology and double minoring in African American Studies as well as Women and Gender Studies. She plans to continue scholarship with the intent to continue to do research in Graduate school on the African American community. In the summer of 2021 Katelyn participated in a selective program at Christopher Newport University called Summer Scholars. In doing this she worked alongside Dr. Andria Timmer and a resettlement organization to learn more about refugees and how they resettled into their community. Katelyn is currently working on a book review for Afropolitan Projects with another Anthropology professor at Christopher Newport University, Dr. Seth Palmer. Later in the year Katelyn intends to travel and do study abroad in South Africa to extend her knowledge surrounding African culture and the way it affects the African American community today.

2020

Gineen Abuali

Gineen Abuali is a third-year student at Saint Peter's University. As an undergraduate, she is studying history and political science with a focus on the stories of individuals who are often left out of history books. Gineen is an active student who seeks to campaign for human rights through her work and writing. She is also the president of the Muslim Student Association and a senator for the Class of 2021 where she represents the voices of Muslim women on campus. Gineen's research interests include the formation of identity, and how identity is shaped by factors such as society, discrimination, and assimilation. As a Palestinian-American Muslim woman, she is well aware of the bias and discrimination Palestinians, Muslims, and women can face, and she is dedicated to fighting those biases through activism, writing, and here future work as an attorney. 

Gurjinder Kaur Brar

Gurjinder Kaur Brar has done Ph.D. in Anthropology from Panjab University Chandigarh, India. She did her Ph.D. dissertation on the topic entitled “Cognitive Impairment and Depression in relation to nutrition and physique: an anthropogenetic study of Palwal District of Haryana”. Her research work is one of a kind in Indian context based on the social and biological aspects of Neuro- anthropology. She received University Grants Commission (UGC- JRF) fellowship, which is a national award that is granted to research scholars with superior academic achievement to allow them to perform research in a university for a period of five years. She also works on HIV interventions among Men who had sex with Men and also on their psychological syndemic conditions. Being an anthropologist, she loves travelling to different places in order to better understand the culture of that area.

Melanie Matteliano

Melanie Matteliano is a graduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder, currently pursuing a master’s degree in cultural anthropology and a graduate certificate in Native and Indigenous studies. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology from Colorado State University. Melanie’s interest in how people engage with landscapes began as an intern with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s Environmental Department in the desert ecosystems of the Southwest. Her graduate research explores human ecological relationships in Colorado’s North Fork Valley focusing on small-scale farmers, ranchers, gardeners, and homesteaders. This research digs into 1) the motivations behind individuals choosing to pursue land-based livelihoods; 2) the intentional choices that frame their growing practices; and 3) how these choices inform relationships between people, landscapes, and communities which in turn impact the well-being of either or all of these. In engaging with her research community, her methodologies were informed by a desire to address overt and implicit power dynamics embedded in research design and implementation.

Christopher Tharp

Christopher Tharp is a doctoral candidate in the department of political science and international relations.  In his dissertation “#PuertoRicoSeLevanta: Rethinking Freedom & Sovereignty throughout the Emergency of Decolonization,” he asks: “What might sovereignty mean in a place without formal state sovereignty or national self-determination?” He attempts to locate sovereignty in its diversity of articulations by examining the specific postcolonial context of Puerto Rico, theorizing sovereignty as a political process rather than a political status.

2019

Elizabeth Brazelton

Elizabeth “Lisa” Brazelton is a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of West Florida, completing her master’s degree in Anthropology. Her thesis, entitled The Resilient Warrior: A Lakota Ethnography in Hemp Economics, follows the plight of Oglala Lakota Alex White Plume and examines issues of sovereignty, social injustice, and resilience. Brazelton met White Plume while employed with the National Park Service, where she worked as an Interpretive Park Ranger and NPS Archaeologist from 1989 – 1997. The two have remained friends throughout the years, which Brazelton feels has positioned her to be an advocate for White Plume within the academic community. Brazelton holds bachelor’s degrees in both Anthropology and International Studies, also from the University of West Florida. After completing her masters in Spring/Summer 2019, she will begin her PhD at the University of Alabama in Biocultural Medical Anthropology in Fall 2019. She also enjoys traveling and homeschooling her kids.

Joanne Nelson

Joanne Nelson is a Ts’msyen woman who grew up in the northwestern BC communities of Port Edward and Prince Rupert where she gained a tremendous appreciation for nature, in particular the ocean environment.  She is from Lax Kw’alaams on her mother’s side and Kitsumkalum on her father’s side.  Her passions include traditional Ts’msyen art forms as well as paddle sports such as dragon boat and outrigger canoe.  She is second year PhD student in Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia and is looking forward to conducting meaningful research with First Nations communities that favour Indigenous Ways of Knowing and traditional knowledge.  Joanne has been an uninvited guest on the unceded land of the Xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwu7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh people on and off for over 30 years.

Kaitlin Reed

Kaitlin Reed (Yurok/Hupa/Oneida) is an enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe in northwestern California. She obtained her B.A. degree in Geography at Vassar College and her M.A. degree in Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis. Kaitlin is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Native American Studies at UC Davis. Her dissertation is entitled From Gold Rush to Green Rush: Marijuana Cultivation on Yurok Tribal Lands and examines the ecological and cultural impacts of marijuana cultivation on Yurok tribal lands, with a focus on tribal sovereignty and environmental justice. This dissertation connects the historical and ecological dots between the Gold Rush and the Green Rush, focusing on capitalistic resource extraction and violence against indigenous lands and bodies.

Yvonne Sherwood

Yvonne P. Sherwood (Spokane and Coeur d’Alene) is a PhD candidate in sociology and feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the past recipient of the University of California, Santa Cruz’s President’s Dissertation Year Fellowship and has published in: The Fourth World Journal, Intercontinental Cry, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, and Open Rivers: Rethinking Water, Place & Community. She is currently writing her dissertation on Indigenous womxn’s activism and embodied knowledges on the frontline of environmental protest. Her work has taken her across activist spaces where she did participant observations with water protectors to better understand the enactment of Indigenous Knowledge and alliance building for the preservation of ancestral homelands, along with the analysis of impacts of colonialism, racialization, and intergenerational traumas. 

2018

Suzanne Greenlaw

Suzanne Greenlaw is a citizen of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians.   Currently, Suzanne resides in Orono, Maine with her husband and children, where she is a doctoral student at the University of Maine in the School of Forest Resources. Suzanne’s academic research weaves Wabanaki traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and western scientific knowledge to address Wabanaki access restriction to cultural significant plants such as basket quality brown ash trees and sweet grass.

Saayli Kokitkar

Saayli Kokitkar is a third-year undergraduate student at Emory University, double majoring in Anthropology-Human Biology and Religion.  At Emory, Saayli is involved with research with the Rollins School of Public Health, creating and implementing an interprofessional educational (IPE) curriculum for interprofessional collaboration between the Emory Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health. Additionally, she is Co-PR chair of the Sustainability Club, is a part of the Sexual Assault Prevention Taskforce, and assists cancer patients use art as a form of therapy at the Winship Cancer Institute. Saayli is interested in the topics of health inequities and skepticism toward complementary and alternative medicine for writing her honors thesis at Emory University. After graduating from college, she plans to pursue a degree in medical anthropology and osteopathic medicine to focus on health disparities in Native American communities and underserved populations.

Raquel Romero

My name is Raquel Romero. I am a tribal member from Gila River Indian Community currently enrolled in Northern Arizona University's MA Program for Applied Anthropology. I am very proud to be representing my tribe! Not only in northern Arizona, but in the field of archaeology. My leading goal while in graduate school is to learn about the types of outreach tribes and professional organizations are undertaking to expose indigenous youth to natural and cultural resources. In the future I would like to see an increase of tribal representation in both fields. A larger career goal for me is to have a role in encouraging the youth to appreciate our history and contribute to preserving our past.

Jude Wafai

Jude is a Syrian-American raised in Chicago, Illinois. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Notre Dame where she was a pre-med and Anthropology major. After taking a gap year to teach English at a Syrian refugee school in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, Jude began her interdisciplinary masters at the American University of Beirut in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies, where she focused on refugee studies, education, and development. She is currently working on her master’s thesis titled, Education as Future-Making: The Dual-Experience of Displaced Syrians where she untangles the double-binds of participatory approaches to humanitarianism through the experiences of one Syrian family, deeply involved in the humanitarian responses to their own displacement. 

2017

Brittany Jock

Brittany Ann Wenniseri:iostha Jock is a member of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe and Mohawks of Akwesasne. She is bear clan from the Akwesasne, a First Nations community that is crossed by the New York, Ontario, and Quebec borders. She received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in epidemiology. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and is working on Dr. Joel Gittelsohn’s OPREVENT2 obesity prevention program in Native communities. Her dissertation focuses on the use of policies and structural changes to promote healthy eating and active living in partnership with Native communities.

Savannah Martin

Savannah Martin is a member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians in Oregon. She received her B.A. in Anthropology and Psychology from Dartmouth College in 2014, and shortly thereafter began her studies at Washington University in Saint Louis, where she is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Physical Anthropology. Savannah’s dissertation research focuses on health disparities in Native American communities, examining the relationship between psychosocial stressors and chronic illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Working with her tribe at home in Oregon to explore these ideas, she hopes to bring attention to the way that racism, discrimination, structural inequities, and psychological stress related to cultural identity and cultural history can have very real biological consequences. Through her work as an Indigenous anthropologist, Savannah aims to demonstrate the value of integrating Indigenous epistemologies with Western science research, and to improve relationships between anthropological and Indigenous communities. Her work was recently published in the edited volume, “The Crisis of Race in Higher Education: A Day of Discovery and Dialogue.”

Heather McIntyre

Heather McIntyre is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan, majoring in anthropology with an archaeology focus. Heather’s First Nations ancestry is Mohawk, however, ties with her ancestral community have been lost through the generations. Her studies in anthropology have helped her explore and connect with this part of her cultural heritage. She has lived in Kelowna, British Columbia for most of her life, and before undertaking her studies, worked as a real estate appraisal research analyst focusing on Reserve land lease analysis, and historical and archival research for Specific Land Claims for Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and a variety of First Nations. Her research interests include mortuary anthropology, social identity, Paleolithic and indigenous art, and human evolution. In summer 2016, Heather received an Undergraduate Research Award through the University of British Columbia Okanagan’s Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences which funded her sixteen-week research into social identity through gravestone analysis. After graduation, Heather plans to pursue research based graduate studies in anthropology.

2016

Tatiana Degai

Tatiana Degai is PhD candidate at the University of Arizona obtaining degree  in the American Indian Studies and Linguistics. Her dissertation research is focused on the revitalization possibilities of her ancestral Itelmen language in Kamchatka, Russia.  Being a member of the Council of Itelmens “Tkhsanom”, Tatiana is actively involved with various projects on culture and language development of Itelmens. She has a Master on Arts at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Anthropology and a teaching degree in foreign languages from Kamchatka State University. Therefore her research borders with indigenous education, sociolinguistics, ethnography, indigenous activism and revitalization.  

Annabelle Gutierrez-Sisneros

Mra. Ana Malinalli X Gutiérrez Sisneros has been the Northern New Mexico College (NNMC)  Mental Health Counselor with the Title V !EXITO! Program for the last five years, and she currently holds an adjunct professor position in  both the ADN and the RN to BSN Holistic Nursing Programs in their School of Nursing where she teaches Community and Global Health; Integral Evidenced Based Practice in Nursing; and Psychiatric Nursing (clinical).  She is a Ph.D. candidate at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, N.M., working on her dissertation on Health Disparities at the Border Area, with a possible graduation date of Fall, 2016. She holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies, an M.S. in Nursing, plus a B.A. in Nursing all from the University of New Mexico; she has an ADN from the University of Alburquerque, having first started her career as a nurse’s aide, and an education aide.  

Ana has spent the last 33 years working with underrepresented populations -  undocumented immigrants and Northern New Mexico peoples all living in surrounding local communities;  students from diverse backgrounds;  single mothers, and people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction - as a researcher, teacher,  case manager, hospital nurse, counselor, advanced practice clinical nurse specialist, and a practicing médica  in the Rio Arriba County area , and she founded the Gay Straight Alliance at NNMC in 2013. She worked with EL RAEHA (the Rio Arriba Environmental Health Association) for nearly ten years and she has consulted for Tewa Women United, Local Collaborative 18, and other groups in Espanola.  She had a private counseling practice since December, 2007, which she closed in May of 2014 to concentrate on the completion of her terminal degree (her mom says “You’ll find something else to study once you graduate!”). So true.

Her professional objective is to apply her 33 years of rural nursing and twenty two years of nurse case management psychosocial intervention skills with her doctoral education and her dual masters degrees towards the improvement of the total health of all Southwest minority cultures.  Her emphasis is on culturally appropriate treatment of substance abuse, domestic violence prevention, and mental health strategies using healing traditions such as Curanderismo and the Wewepahtli  (Aztec /Mexikha indigenous healing practices), incorporating her Psychiatric / MH Clinical Nurse  Specialist education with the ancestral knowledge of her Indo-Hispano cultural heritage.

Kelsey Lamkin

Kelsey Lamkin is a student at Middle Tennessee State University, majoring in Anthropology and minoring in History. She will graduate in May with her Bachelor's degree and begin pursuing her Master's degree in Public History in the Fall. She has been researching the history of Native Americans in Middle Tennessee since September 2014 with her professors. Her research is focused on incorporating marginalized voices in the dominant discourse and paying tribute to their many contributions and achievements. She hopes that her work will help the National Park Service create a more inclusive narrative when discussing the significance of a particular area.

Gisela Rodriguez Fernandez

Gisela is originally from La Paz, Bolivia. She completed her undergraduate studies in Anthropology and Music performance and her M.P.H in Epidemiology/Biostatistics. As an undergraduate student, she won the Lambda Alpha Award for Best Undergraduate Paper in anthropology, and as a graduate student she was nominated the Community and educational outreach coordinator for the University of Southern Mississippi. In 2011 she was selected as a fellow for the Hispanic Serving Health Profession Schools (HSHPS) and in 2012 she was selected as a research fellow for Global Health Corps. For the next two years Gisela worked for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) as a consultant for the Social Protection and Health division and as an outreach volunteer for the grassroots organization HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive). Her work at the IDB turned into a three year qualitative research study about decision-making related to pregnancy and childbirth among indigenous communities in Mesoamerica. Gisela is one of the lead authors of this research that she will be presenting at the SfAA conference. Gisela is a current PhD sociology candidate at Portland State University where her areas of interest include political economy, reproductive and sexual health, and social inequalities among indigenous communities in Bolivia. Gisela has played the violin since she was ten, and she financed all undergraduate studies with music scholarships. She sees music as a channel for infinite connections that has the potential to transform peoples and societies through solidarity. Gisela enjoys jamming with other musicians, dancing, more dancing, biking and just simple yet super fun moments with her two best friends: her husband Rick and her mom Felicidad (Happiness in Spanish). 

Melissa Watkinson

Melissa is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. She earned her Master of Arts degree in Policy Studies at University of Washington Bothell in 2015. She is now fulfilling a continuing education and early career fellowship through University of Washington, Washington Sea Grant. As a Marc Hershman Marine Policy Fellow, Melissa joins the marine team at The Nature Conservancy, where she brings policy and social science experience to projects working with coastal communities. As a graduate student, she worked as a research assistant at UW with both the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute and at Washington Sea Grant. Her capstone research employed cross-disciplinary research methods to better understand the impacts of historic and federal land policies and programs on climate change adaptation for tribal communities who are experiencing a loss of coastal land. She also served as co-president to UW's Native Organization of Indigenous Scholars student organization. Melissa holds a double major bachelor’s degree in Global Studies and Society, Ethics, and Human Behavior from UW Bothell. Her long-term career goal is to work in the social sciences to address the needs of coastal communities and tribes affected by changing environments.

2015

Kehli Henry

Kehli Henry is a descendant of the White Earth Nation in Minnesota, and a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at Michigan State University, where she was awarded a University Enrichment Fellowship.  Kehli has lived in Michigan for most of her life, and completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology with a minor in American Indian Studies at Central Michigan University in 2011. While pursuing her undergraduate degree, Kehli worked for the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan for several years, first as a tutor and advocate for American Indian students in the public school system, and later in two grant positions for the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways (a cultural center and museum).  Her work with the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe inspired her to attend graduate school.

Kehli is committed to undertaking research that is useful and relevant to American Indian communities, and is currently working on a preliminary research project and the development of her dissertation project with a Midwest American Indian Tribe. Both projects will examine issues of drug and alcohol addiction and treatment with a focus on youth perspectives and experiences. Kehli also serves as a mentor for American Indian youth in the Niijkewehn mentoring program, and as a council member for Michigan State University’s Indigenous Graduate Student Collective. 

2014

Heather Haven Evoy

I am a single mom and full time student at the University of Alaska Southeast Juneau campus. I am a senior and will be graduating spring semester 2015. I am in the Bachelor’s of Liberal Arts degree program with a primary focus in anthropology and secondary in environmental sciences. After completion of my undergraduate degree I will be pursuing my graduate studies through University of Alaska Fairbanks Northern Studies program. I am an enrolled member in both the Alaskan Tsimshian and Tlingit tribes. I am most closely affiliated with my Tsimshian Eagle clan history. My family is from the only Native reservation in Alaska, Metlakatla. I was raised between there and Ketchikan. I currently live in Juneau where I am able to further both my academic and professional career. I received a URECA fellowship award from UAS in 2013 to fund the start of my ethnohistory research in my home community of Metlakatla. I am really interested in environmental issues and the impact on subsistence activities and that is my primary focus in my current stage of Tsimshian research. I am currently in an internship with Sealaska Heritage Institute working with their archivist Zach Jones learning about everything from preservation, digitization, grant writing and repatriation. I will be directly working this summer with Metlakatla Indian Community and the Duncan Museum director, Naomi Leask in order to start repatriation proceedings from various museums across the nation. I am awaiting confirmation on a summer internship from First Alaskans Institute to apprentice under Smalgyax language instructor Terri Burr. I hope to further my own personal knowledge of my culture’s language in hopes to be a language instructor in future years and be able to learn to tie language in with environment. I received another URECA fellowship award in 2014 to research the possibility of shore pine migrating via ocean currents in the densely island populated area of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia. I am from Alaska so it is my home and think staying to learn locally has benefitted me greatly. I have been able to network with key cultural informants, academics and professionals that will be key in my future research and endeavors. Having a local indigenous perspective I think will allow me to contribute to the academic discourse involving my ancestral background and hopefully shape policy and educational opportunities for my community and other Native Alaskan communities.

Davina Two Bears

Davina Two Bears is a member of the Navajo Nation, and she is Tódíchíi’nii, Bitter Water Clan, and born for Táchii’nii, Red Running into the Water Clan. She is originally from Birdsprings, Arizona on the Navajo Reservation. Currently, Davina resides in Bloomington, Indiana with her children, where she is a doctoral student at Indiana University in the Archaeology of the Social Context PhD Program with a PhD minor in Native American & Indigenous Studies.  Having worked for the Navajo Nation Archaeology Department for fourteen years as a student, archaeologist, and Program Manager, Davina gained an appreciation for her tribe’s rich culture and history embedded in the landscape. After graduating, Davina hopes to teach, and continue her research of Navajo historical archaeology, while completing meaningful cultural heritage projects on the Navajo Reservation for the benefit of her people and others.

2013

Kasey Jernigan

Kasey Jernigan is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned her MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Her research is in the areas of medical anthropology and participatory action research with Indigenous communities and considers how health and heritage are understood and enacted in everyday life contexts. Kasey is currently a Native American Research Center for Health (NARCH) Fellow.

Kristen Simmons

Kristen Simmons is an enrolled member of the Moapa Band of Southern Paiutes (NV). She is currently a doctoral student at the University of Chicago in Anthropology. Her research interest are in: American Indian law and environmental policy, with a focus on indigenous praxis and methodology. She also has an interest in museum anthropology, particularly around issues of representation and repatriation and has worked at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum, and the Center for Mesoamerican Research. Kristen serves as president of the University of Chicago Native American Student Association, where she has been working on fostering relationships between the university and Chicago Native communities, as well as bringing in speakers to address contemporary issues in Indian Country.

2012

Anna Brodrecht

Anna Brodrecht is a PhD Candidate of Anthropology at the University of Florida with particular interest in applying anthropology toward the improvement of development programs. Her dissertation research examines the role of practitioner and recipient culture in the design, implementation and outcomes of three development programs of the state government of Yucatan, Mexico. Development programs are explored as cultural encounters between development practitioners and program recipients rather than mechanisms for the top-down transfer of the ideas and materials of development. Funded by a Fulbright Garcia-Robles grant and a Boren Fellowship, Anna hopes to apply her research in a bi-lateral context through a career in the US State Department.

Karenne Wood

Karenne Wood is an enrolled member of the Monacan Indian Nation. She directs Virginia Indian Programs at the VFH and is a PhD candidate and Ford Fellow in anthropology at the University of Virginia, working to revitalize indigenous languages and cultural. She has worked at the National Museum of the American Indian as a researcher. Karenne held a four-year gubernatorial appointment as Chair of the Virginia Council on Indians. She is the author of Markings on Earth, which won the North American Native Authors Award for Poetry in 2000. She is the editor of The Virginia Indian Heritage Trail, now in its third edition; and she recently contributed a chapter on Southeastern Indians for National Geographic’s Indian Nations of North America.

2011

Scott Freeman

Scott Freeman is in his final semester of coursework in the Columbia University-Teachers College PhD program in applied anthropology and is a member of the Sault Ste Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. After growing up in the San Francisco bay area of California, Scott attended Boston College where he studied psychology and music. He became a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic where he worked for two years with youth, the environment, literacy, and sexual health education in a mountain town. After returning to Boston and working for a short time at a youth development organization, he completed a Masters degree in International Education Policy at Harvard University. His previous work in the Dominican Republic has drawn him to study sustainable development initiatives both in the DR and Haiti. His past research has focused on sustainable fishery initiatives and the fishers of the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. His dissertation research will examine similar initiatives on Haiti’s southern coast.

Doug Kiel

Doug Kiel is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the 
University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Katrin H. Lamon Resident Scholar at the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He studies twentieth century American Indian history, federal Indian law and policy, and the history of the American West. His dissertation examines fifty years of tribal revitalization efforts on the Oneida Reservation in Wisconsin, prior to the advent of casino gaming.

2010

Elizabeth Hoover

Elizabeth Hoover, a beadworker, fancyshawl dancer, and gardener from upstate
 New York, is in the final month her PhD in Anthropology at Brown University. 
She is currently writing her dissertation about Akwesasne Mohawk community
 members’ perspectives on Superfund contamination, environmental health
 research, and potential solutions to contemporary health issues through
 community supported gardening projects. Elizabeth is also currently 
teaching Native American Studies and Environmental Anthropology at 
Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, PA. Elizabeth received the Bea
 Medicine award to attend the SfAA Annual Meeting and present a paper about 
the efforts of the community group Kanenhi:io Ionkwaienthon:hakie (We Are
 Planting Good Seeds) to help community members to become more food 
sovereign. She has accepted a post-doc position in the Anthropology and 
Environmental Studies Department this coming fall at St. Olaf College in 
Northfield, Minnesota.

Cynthia Ingar

Cynthia Ingar is a Peruvian anthropologist (MA; doctoral candidate) specialized in feminist and medical anthropology. She is particularly concerned with Andean women's reproductive health in Peru and the power relationships around it. Her major research interests are focused on the politics of reproduction, health systems, women's health rights, women's agency and autonomy in reproductive health choices, Andean female reproductive knowledge, and authoritative knowledge dynamics including local and embodied knowledge. She has also applied her research in different Andean settings through her work with Andean women around reproductive health programs and community-based projects. She is a Doula and women's health educator and conducts workshops on reproduction for women in Lima.

2009

Marjeanna Burge

Marjeanna Burge is a Comanche tribal member, born and raised in Oklahoma but considers Fort Worth ‘home’.  She is a mother of 2 grown children and one granddaughter, and graduated from Haskell, in May 2007 with a BA in American Indian Studies. Ms. Burge Enrolled in the Global Indigenous Nations Studies program with an emphasis in Peace & Conflict Studies at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS.  Her masters research focuses on tribal leaders, peace building and retreat models. In addition, Ms Burge was inducted into the Golden Key International Honors Society in the fall of 2008, and was selected to compete as 1 of 4 graduate students in the category of the Humanities and Fine Arts at the KU Graduate Research Competition, on February 23, 2009, held in the Kansas Union where a research presentation was given. This Graduate and Professional Association event is hosted by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies with three categories of research. Selected winners are invited to showcase their research at the Capitol in Topeka and receive cash prizes. A recent award on April 8, 2009 for the Lynn Reyer Award in Tribal Community Development will allow Ms. Burge the opportunity to begin implementation of the research after final completion of Masters in May 2009.

Kerry Thompson

Originally from Leupp, Arizona; Kerry Thompson is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arizona and will receive her degree this Spring. Her research is focused on late nineteenth and early twentieth century Navajo households, identity, and the negotiation of federal Indian policies. She has accepted a position as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University.