Kathleen Whiteley

Annette Reed

Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation
​
Professor,
California State University Sacramento

Kaitlin Reed

Yurok/Hupa/Oneida
Yurok Tribe​
​
Assistant Professor,
Cal Poly Humboldt

Cutcha Risling Baldy

Hupa/Karuk/Yurok
Hoopa Valley Tribe​
​
Associate Professor,
Cal Poly Humboldt

Charles
​Sepulveda

Tongva/
Acjachemen
​
Associate Professor,
University of Utah

Alexii Sigona

Amah Mutsun
Tribal Band​

Graduate Student, University of California Berkeley

Current Members

William Bauer
Round Valley Indian Tribes (Wailacki and Concow)

Professor
University of Nevada,
Las Vegas
​
Stephanie Beaver-Guzman
Hupa/Yurok, enrolled Hoopa Valley Tribe

Faculty Counselor, Doctoral Student, Lecturer,
Native Student Liaison

Columbia College and California State University
​Kayla Begay
Enrolled Hoopa Valley, Hupa Yurok Karuk

Assistant Professor
Humboldt State University

​
Anthony Burris
Ione Band of Miwok Indians

Graduate Student
University of California, 
Davis

​
Olivia Chilcote
San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians
Assistant Professor
San Diego State University
Wallace Cleaves
Tongva

Assistant Professor
University of California, 
Riverside
Vanessa Esquivido
Nor Rel Muk Wintu
Education Director 
Federated Indians Graton Rancheria
Blythe George
Yurok Tribe

Assistant Professor 
University of California, 
Merced
Theresa Gregor
Iipay/Yoéme

Assistant Professor
CSU Long Beach
(aka Puvungna)
Caitlin "Katie" Keliiaa
Yerington Paiute/Washoe

Assistant Professor
University of California, 
​Santa Cruz
Melissa Leal
Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen Nation

Assistant Professor
Sierra College

​
Stephanie Lumsden
Hupa


Graduate Student
University of California,
Los Angeles
​
Will Madrigal
Cahuillla/​Payomkawichum

Cultural Educator/Practitioner
University of California, 
​Riverside
Mark Minch-de Leon 
Susanville Indian Rancheria
​
Assistant Professor
​University of California, Riverside
​
Deborah Miranda
Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen Nation, Santa Ynez Chumash

Retired Professor of English
Washington and Lee University, Emeritus​
​Brittani Orona
Hoopa Valley Tribe
​​
​
Graduate Student
University of California, Davis
​
Heather Ponchetti Daly
Iipay Nation of
Santa Ysabel

Assistant Professor 
University of California,
San Diego
​
Joely Proudfit
Luiseño/
Payómkawichum

Professor 
California State University, 
San Marcos
Annette Reed
Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation

​
Professor
California State University, Sacramento
Kaitlin Reed
Yurok/Hupa/Oneida (enrolled Yurok Tribe)

Assistant Professor
Humboldt State University
Cutcha Risling Baldy 
Hoopa Valley Tribe (Hupa, Karuk, Yurok)

Associate Professor  Humboldt State University
Charles Sepulveda 
Tongva and Acjachemen 


Assistant Professor University of Utah
​
Alexii Sigona
Amah Mutsun Tribal Band

Graduate Student
University of California, 
Berkeley
Rose Soza War Soldier
Mountain Maidu/
Cahuilla/Luiseño

Assistant Professor
Sacramento State
Kathleen Whiteley
Wiyot Descent

Assistant Professor
University of California, 
Davis
Kayla Begay is an Assistant Professor of Native American Studies at Humboldt State University. Her research is focused on Dene Languages, California Indian Languages, language variation, historical linguistics and community-based language revitalization and reclamation. Her previous fieldwork experience includes work with speakers of Hupa, Karuk, Yucatec Maya and Sereer. Dr. Begay’s continuing research focuses on historical-comparative linguistics for language revitalization within Wailaki and Hupa communities. Dr. Begay is an enrolled member of Hoopa Valley Tribe with grandparents enrolled in the Karuk and Yurok tribes. She is also a boardmember with the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival (AICLS). She received her Ph.D. (2017) and M.A. (2012) in Linguistics from the University of California Berkeley, and B.A. (2010) in Linguistics from Stanford University. She is also a traditional basketweaver and singer.
Stephanie Beaver-Guzman (Hupa/Yurok) is a mother and a wife, a tribal member, a community member, a participant in ceremony, an artist, drum maker, traditional Mewuk dancer, and an advocate. Stephanie is an enrolled member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. Her father was a Hoopa Valley Tribal member, and of both Hupa and Yurok descent. Her mother is of European ancestry, primarily Irish. She was born and raised on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, located in rural Northern California. Stephanie grew up a first-generation college student, in the foster care system, and with numerous experiences that shaped her professional journey. She received an Associate’s Degree from Yuba College at Woodland, a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Human Development from the University of California (UC) Davis and a Masters Degree in Counseling from Saint Mary’s College of California. She is a member of both the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi and Tri-Alpha Honor society. She is a tenured faculty member at Columbia College, in Sonora, where she works as a Counselor. She is a Special Programs Counselor for the Extended Opportunity Program & Services (EOP&S) Program, Foster Youth, and Native Students. Stephanie is a lecturer in the Ethnic Studies program at California State University, Stanislaus. She is a Doctoral Candidate (ABD) in the Educational Leadership program at CSU Stanislaus. Her research focuses on integrating a gender perspective to explore the ways in which Native American Female faculty negotiate their cultural and academic identities within their work at universities. She used decolonizing methodologies to understand and represent the lives and stories of dissertation participants. She is a lecturer in the Ethnic Studies department at CSU Stanislaus. She works as a professional expert with numerous agencies that support current and former foster youth. Additionally, Stephanie is a consultant for the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Tribal Social Services Department. Currently she is helping develop programming to engage Native men, boys and community members in the prevention of Domestic and Sexual Violence in Native Communities.
Olivia Chilcote (Luiseño, San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of American Indian Studies at San Diego State University. Dr. Chilcote received her Ph.D. and M.A. in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and her B.A. in the Ethnic & Women’s Studies Department at Cal Poly Pomona.  Her research and teaching focus on the areas of interdisciplinary Native American Studies, federal Indian law and policy, Native American identity, and Native California.
Wallace Cleaves is an Associate Professor of Teaching and Associate Director in the University Writing Program at the University of California at Riverside. His main responsibilities include First Year Writing and the TA development program and running the year long series of teaching practicum courses for new instructors in the writing program. His PhD is in Medieval English Literature and he has taught courses in Medieval, Renaissance and Native American literature at Pomona College in Claremont at Cal State Fullerton and at UC Riverside. He is a member of the Gabrieleno/Tongva Native American tribe, the Indigenous peoples of the Los Angeles area, and has served in a variety of positions on the Tribal Council, on the board of the Kuruvungna Springs Foundation, and is currently the president of the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy, a non-profit organization with an entirely Tongva board dedicated to cultural preservation and stewardship of land returned to our community. Recent publications include: coauthorship of the 13th edition of St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, a piece for World Literature Today, “Mission Project: Activism on a Smaller Scale,” with fellow Tongva Tribal member Charlie Sepulveda a Bloomberg CityLab article entitled “Native Land Acknowledgments Are Not the Same As Land,” a pushcart nominated coauthored work of Indigenous speculative fiction, “A Parable of Things that Crawl and Fly,” in Pulp Literature, and the essay “From Monmouth to Madoc to Māori: The Myth of Medieval Colonization and an Indigenous Alternative,” in the Indigenous Futures and Medieval Pasts issue of English Language Notes.
Vanessa Esquivido is an enrolled member of the Nor Rel Muk Wintu Nation; she is also Hupa and Xicana. Dr. Esquivido has a Ph.D. in Native American Studies from the University of California, Davis. She focuses on non-federally recognized California Indian Tribes and their struggle to obtain Federal Recognition by the United States government. Dr. Esquivido also works closely with Native communities and conducts oral interviews to record Native experiences on a variety of topics. She also works on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), specifically supporting the repatriation of Native remains, items of cultural patrimony, and sacred and funerary objects. Most recently, Dr. Esquivido's research includes California Native women, labor, visual sovereignty, Native Education, and California Native basketry.
Blythe K. George is from McKinleyville, CA, and is a member of the Yurok Tribe. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Merced and previously served as a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology at UC Berkeley after completing her Ph.D. in Sociology & Social Policy from Harvard University. Her research focuses on processes of adversity and resilience in tribal communities, with an emphasis on qualitative methodologies and database creation and management. Prof. George is working on a book manuscript that focuses on the experiences of tribal fathers with criminal records, in particular their relationship to work, ceremony and family, thereby bringing “the reservation” into contemporary considerations of inequality, with an emphasis on the deep meaning and marginalization that have both clustered in such places now for generations.
Theresa Gregor (Iipay/Yoéme) is an Assistant Professor in American Indian Studies at CSU Long Beach (aka Puvungna). She is from the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel. She is currently writing and editing an anthology about California American Indian Women: Their Lives, Stories, and Contributions. Her scholarship includes work in American Indian Literature and Writing Studies, California American Indian Studies, Gender Studies, Indigenous Philosophy, Traditional Cultural Knowledge, and Resiliency.
Caitlin Keliiaa is an Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz. She is an Indigenous feminist historian, and her scholarship engages Indian labor exploitation, dispossession, and surveillance of Native bodies especially in Native Californian contexts. Her book project Unsettling Domesticity centers Native women’s voices uncovered from federal archives. She is Yerington Paiute and Washoe, and her tribal communities inform her scholarship.
Stephanie Lumsden is a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies from Portland State University in 2011 and her Master’s degree in Native American Studies from the University of California, Davis in 2014. She earned her second Master’s degree in Gender Studies in 2018. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Gender Studies department at UCLA and a recipient of the Ford dissertation fellowship. Her dissertation project examines the relationship between ongoing Indigenous dispossession and the development of the carceral regime in California.
Melissa Leal is an enrolled member of the Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen Nation. She earned her Ph.D. in Native American Studies from the University of California, Davis. Her research includes the reciprocal relationship between Hip Hop Culture and Indigenous Communities with an emphasis on performance, activism, and visual sovereignty. She was the Lead Researcher and Advisory Board Coordinator for Rebel Music: Native America, an MTV World documentary. She teaches culture, language, and dance for various tribal communities in Northern California. She is a poet, dancer, and artist advocate. She believes in the power and necessity of revitalizing indigenous languages. Currently she is the Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at Sierra College. She also serves as the District’s Tribal Liaison and Wonoti Program Coordinator for Native American and Pacific Islander students. Previously she worked as the Executive Director of Education for the Wilton Rancheria Tribe of Miwok Indians. She is a Production Contributor for Little Thunder Films and Story Producer for the AlterNative Documentary Series with ITVS. Melissa loves working with Native American youth and has had the opportunity to do workshops and consultations on topics that range from Hip Hop to Emotional Resiliency. She considers herself a community academic, a lightweight linguist, a lifetime educator, and a passionate dancer who strives to assist young people in finding their voice in their community through activism, art, and scholarship.
Mark Minch-de Leon is a scholar of Indigenous Studies in the Department of English at UC Riverside. His research concerns the history of collecting practices and archive-formation in relation to California Indians and the use of these archives and collections by California Indian peoples in revitalization projects and for anticolonial work. Working at the intersections of Indigenous Studies, Rhetorical Theory, and Narrative and Visual Studies, Minch-de Leon's current book project looks at the anticolonial, nonvitalist dimensions of California Indian intellectual and cultural resurgence.
Deborah A. Miranda is an enrolled member of the Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen Nation of the Greater Monterey Bay Area in California, with Santa Ynez Chumash ancestry. Her mixed-genre book Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir received the 2015 PEN-Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award, a Gold Medal from the Independent Publishers Association, and was short-listed for the William Saroyan Literary Award. She is also the author of four poetry collections (Altar for Broken Things, Raised by Humans, The Zen of La Llorona, and Indian Cartography). She is coeditor of Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature, and her work has appeared in many anthologies, most recently When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: An Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (2020), for which she is also a contributing editor. Deborah lives in Lexington, Virginia with her wife Margo Solod but will be relocating to Oregon in 2022. She was the Thomas H. Broadus, Jr. Professor of English at Washington and Lee University, where she taught literature of the margins and creative writing, and is now Professor Emeritus, an independent scholar working on projects involving California Mission history and literatures.
Brittani R. Orona (Hupa) is a PhD Candidate in Native American Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Human Rights at UC Davis. Brittani has more than 15 years of experience working with state, local, and federal government on Tribal Affairs issues, including repatriation, collections care, land management, traditional ecological knowledge, and Indigenous history. Her PhD dissertation research focuses on Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk perspectives of visual sovereignty, memory, human and water rights on the Klamath River Basin. Brittani recieved her MA in Native American Studies from UC Davis, an MA in Public History from California State University-Sacramento, and a BA in History from Humboldt State University. She is currently a 2021-2022 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellow and Board Advisor for Save California Salmon, a grassroots organization dedicated to protecting and restoring watersheds and fisheries across California.
Joely Proudfit (Luiseño), Ph.D., is an educator, activist and content creator. Dr. Proudfit holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science with emphasis in public policy and American Indian studies from Northern Arizona University and a B.A. in political science with emphasis in public law from California State University Long Beach. A full professor, Dr. Proudfit has been tenured three times in the CSU system. In 2016 she was appointed by President Barack Obama to the National Advisory Council on Indian Education. In 2021 California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed her to the Commission on the Status of Women and Girls.

Dr. Proudfit serves as the Department Chair of the American Indian Studies Department. Dr. Proudfit is also the Director of the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center (CICSC) at CSUSM. Prior to CSUSM, Dr. Proudfit served as a tenured associate professor of public administration and the founding director of the Tribal Government, Management and Leadership Master of Public Administration (MPA) program at California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB). A political scientist, she takes an interdisciplinary approach to her wide variety of research interests, which include: American Indian communities; American Indian Film, Representation, Stereotypes; tribal sovereignty, federal Indian policy, tribal leadership and governance, California Indian political and contemporary issues, American Indian education, tribal telecommunications and social justice issues. She has presented her research at numerous conferences and media forums, and published numerous books, reports, essays and articles including: “Internecine Warfare: White Privilege and American Indians in Colleges and Universities. In the book RIP: Jim Crow: Fighting Racism through Higher Education Policy, Curriculum, and Cultural Interventions.” “Warriors for Empowering Advocates through Valuing Education. In the book, Honoring Our Elders: Culturally Appropriate for Teaching Indigenous Students,” "In the Trenches: A Critical Look at the Isolation of American Indian Political Practices in a Non-Empirical Social Science" in the book Indigenizing the Academy, "Native American Gaming in California" in the book Native Americans (part of the American Political History Series published by the Congressional Quarterly Press) and "From Activism to Academics: The Evolution of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State 1968-2001" in the Indigenous Nations Studies Journal.

She is the lead author and researcher on the 2012, 2014 and 2016 ground breaking annual reports on the State of American Indian and Alaskan Native Education in California. These reports have received national attention, acclaim and citation. Dr. Proudfit along with Dr. Warner are the series editors of a ten (10) book contract with Information Age Publishing, Charlotte, NC. The books address American Indian education through the lens of ten different regions throughout the U.S. The first book published in 2017 focuses on California. On Indian Ground-: A Return to Indigenous Knowledge—Generating Hope, Leadership and Sovereignty through Education. Dr. Proudfit is author of the forthcoming book titled Beyond the American Indian Stereotype: There’s More to Me Than What You See. This text provides a comprehensive exploration of misappropriation and stereotyping related to American Indians and addresses the dynamics of proactive strategies and the need for critical reflective decision making by students to move beyond these stereotypes of American Indians.

Dr. Proudfit served as the department chair of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University (SFSU). In addition to her academic positions, she was the first special advisor to the Honorable Cruz M. Bustamante, lieutenant governor of California, for California Indian Sovereign Nations in 2002.

Dr. Proudfit has taught and developed more than 40 graduate and undergraduate courses including: Decolonizing California, American Indian Politics, Tribal Government Management, Business – Government Relations, American Indians and U.S. Laws, Imagining Indians: American Indians, Media, Film and Society, Tribal Government Gaming and Economic Development, American Indian Women and Activism, American Government and Politics, American Indians: Stereotypes and Realities in the Mass Media, Power and Politics in American Indian History, and Federal Indian Law and Administration.

Dr. Proudfit is also the founder and Executive Director of the California’s American Indian & Indigenous Film Festival. The California’s American Indian & Indigenous Film Festival (CAIIFF) is the largest AIAN film festival in the U.S. organized by the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center (CICSC) in collaboration with several tribal and university partners. The CAIIFF developed with the aim to bring high quality, culturally relevant, and inspiring films about American Indian life and culture to the southern California region.

Dr. Proudfit is President and Owner of Native Media Strategies, LLC, which consults, collaborates and produces with the entertainment industries and professionals to developed inclusive strategies in fostering authentic representation of Native Americans. Dr. Proudfit is the owner of Naqmayam Communications, an independent, full-service, California Indian-owned and -operated public relations agency. Dr. Proudfit holds positions on numerous boards and committees, such as: Vice chair for the Native American Caucus of the California Democratic Party, board member of the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center, board member of the California Indian Education for All, board chair for Vision Maker Media, and board member of the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation.

Dr. Proudfit is the recipient of numerous accolades for her work and community service such as: the 2013 Recipient, American Indian Educator of the Year, 36th Annual California Conference on American Indian Education, the California Teachers Association (CTA)'s Salute to Friends of Education Award, the Opportunities Unlimited 2002 Award in recognition of dedication and leadership by Congresswoman Grace F. Napolitano and the CTA, and the John F. Kennedy, Jr. Award for Outstanding Public Service. Dr. Proudfit was the 2016 recipient of the KPBS American Indian Heritage Month Local Hero Award.
Annette L. Reed earned her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Currently, she serves as Chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies at California State University, Sacramento where she is a Professor of Ethnic Studies and Native American Studies. Her academic interests are Native American History, California Native People and Nations, Native American Women and in general Native American Studies. She believes in preparing our next generation to become leaders within our communities.
Kaitlin Reed (Yurok/Hupa/Oneida) is an Assistant Professor of Native American Studies at Humboldt State University. Her research is focused on tribal land and water rights, extractive capitalism, and settler colonial political economies. She is currently working on her book entitled From Gold Rush to Green Rush: The Ecology of Settler Colonialism in Northern California. This book 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 was awarded the Charles Eastman Fellowship of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College. Dr. Reed is an enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe in Northwestern California. In her free time, she likes to knit, watch reality television, and spend time with her partner, Michael, and her cat, Fitzherbert.
Cutcha Risling Baldy is an Associate Professor and Department Chair of Native American Studies at Humboldt State. She is the Co-Director of the NAS Food Sovereignty Lab & Cultural Workshop Space. Her book: We Are Dancing For You: Native feminisms and the revitalization of women's coming-of-age ceremonies received "Best First Book in Native American and Indigenous Studies" at the 2019 Native American Indigenous Studies Association Conference. She is also the volunteer Executive Director of the Native Women's Collective, a nonprofit organization that supports the continued revitalization of Native American arts and culture. She is Hupa, Karuk, and Yurok and enrolled in the Hoopa Valley Tribe.
Charles Sepulveda (Tongva and Acjachemen) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah in the Department of Ethnic Studies and a Ford Postdoctoral Fellow (2021-2022). He earned his PhD in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside in 2016. He grew up in the San Jacinto Valley, attended community college and graduated with a B.A. in American Studies from UC Santa Cruz. His fields of research and teaching include California Indian History, Native Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Environmental Justice. He is currently at work on his first book project tentatively titled “Indigenous Nations v. Junípero Serra: Resisting the Spanish Imaginary.” The manuscript disputes the mythologizing of the genocidal Mission period in California and its use by the Americans to connect themselves to the original colonial project that devastated California Indian worlds. The book considers the legacies of the romantic fantasy heritage and its historiography, what he has named “the Spanish Imaginary,” through an analysis of documents, architecture, plays and the canonization of padre Junípero Serra in 2015 as the “founder of California.” Dr. Sepulveda published an article in the highly respected journal Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society titled “Our Sacred Waters: Theorizing Kuuyam as a Decolonial Possibility” in which he examines the destruction to the Santa Ana River vis-á-vis a heteropatriarchal logic of submission and domestication. He offers a decolonial reframing of human relationships to place as a potential, yet challenging, solution to the continuing destruction of Indigenous homelands.
Rose Soza War Soldier (Mountain Maidu/Cahuilla/Luiseño) is an enrolled member of Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians of southern California. She completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in History with a double minor in Political Science and Social/Ethnic Relations at University of California, Davis and earned a Doctoral degree in History with an emphasis in American Indian History from Arizona State University. She is a Native American Studies assistant professor in Ethnic Studies department at Sacramento State University. She has published in “News From Native California” and has a chapter entitled, “tilted history is too often taught”: Activism, Advocacy, and Restoring Humanity in Ka’m-t’em: A Journey Toward Healing published by Pechanga’s Great Oak Press and more information may be found at kamtem-indigenousknowledge.com Her research and teaching focus on twentieth century American Indian activism, social and cultural history, politics, education, and social justice.
Kathleen Whiteley is an assistant professor at UC Davis in the Department of Native American Studies.