The Sustainable Development Institute leads CMN participation as a consortium member with the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, which is led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and includes Columbia University, Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Missouri, University of Wisconsin, and the University of Minnesota as other consortium members. The Advisory Council was initially created to provide guidance for SDI work with the DOI Northeast CASC region to ensure Indigenous peoples have equitable access to the climate science resources of the NE CASC. The Council is composed of Tribal decision-makers and Indigenous professionals from across the Northeast region.
Through earlier work with the Advisory Council, CMN SDI developed and outlined work they did across the NE CASC region to support Tribal efforts to assess climate change impacts, monitor key climatic trends, and engage in different forms of adaptation planning. The goal, at that time, was to figure out how the NE CASC’s scientific resources and tools could serve Tribal sovereignty in relation to climate change. The recommendations provided by the Advisory Council were invaluable to the work CMN SDI has been able to do since then and the development of the Northeast Indigenous Climate Resilience Network website is the culmination of that work.
In its current form the NICRN Advisory Council will provide guidance that will (1) keep Indigenous peoples on the cutting edge of access to and understanding of climate science resources and tools in relation to needs identified by Indigenous peoples, and (2) strengthen Indigenous voices in influencing and informing governmental leadership at U.S. federal, Tribal, state and local levels and the nonprofit sector on how organizations at these levels can support Indigenous planning for climate resilience. One key activity, serving the mission, is for the Advisory Council to create and maintain a web presence which serves as a clearinghouse for Tribal Climate Change issues in the Northeast region.
Through earlier work with the Advisory Council, CMN SDI developed and outlined work they did across the NE CASC region to support Tribal efforts to assess climate change impacts, monitor key climatic trends, and engage in different forms of adaptation planning. The goal, at that time, was to figure out how the NE CASC’s scientific resources and tools could serve Tribal sovereignty in relation to climate change. The recommendations provided by the Advisory Council were invaluable to the work CMN SDI has been able to do since then and the development of the Northeast Indigenous Climate Resilience Network website is the culmination of that work.
In its current form the NICRN Advisory Council will provide guidance that will (1) keep Indigenous peoples on the cutting edge of access to and understanding of climate science resources and tools in relation to needs identified by Indigenous peoples, and (2) strengthen Indigenous voices in influencing and informing governmental leadership at U.S. federal, Tribal, state and local levels and the nonprofit sector on how organizations at these levels can support Indigenous planning for climate resilience. One key activity, serving the mission, is for the Advisory Council to create and maintain a web presence which serves as a clearinghouse for Tribal Climate Change issues in the Northeast region.
Kyle Whyte
bio & contact
Kyle Whyte is the Chair of the Advisory Council. He is Potawatomi and an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. His research includes teaching, training, and activism address moral and political issues concerning climate policy and Indigenous peoples and the ethics of cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and climate science organizations. Kyle's work has recently extended to cover issues related to Indigenous food sovereignty. Kyle holds the Timnick Chair in the Humanities at Michigan State University. He is also an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Community Sustainability, a faculty member of the Environmental Philosophy & Ethics graduate concentration and the Geocognition Research Lab, and a faculty affiliate of the American Indian & Indigenous Studies and Environmental Science & Policy programs. He is deeply involved in a number of projects through his work with the Climate and Traditional Knowledges Workgroup, Sustainable Development Institute of the College of Menominee Nation, Tribal Climate Camp, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, Humanities for the Environment, and the Consortium for Socially Relevant Philosophy of/in Science and Engineering. For more information: http://kylewhyte.cal.msu.edu/about/ Contact: kwhyte@msu.edu |
Christopher Caldwell
bio & contact
Chris Caldwell is an enrolled member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. He has over 25 years of technical, administrative, and leadership experience working for various Menominee Tribal institutions and federal agencies dedicated to sustainable forestry and natural resources management. His education includes degrees from College of Menominee Nation (AAS 2001), UW Madison (B.S. 2004), and UW Green Bay (M.S. 2014). Since 2012 he has served as Director of the Sustainable Development Institute at the College of Menominee Nation where he leads applied research, education and outreach projects centered on indigenous sustainability. |
Tansey Smith
bio & contact
Tansey Smith is a member of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony located in Northern Nevada. She is Western Shoshone, Northern Paiute and Navajo. She received her B.A. in Anthropology from Fort Lewis College and her Masters of Environmental Law and Policy from Vermont Law School. Tansey has approximately 18 years of work experience with tribal governments. She has worked in various fields such as environmental, natural resources, cultural resources and sustainability. Currently, she serves as the Climate Change Specialist for the 1854 Treaty Authority. She is implementing the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Plan, which is the foundation for the 1854 Treaty Authority Climate Change Program. Her work includes conducting outreach and education on climate change impacts to natural resources. She is developing and implementing projects to assess impacts of climate change in the 1854 Ceded Territory. She also engages with other federal, state, and tribal management entities to expand partnership efforts. She currently resides in Duluth, MN with her husband, Shane and their cat Freddy. |
Mike Dockry
BIo & contact
Mike Dockry is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and was born and raised in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He is a Research Forester and Social Scientist with the USDA Forest Service’s Northern Research Station located on the University of Minnesota’s campus where he is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest Resources and a faculty affiliate of the American Indian Studies Department. He is an associate editor for the Journal of Forestry and was the chair of the American Society for Environmental History’s diversity committee (2001-2017). He received the 2016 American Indian Science and Engineering Society’s Most Promising Scientist award and the 2017 Early Career Scientist Award from the USFS Northern Research Station. From 2005 until 2013, Mike was the USDA Forest Service's Liaison to the College of Menominee. Mike earned his PhD in the Forest and Wildlife Ecology Department at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Mike also has a BS in Forest Science from the University Wisconsin Madison and an MS in Natural Resources from the Pennsylvania State University. He has worked as an Environmental Planning Intern for the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin, was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bolivia, and he was the Assistant Forest Planner for the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests. Contact: mdockry@fs.fed.us |
Lisa Brooks
BIO & CONTACT
Lisa Brooks is an Abenaki writer and scholar who lives and works in the Kwinitekw (Connecticut River) Valley. She is Associate Professor of English and American Studies at Amherst College and is active in the Five College Native American and Indigenous Studies Program, which she chaired from 2013-2017. She has sustained a longstanding commitment to Indigenous environmental issues and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. While an undergraduate at Goddard College, Brooks worked in the tribal office of the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi, on aboriginal rights and land preservation cases; this was the place she received her most important education—on the land and at kitchen tables, with other Abenaki community members. Her first book, The Common Pot: The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast (University of Minnesota Press 2008), received the Media Ecology Association's Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Culture in 2011. She recently published her second book, Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War, which centers Indigenous histories and environments. With her sister, environmental studies scholar Cassandra Brooks, she published “The Reciprocity Principle and ITEK: Understanding the Significance of Indigenous Protest on the Presumpscot,” in the International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies in 2010. She has also published articles in Northeastern Naturalist, Studies in American Indian Literatures, William and Mary Quarterly, and American Literary History. Brooks served on the inaugural Council of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) and has long served on the Advisory Board of Gedakina, a non-profit organization focused on Indigenous cultural revitalization, traditional ecological knowledge, and community wellness in New England. Although rooted in her Abenaki homeland, Brooks’s scholarship has been widely influential in transnational networks. She co-authored the collaborative volume, Reasoning Together: The Native Critics Collective (2008), and wrote the “Afterword” for American Indian Literary Nationalism (2006). She served on the inaugural Council of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA), and currently serves on the Editorial Board of Studies in American Indian Literatures and Ethnohistory, as well as the Advisory Board of Gedakina, a non-profit organization focused on Indigenous cultural revitalization, educational outreach, and community wellness in New England. Brooks’s most recent project is The Queen’s Right, the Printer’s Revolt, and the Place of Peace, a book that reframes the historical landscape of “the first Indian War,” more widely known as King Philip’s War (forthcoming from Yale University Press in 2017). |
Jen Youngblood
BIO & CONTACT
Jen Youngblood, is Mvskoke Creek and was raised in her Mothers traditions. Jen was born in California and raised at the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) Reservation. The CRIT Reservation spans the Colorado River between Arizona and California, located in the desert of the Southwest near Parker, Arizona. Jen is currently the USDA Forest Services’ Eastern Region Tribal Relations Special Assistant and has worked as Liaison to the College of Menominee Nation. Jen works frequently with other USDA and external federal agencies helping to ensure that agencies fulfill their trust and treaty responsibilities and recognize situations that require Government-to-Government consultation, notifying Tribes of these opportunities. |
Jerry PardillaBIO & CONTACT
Jerry Pardilla is the director of the USET Office of Environmental Resource Management. He has dedicated more than 20 years to tribal environmental and natural resources management, and cultural resources protection. Jerry has extensive experience with tribal governments, intertribal organizations, and intergovernmental partnerships. He was previously with the National Tribal Environmental Council, and has held leadership positions in the Penobscot Indian Nation. Jerry also served as a commissioned officer and rated aviator in the Maine Army National Guard. He is a traditional singer and dancer; and lives in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. |
Robin Clark
BIO & CONTACT
Robin Clark is an Anishinaabekwe and member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Robin works for the Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan on tribal natural resource and community health projects, supporting active engagement of Anishinaabe ways in tribal resource management and health delivery. Her current doctoral research at Michigan Technological University focuses on forest ecology and Anishinaabe mino-bimaadiziwin. Contact: 906.632.6896 ext.121 rclark@itcmi.org |
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GREGORY J. GAUTHIER JR.
BIO & CONTACT
Gregory J. Gauthier Jr. is the Tribal College and University (TCU) AmeriCorps Tribal Resilience VISTA at the College of Menominee Nation - Sustainable Development Institute(CMN-SDI). Gregory is a member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and is a descendent of the Ho-Chunk and Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans. Gregory received his B.S. in Environmental Science at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh where he worked as the American Indian Student Services Coordinator upon graduation. Currently, serving his second term with CMN-SDI, Gregory’s focus is on community climate change planning efforts for the Menominee Nation, collaborative work with larger national partnerships with CMN-SDI, and work with other Tribes in the Northeast Region on climate change. Gregory has currently developed partnerships with Brown University’s Climate and Development Hub to help initiate energy sovereignty initiatives throughout Indian Country, UW-Madison Nelson Institute on Climate Change and Community Engagement trainings, and other potential partnerships to help tribes become more climate resilient. Presently, his interest are to better understand climate change and the role of natural resources in the economy, in order to develop more sustainable methods and technologies of managing resources for future generations. Contact: ggauthier@menominee.edu |
JOHN DAIGLE
BIO & CONTACT
Dr. John J. Daigle is a tribal member of the Penobscot Indian Nation and lives in Old Town, Maine. Dr. Daigle is a Professor in the School of Forest Resources at the University of Maine, Orono. He received his Ph.D. in Forestry from the University of Massachusetts with an emphasis on application of social science concepts and methods to outdoor recreation and natural resource planning and management. In 2008, he became part of an interdisciplinary team of faculty at the University of Maine to identify the potential climate scenarios, and their probabilities, for Maine for the remainder of the 21st century. He led a team that specifically explored the meaning of a changed environment as it relates to the Indigenous peoples of Maine. In the summer of 2012, he was an invited speaker at the Museum of American Indian in Washington D.C. at the inaugural meeting of the First Stewards Symposium. This meeting was an important event leading to the development of a network of indigenous scholars and authors to coordinate efforts in reporting on climate impacts. The following year two papers were published with co-authors in the Climatic Change journal – a special issue devoted to climate change and its impacts on indigenous communities across the United States. Dr. Daigle served as a review editor for a first ever Tribal, Indigenous, and Native chapter in the 3rd National Climate Change Assessment report. Contact: jdaigle@maine.edu |
Melissa Lewis
BIO & contact
Melissa Lewis is the Wild Rice Project Coordinator for the Lac Courte Oreilles Conservation Department. She received her B.A. in Public Policy with a minor in Sustainability from the University of California, Irvine. She is currently working towards helping her tribe prepare in addressing the community’s future climate change needs. Her free time is spent ricing, hunting, and being out in nature. |
