About Me

Greetings!

I am currently the inaugural Program Director of the Indigenous Knowledge Initiative for the Henry Luce Foundation.  

I am a former visiting scholar in the political science department at the University of New Mexico. I study Indigenous politics in the U.S. and Latin America, focusing on Indigenous well-being, sovereignty and autonomy, and political participation and civic engagement.

I am also the former Vice President of First Nations Development Institute (First Nations) headquartered in Longmont, Colorado. At First Nations, I led the organization’s fundraising, grantmaking and external communications.  Moreover, I led the organization’s research and advocacy efforts largely focused on documenting social inequities in Native American communities, elevating models for community change and advocating for greater representation and responsiveness by philanthropy and the federal government.

I am a proud first-generation college student and started my undergraduate education at Haskell Indian Nations University. I completed my B.A. in political science from Metropolitan State University in Denver, CO. I received my M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

I am a citizen of the Navajo Nation and my family is from Tuba City, Arizona.