Vanessa Anthony-Stevens
Vanessa Anthony-Stevens is an Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Studies and principal investigator of Indigenous Knowledge for Effective Education Program (IKEEP) in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Idaho. Her research examines issues of diversity, equity, and social justice in K-12 and higher education. She specializes in Indigenous education in the Americas. She is married to Dr. Philip Stevens and is the mother to two daughters.
Dr. Megan Bang is of Ojibwe and Italian descent and is a Professor of Learning Sciences and Psychology at Northwestern University and is currently serving as the Senior Vice President at the Spencer Foundation. 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 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. She also serves as an executive editor of Cognition and Instruction and is on the editorial boards of several other top tiered journals in the field.
Colden Baxter
Colden has worked for many years as a partner with the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes to accomplish research and educational goals and cultivate collaborative Tribal-university relationships. With many students, collaborators, and partners like the Tribes, his research focuses on rivers and streams, ecological linkages between water and land, and connections between people and rivers. Colden is Professor and Director of the Stream Ecology Center and Center for Ecological Research & Education at Idaho State University, and he and his wife Lenny are parents to two daughters.
Yolanda Bizbee
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.
Georgia Hart-Fredeluces
Georgia is a postdoctoral research assistant in the department of Sociology at Idaho State University. She works with local partners to better understand the social and ecological impacts of wild plant stewardship and harvest in the context of global change.
Laticia J. Herkshan
Laticia is an enrolled citizen of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of Fort Hall, Idaho. She is also a descendant of the Modoc and Tohono O’odham Nations. Laticia is a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at Idaho State University. Her current research projects range from understanding Indigenous perspectives of river management, to examining Tribal-university collaborative partnerships in research.
Jessica James
Ms. Jessica James is the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes Education Program Manager and an enrolled member of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes of Fort Hall, Idaho. She is also affiliated with the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and Washoe Tribe. Ms. James is a graduate of Shoshone-Bannock Jr./Sr. High School and obtained an Associate of Arts degree in Liberal Arts (2003) and a Bachelor’s of Arts degree (2004) in American Indian Studies from Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. She also obtained a Master’s Degree (2008) in Indigenous Nations Studies with emphases in Cultural Preservation Management and Indigenous Museum Studies from the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. Currently, she is a graduate student at Creighton University working on a Doctorate of Education in Interdisciplinary Leadership.
Currently, Ms. James was appointed to serve on the board of regents at Haskell Indian Nations University, she also serves as a tribal representative on the Idaho Indian Education Committee, advisory board member of the tribes CDFI, and committee member of Indians of All Tribes. For four years (2010-2014) Ms. James served as a council member on the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Native American Employment and Training Council appointed by Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis.
Ms. James’s occupational duties included: writing grants, implementing and coordinating programming services, and collaborating with business, education other organizations to create educational opportunities for Native American community members and tribal members. Ms. James mentors and advises youth and adults on multiple levels of education and empowers them to become educated leaders through encouraging cultural values and achieving academic and employment success.
Jessica Matsaw
Jessica Matsaw is a tribal citizen of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. Jessica is an Alumni of the University of Idaho and IKEEP, receiving her M.Ed. in Curriculum and instruction plus (Idaho) teacher certifications. Jessica teaches 9-12 grade Art, Cultural Arts and Tribal Government. Jessica is the Co-founder of River Newe, a non-profit organization that promotes and advocates for intergenerational learning experiences within Shoshone-Bannock Traditional Knowledge, teachings and homelands. Jessica is a mother of 4 children and married to Sammy Matsaw Jr.
Sammy Matsaw
Sammy is a father, husband, grandfather, and extended family member. Sammy along with Jessica oversees day-to-day operations of River Newe; planning, coordination, website development, social media communications, and grant writing. He brings ten years of military experience and leadership. An additional ten years of science and management involved in Indigenous sovereignty and treaties with the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ Fish and Wildlife department. He is also a pipe-carrier and Sundancer with both his mother and father’s tribes.
Elizabeth Redd
Liz is Director of American Indian Studies and Assistant Professor of Linguistic Anthropology at Idaho State University. She works with students, faculty, and communities to support more equitable research practices and to create an inclusive and welcoming campus environment.
Katherine Reedy
Dr. Katherine Reedy is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Idaho State University. She is a sociocultural anthropologist who conducts ethnographic research primarily in the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Island chain with the Aleut/Unangan people. Her primary research is investigating the role of traditional commercial and subsistence economies in the construction and maintenance of Aleut/Unangan identity. Research interests include indigenous rights and traditional representations of identity, local knowledge of food harvesting and ecology in rural Alaska, oil and gas development, and environmental and fisheries policymaking. She is the author of Aleut Identities: Tradition and Modernity in an Indigenous Fishery (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010).
Dr. Desi Small-Rodriguez, a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation and a Chicana, is Assistant Professor of Sociology and American Indian Studies at University of California Los Angeles. She describes herself as a sociologist, demographer, data warrior, and relative. She has partnered with Indigenous communities in the U.S. and internationally as a researcher and data advocate for more than ten years.
Desi’s research examines the intersection of race, indigeneity, data, and inequality. With a focus on Indigenous futures, her current research explores the racialization of Indigenous identity and group boundary making, Indigenous population statistics, and data for health and economic justice on Indian Reservations.
Desi directs the Data Warriors Lab, an Indigenous social science laboratory. She is the Co-Founder of the U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network, which helps ensure that data for and about Indigenous nations and peoples in the U.S. (American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians) are utilized to advance Indigenous aspirations for collective and individual wellbeing. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s Database.
She is a proud alumna of the University of Arizona (Ph.D. Sociology), University of Waikato (Ph.D. Demography), Stanford University (B.A. and M.A.).
Beyond research, teaching, and advocacy, Desi is in the throes of raising a strong willed 4 year old, enjoys a slow game of pick-up basketball, is on a mission to find the best pie crust recipe, and strives to be a good relative.
Dr. Deondre Smiles is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada). Dr. Smiles is of Ojibwe, Black, and settler descent, and is a citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Smiles’ research interests center around critical Indigenous geographies, political ecology, and tribal cultural resource management/protection. Smiles currently serves as the Chair of the Indigenous Peoples’ Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers, sits on the editorial board of the journal Native American and Indigenous Studies, and is a Trustee of the Leech Lake Tribal College.
Shanny Spang Gion
Shanny Spang Gion is Northern Cheyenne, Crow, and also of German heritage. She was raised in Lame Deer, MT and is an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne Nation. Her parents are Alan and Joleen Spang and she is the second oldest of seven children. Shanny and her husband, Jake Gion, have been married for 12 years and they have three children, Carter, Jessa, and Adrian.
Shanny’s education background includes a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from Montana State University and a Master of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies (Geoscience and Technical Communication) from Montana Technological University.
Currently, Shanny is a Visiting Tribal Scholar with the University of Idaho’s College of Natural Resources. Her work as a Visiting Tribal Scholar (VTS) involves relationship building with tribal nations, exploring curriculum development in Indigenous Research Methods and Indigenous Knowledge Systems, developing research collaborations with tribes, faculty development, and mentoring students. Previously, Shanny worked for11 years for the Northern Cheyenne Tribe government in natural resources and water resources management, with work experience extending from water research and planning to tribal water law implementation.
Her interests include Indigenous science and ways of knowing, Native nation building and re-building, water governance, decolonizing philosophies, Indigenous Research Methods, Indigenous Research Paradigms, climate science, and rebuilding relationships with water. Outside of professional work, she enjoys helping her kids develop their critical thinking skills and athletic ability, reading, and spending time with her relatives, both human and more-than-human.