Contributors

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Co-host

Davina Two Bears

Dr. Davina Two Bears, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Arizona State University in the School for Human Evolution and Social Change. Before continuing her graduate studies, Davina worked for the Navajo Nation Archaeology Department as a Program Manager and a tribal archaeologist conducting cultural resources inventories on the western half of the Navajo reservation. Davina later graduated with her PhD in Anthropology from Indiana University with an emphasis in Archaeology and a PhD Minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies. 

https://search.asu.edu/profile/4927830
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Co-host

Eva Bighorse

Eva Bighorse, a citizen of the Cayuga Nation born for the Navajo Nation, is an Indigenous human development advocate with expertise in tribal healthcare relations. She has experience in strategic collaboration; working in multidisciplinary teams specializing in health care delivery and multi-stakeholder engagement; and serving children, youth, and adults living with disabilities in urban and rural areas, both on and off tribal land.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eva-bighorse
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Co-host

Farina King

Dr. Farina King, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is the Horizon Chair of Native American Ecology and Culture and an associate professor of Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma. She is the author of numerous publications, including the books, The Earth Memory Compass (2018) and Diné dóó Gáamalii (2023); and she is a co-author of Returning Home (2021) and co-editor of COVID-19 in Indian Country (2024). Learn more about her at https://farinaking.com/.

https://farinaking.com/
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Editor

Sarah Newcomb

Sarah Newcomb is Tsimshian of the First Nation from Metlakatla, Alaska. She works as a freelance editor, writer, and blogger. She has a Bachelors in English with a Focus in non-Fiction Creative Writing, an Associates in Communications, and a Minor in Philosophy. She currently lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband and four children.

Guests

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Guest

Ah-in-nist Sipes

Ah-in-nist, also known as Clifford, Sipes is Cheyenne with family ties in both Oklahoma and Montana. His father was the last authorized historian of the Cheyenne People, and a respected Chief and Pipe Carrier. His Mother is a citizen of the Caddo Nation. Ah-in-nist currently resides and works in Oklahoma. He writes and speaks publicly, working most recently on the “Calling Back the Spirits” initiative to “preserve by art and the written word what was previously learned only through the oral recounting of the story of Fort Marion by the descendants” of the warriors and Indigenous people imprisoned there. Ah-in-nist is one of the descendants who supports this work with his relatives.

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Guest

Kaitlin Reed

Dr. Kaitlin Reed, an enrolled citizen of the Yurok Tribe and of Hupa and Oneida descent, is an associate professor of Native American Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt. In her research, she focuses on tribal land and water rights, extractive capitalism, and settler colonial political economies. In her first book, Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California (2023), she 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. Kaitlin obtained her B.A. degree in Geography at Vassar College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis. In 2018, she received the Charles Eastman Fellowship of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College. In her free time, she likes to play video games, watch reality television, and spend time with her partner, Michael, and her cat, Fitzherbert.

https://nasp.humboldt.edu/people/dr-kaitlin-reed
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Guest

Mel Fillmore

Dr. Melanie (“Mel”) Fillmore (they/them/she/her) is urban mixed Hunkpapa, Lakota of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North and South Dakota. Mel is an assistant professor of Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma (OU). Their work is an iterative approach to understand the political engagement of Indigenous communities in policy and data. They envision a future of collaborative governance led by Indigenous ancestral wisdom and lived experiences. Mel was the lead researcher on the 2020 HCR33 Report on Idaho’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP). Their 2024 dissertation, “Redefining Missing in the Third Space of Sovereignty,” considers how US federalism is fundamentally changed in collaborative structures and are created between tribes, states, and the federal institutions, particularly when tribes are leading collaborations on agreements or policy initiatives.

https://www.ou.edu/cas/nas/people/mel-fillmore