Introducing our first NNI Graduate Student Research and Travel Funds recipients: Carrie Nuva Joseph, Jaime Yazzie, Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, and Megan Baker! The Native Nations Institute awarded $1500 each to four graduate students on June 13, 2016. The funding supports research and travel costs for students engaged in Indigenous nation building related projects.

Carrie Nuva Joseph
Ph.D. student in Soil, Water, Environmental Science
University of Arizona

"The research funding provided by NNI has allowed me to continue the community-based work within my Hopi community regarding legacy waste from past uranium milling. Using tactical methods to address our long standing concerns regarding legacy waste gives me great satisfaction in knowing that we are all working together and laying the foundation to protect our future, our environment, and our life ways - this is nation building to me."

Jaime Yazzie
M.S. student in Forestry
Northern Arizona University

"I am honored to be selected as a recipient for the Native Nations Travel and Research Grant. I am thankful for the Native Nations Institute for providing support to native scholars pursuing their education and empowering tribal nations with research. With this grant I was able to travel remote chapter house to listen to tribal members express concerns over their environment. I will continue to use the funds to further my research and plan to attend the Inter-tribal Timber Council Symposium. I hope to continue listening to tribal members voice their connection of the physical world to the cultural and spiritual world."

Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear
Ph.D student in Sociology
University of Arizona

"Tribal data building is a critical aspect of tribal nation building. Indigenous nations and communities need relevant, timely, and accurate data on their people and resources to support their governance goals. The NNI Graduate Student Research and Travel Funding has advanced my data sovereignty doctoral research agenda by enabling my participation in an international Indigenous data sovereignty panel at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association annual conference."
 

Megan Baker
M.A. student in American Indian Studies
UCLA

"Nation building is at the core of my research on economic development and sovereignty in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. It puts community voices in conversation with theories of Indigenous resurgence using ethnographic methods. My research asks how we can maintain the most ethical relationships with each other and the land, given our unique history with Removal to Indian Territory."

For more information, please visit Graduate Student Research and Travel Funding.