2019 Guest Presenters

Joyce Rain Anderson is Professor of English and the U.S. Ethnic and Indigenous Studies Coordinator at Bridgewater (MA) State University. She is also Faculty Associate for the Pine Ridge Partnership, which brings together students from southeastern Massachusetts and students from Red Cloud Indian School at BSU for two weeks during the summer.

jessie little doe baird (Mashpee Wampanoag), Director, Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project; John D. and Catherine MacArthur Fellow (2010); author of An Introduction to Wôpanâak Grammar (MIT Press, 2000); numerous workbooks and translations for Wôpanâak and Pequot language students. Current projects include The Wôpanâak Dictionary and Descriptive Grammar. She is Vice Chairwoman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council.

Lisa Brooks (Abenaki) is Professor of English and American Studies at Amherst College. Author of Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War (Yale University Press, 2018) and The Common Pot: The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast (University of Minnesota Press, 2008) and numerous articles and essays, Brooks also worked in the tribal office of the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi on aboriginal rights and land preservation cases.

Peter d’Errico graduated from Yale Law School in 1968, served as staff attorney in Dinebeiina Nahiilna Be Agaditahe Navajo Legal Services, 1968-1970, and taught Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1970-2002. As an Emeritus Professor, he is a columnist for Indian Country Today and active in legal research and writing on indigenous issues. His research and consulting extend to active litigation defending indigenous hunting, fishing, and gathering rights, especially of the Mashpee Wampanoag.

Cheryll Toney Holley is the current chief of the Hassanamisco band of the Nipmuc Nation. She also serves as director of the Hassanamisco Indian Museum in Grafton, Massachusetts. She is a trained historian and genealogist, a blogger, a creative writer. She served on the Massachusetts Comission on Indian Affairs from 1998 to 2008.

Paula Peters (Mashpee Wampanoag) is a writer/editor/independent scholar. A former nationally recognized journalist, her recent focus has been on the recovery and telling of Wampanoag history in multi-media fashion. In addition to producing Mashpee Nine: The Beat Goes On, she is producer of "Our" Story: A Wampanoag History for Plymouth 400 Inc.

Roger Kuhn (Poarch Band of Creek Indians) is a core faculty member of the Somatic Psychology Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is a member of  American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT), and a board member of the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirit Society. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Human Sexuality where his current research focuses on decolonizing sexuality, as well as the intersections of technology and intimacy.

Barbara Landis serves as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School Archives & Library specialist at the Cumberland County Historical Society in Carlisle, PA. For over thirty years, she has helped Carlisle descendants research their families and connect to other survivor families while publishing her own research and writing.

Natalie Martinez (Pueblo of Laguna) teaches at Laguna Middle School, a tribally-controlled grant school in New Mexico. She chairs the Pueblo's Education Priority Team, serves on the curriculum development teams for the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (19 NM Pueblos) and the State of New Mexico Public Education Department-Indian Education Division. She has been an educator for 25 years as a classroom teacher, college instructor at graduate level and pre-service teacher education, school administrator, and peer coach. She was an NEH Summer Scholar in 2017 and returns as the 2019 Curriculum Specialist.

Lorén M. Spears (Narragansett) is Executive Director of the Tomaquag Museum in Exeter, Rhode Island. She has been an educator for 25 years, most recently as an adjunct professor at the University of Rhode Island, and has written curriculum, poetry, and narratives published in a variety of publications such as Dawnland Voices, An Anthology of Indigenous Writing of New England. Under her leadership, Tomaquag Museum has received the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ National Medal.

Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel (Mohegan) is an author, historian, and storyteller who serves as both the Medicine Woman and Tribal Historian for the Mohegan Tribe. In addition, she is executive director of the tribe’s cultural and community programs department. Zobel is a prolific writer of fiction, screenplays, and history including the historical biography, Medicine Trail: The Life and Lessons of Gladys Tantaquidgeon.