Dr. Maxine Janis

Maxine Janis, Associate Professor and President’s Liaison for Native American Affairs at Heritage University. She is an enrolled member of the Lakota (Sioux) Tribe. Dr. Janis’s goals are to establish an independent research career dedicated to understanding and addressing social inequities and health disparities among indigenous populations. She mentors indigenous students interested in the health professions pathway. Her experience as a public health practitioner draws on observing the many lived experiences of indigenous people and using these experiences as a professional to integrate knowledge of traditional Native health and healing practices to advocate and advance health care standards, policies, and practices. 

Dr. Janis’s focus is to effect a positive transformation of attitudes and beliefs, which have traditionally clashed in our indigenous health care delivery system.  She seeks to create a transformation that might enable health care delivery systems, agencies, and professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations critical to bring about change. Dr. Janis’s continues to promote health while working with tribal communities, lay health persons, and leaders, as well as state and federal legislatures to advocate for policies on behalf of the underserved in our society. Currently, Dr. Janis is the PI for a Suicide Prevention grant and an NIH Summer Science Internship grant for American Indian/Alaska Natives high school students at Heritage University. She was involved Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB) and as part of the research team in Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) working on the Toddler Obesity Tooth Decay Study (TOTS) with tribes in Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, have provided her vast insights into many of the challenges experienced by American Indians in acquiring oral health care. She sits on the Institutional Review Board (e.g. human subject’s protections) for the NPAIHB. 

She also has traveled internationally to Australia, Guatemala, New Zealand, and worked with Tibetan people of India. These endeavors clearly demonstrate Dr. Janis’s commitment to research relevant to addressing health disparities in indigenous populations. Additionally, these experiences have provided her with an understanding of the need for culturally sensitive health interventions to address and ameliorate disparities in oral health experienced indigenous peoples.

Dr. Michelle Jacob

i-NATURE Co-Principal Investigator

Michelle M. Jacob, PhD, is Professor of Indigenous Studies and Director of the Sapsik’ʷałá (Teacher) Education Program in the Department of Education Studies at the University of Oregon. Her research areas of interest include: Indigenous educational frameworks, Indigenous research methodologies, health, Native feminisms, and decolonization. Her first book, Yakama Rising: Indigenous Cultural Revitalization, Activism, and Healing, published by the University of Arizona Press in 2013, analyzes the ways in which Yakama peoples resist the ongoing effects of colonialism through reclaiming cultural traditions. Dr. Jacob’s second book, Indian Pilgrims: Indigenous Journeys of Activism and Healing with Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, published by the University of Arizona Press in 2016, examines how Indigenous activism advances our understanding of community-building, environmentalism, and spirituality. Prior to joining the University of Oregon, Michelle served as Founding Director of the Center for Native Health & Culture at Heritage University on the Yakama Reservation, and as Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of San Diego. Michelle is a member of the Yakama Nation.

Dr. Sarah Stapleton

Sarah Stapleton is an Assistant Professor of Science Education in the UO Education Studies department. Before earning her doctorate, she taught middle and high school environmental science, physical science, chemistry, and general science at public schools in California and as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Gambia, West Africa. Sarah is credentialed by the state of California to teach chemical and biological sciences. Sarah’s research explores the social contexts around science and environmental education with a focus on social and environmental inequities. At the UO, Sarah currently works with pre-service teachers in the UO Teach masters program and doctoral students in the Critical and Sociocultural Studies in Education program.

Sarah uses critical and participatory methodologies to investigate social and environmental inequities. She is particularly interested in food and agriculture as learning contexts for science and environmental education. Sarah’s dissertation work used participatory action research with four veteran teachers to explore food issues in a low-income urban school district. In this work, the teachers explored food insecurity in schools, school gardens as a path for STEM learning, and food as an integrating curricular topic for culture, identity, and justice. Having lived in nine US states and four countries, Sarah is also attentive to place and its impact on her research contexts. Her work spans both urban and rural places and considers the impacts of global education on environmental learning.   

Dr. Ed Galindo

Dr. Galindo (Yaqui, American Indian) is a faculty member at the University of Idaho, Associate Director for Education and Diversity for the NASA Idaho Space Grant Consortium, Affiliate faculty member at Idaho State University (Biology Department) and Affiliate faculty member at Utah State University (Physics Department). Dr. Galindo has extensive education and research in working with Native American students. While serving as chairman of the science department on the Shoshone-Bannock Indian Reservation, he was twice elected as the National Indian Teacher of the Year, awarded by the National Indian School Board Association. Dr. Galindo describes himself as “round and brown”, full of curiosity for life and learning. He finds humor in most things on this planet, including himself.

Ed is very proud to currently be serving as a board member with the Barry M Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. Most recently, Ed was honored to be inducted as a lifetime (Sequoyah Fellow) member of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) for research and educational outreach in the American Indian communities. The Native American Research and Education Foundation was a host of an honoring dinner held at Las Vegas Nevada in April (2016).

Dr. Lori Lambert

On her mother’s side, Dr. Lambert comes from the Deer Clan of the Abenaki Nation and the Mi’kmaq from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. On her father’s side, she is from the Cord Clan of the Huron on Isle d’Orleans, Quebec.

She is the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the Gladys Pearlstein Humanitarian Award, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) College Faculty of the Year, the 2011 Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Research Fellowship from the American Indian College Fund, and the 2001 Excellence in Online Teaching Award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Lambert founded the American Indigenous Research Association in 2012, and has been the conference chair for the past three years. She initiated the Indigenous Research certification at Salish Kootenai College and has developed numerous courses in Indigenous research. She has presented ideas on Indigenous research locally and internationally, with invited presentations in Australia, Finland, Norway, Canada, and the United States, She is the author of 6 books and many articles.

Her doctorate is in Medical Ecology/Medical Anthropology: Arctic Studies and a post doctorate from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. She has been mentoring tribal college students in research for 20 years and has 30 years experience in higher education.

Stephany Johnson

Stephany RunningHawk Johnson is currently pursuing a PhD in Critical and SocioCultural Studies at the University of Oregon. Her grandfather is a member of the Oglala Sioux nation. Stephany earned a BS in Natural Resources from Oregon State University in 2003, an MEd from UO in 2008 as part of the Sapsikw’ala program, taught secondary math and science from 2008-2013, and was a Professional Advisor for Earth and Environmental Sciences students at OSU from 2013-2016. Her research interests revolve around Indigenous students going to university in science fields, and how the philosophy behind the way science is taught creates access or barriers to science courses.

Winona Wynn

Winona Wynn, an enrolled member of the Assiniboine/Sioux Tribe, is a Professor of Humanities and Indigenous Studies at Heritage University, a small liberal arts university located in Eastern Washington State on the Yakama Indian Reservation. She earned her PhD in American Studies in May 2009 from Washington State University. Her area of specialization is cultural identity and education, with an emphasis on indigenous community research methodologies. She works extensively with various Yakama Nation Programs including the tribal courts, foster care, the cultural museum and the Yakama Nation Reservation Coalition which maintains a focus on wellness and prevention. Related to this work, she served as Project Director for several grants including a two-year curriculum development project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, titled, Somos Indios (WE are Indian), and a Department of Education five-year grant, titled, Indigenous Identity Empowerment through Community-Based Participatory Action Research. She also directed or co-facilitated three consecutive Gates Foundation grants supporting work ranging from environmental sustainability and the empowerment of traditional ecosystem knowledge to a cultural museum project, titled, The Yakama Nation Cultural Museum and Intergenerational Storytelling. She currently focuses on developing science-based undergraduate research internships through her position as the Institutional and Summer Coordinator of The Leadership Alliance. Additionally, she is the Coordinator for the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship at Heritage University which focuses on Humanities internships. These opportunities have facilitated academic partnerships with Research I institutions throughout the United States. For the past three years at the University of Capetown and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, Wynn has directed groups in community-research methodology and has supervised community-based experiential research projects with both South African and United States based undergraduate students. Her current work also includes a documentary project, focusing on indigenous kinship caregivers, grandmothers caring for relatives on the Yakama Indian Reservation and women in the township of Khayelitsha in the western cape of South Africa, who are caring for their relatives who are “AIDS Orphans.” The focus of this project is the exploration of intergenerational identity constructs and socially constructed gender roles. 

Dr. Melinda Howard

Melinda (Mindy) Howard recently received her doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction-Science Education from the University of Idaho. Her research focuses on the participation and retention of historically underrepresented minorities in the STEM pipeline, particularly Native Americans, as well as identifying and implementing culturally sustaining educational practices. She also holds a master’s degree in Biology from Eastern Washington University with interests in vertebrate and aquatic ecology.

Dr. Howard has been involved in science education and science outreach for the past 15 years, including K-12 and undergraduate education, pre-service teacher education, and in-service teacher professional development. Her most recent project engaged youth from tribal communities in the Pacific Northwest in a series of culturally-relevant, place-based summer STEM camps. This experience allowed 4th-8th grade students opportunities to explore fisheries and watershed science while engaging in hands-on science and engineering practices in their communities. Her desire, through projects such as this, is to increase science learning opportunities that enhance equitable access to science, enlighten culturally-sustaining educational practices, improve scientific literacy, and encourage youth pursuit in the STEM pipeline.

Dr. Marco Hatch

Marco Hatch is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Science at Western Washington University and is a member of the Samish Indian Nation. As a marine ecologist, he helps Native American students gain greater access to STEM opportunities while respecting coast Salish tribal people, landscapes, and seascapes. Dr. Hatch’s work includes helping Native American students make the transition to graduate school in the geosciences, specifically connecting Northwest Indian College students to Western’s Huxley College of the Environment. His work focuses on a partnership between NWIC and Western called Partnerships in Geoscience Education, funded by a five-year $1.65 million National Science Foundation grant. This partnership also provides funding for NWIC graduates to pursue a master’s degree in Environmental Science.

At WWU he has created a wonderfully diverse lab charged with preparing the next generation of environmental scientists and leaders through fostering respect for Indigenous knowledge and providing students with a solid background in scientific methods. His research focuses on the nexus of people and marine ecology, centered on Indigenous marine management.

Dr. Hatch is also involved in a developmental model called the Coastal Almanac that will put in place a structure for Pacific Northwest coastal communities and tribal nations to collect, analyze, and archive data to help answer scientific questions important to them. Dr. Hatch is also a mentor for the SACNAS club at Western as well as a mentor for NASU (Native American Student Union). Prior to his work at Western Washington University, Dr. Hatch served as the Director of the Salish Sea Research Center at Northwest Indian College.

Dr. Cleo Woelfle-Erskine

Dr. Cleo Woelfle-Erskine’s research focuses on ecological and social dimensions of human relations to rivers and their multi-species inhabitants. Trained in ecology, hydrology, geomorphology, critical social science, and feminist science and technology studies, he facilitates collaborative research in partnership with tribes, agencies, citizen scientists, and local community members. His PhD work in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley involved a collaborative of scientists and local residents who are experimenting with storing winter rain to increase summer streamflow. He is developing research projects on hydro-ecological and social effects of beaver relocation in eastern Washington, and environmental justice dimensions of fishing and shellfishing in urban Puget Sound. As a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz, he explored queer, transgender, and decolonial possibilities for ecological science. His manuscript in progress, Underflow: Transfiguring riverine relations, imagining queer-trans ecologies considers the lingering presences of Manifest Destiny (ecological, socio-scientific, and psychological) and the ways that this injurious “destiny” can be transfigured and overturned to renew human-water-fish relations.