Haskell Indian Nations University is a public tribal land-grant university in Lawrence,Kansas,United States. Founded in 1884 as a residential boarding school for Native American children,the school has developed into a university operated by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs that offers both associate and baccalaureate degrees. The college was founded to serve members of federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States. It is the oldest continually operating federal school for American Indians.
Frances Kathleen Oldham Kelsey was a Canadian-American pharmacologist and physician. As a reviewer for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA),she refused to authorize thalidomide for market because she had concerns about the lack of evidence regarding the drug's safety. Her concerns proved to be justified when it was shown that thalidomide caused serious birth defects. Kelsey's career intersected with the passage of laws strengthening FDA oversight of pharmaceuticals. Kelsey was the second woman to receive the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service,awarded to her by John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Alice Stone Blackwell was an American feminist,suffragist,journalist,radical socialist,and human rights advocate.
The Shinnecock Indian Nation is a federally recognized tribe of historically Algonquian-speaking Native Americans based at the eastern end of Long Island,New York. This tribe is headquartered in Suffolk County,on the southeastern shore. Since the mid-19th century,the tribe's landbase is the Shinnecock Reservation within the geographic boundaries of the Town of Southampton. Their name roughly translates into English as "people of the stony shore".
Ada Elizabeth Deer was an American scholar and civil servant who was a member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and a Native American advocate. As an activist she opposed the federal termination of tribes from the 1950s. During the Clinton administration,Deer served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs. Due to all of her advocacy and organization on behalf of Native people,she was recognized as a social work pioneer by the National Associate of Social Workers in 2010.
Olive Patricia Dickason (1920–2011) was a Métis historian and journalist. She was the first scholar in Canada to receive a PHD in Indigenous history. She is known for writing one of the first textbooks about First Nations in Canada,Canada's First Nations:A History of Founding Peoples from the Earliest Times.
Kimberly Teehee is a Cherokee attorney,politician,and activist on Native American issues. She is a Delegate-designate to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Cherokee Nation. She served as senior policy advisor for Native American affairs in the administration of President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2012. In February 2020,she was named by Time as one of 16 activists fighting for a "More Equal America."
The University of Michigan School of Dentistry is the dental school of the University of Michigan,a public research university located in Ann Arbor,Michigan. Established in 1875,the School of Dentistry engages in oral and craniofacial health care education,research,patient care and community service.
There is a long history of women in dentistry in the United States.
Yvette Roubideaux is an American doctor and public health administrator. She is a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota.
Mary Kathryn Nagle is a playwright and an attorney specializing in tribal sovereignty of Native nations and peoples. She was born in Oklahoma City,OK,and is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. She previously served as the executive director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (YIPAP) from 2015 to 2019.
Sheryl F. Kelsey is an American biostatistician and epidemiologist who became the first woman to earn a doctorate in statistics from Carnegie Mellon University. She made significant contributions to how heart disease is treated by studying the outcomes of coronary angioplasty.
Arlinda Locklear is an American lawyer of Native American origin from the Lumbee tribe. Locklear,who is often cited as the first Native American woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court,has actually followed in the footsteps of Lyda Conley,who was the first Native American and Native American woman admitted to argue a case before the US Supreme Court. Locklear is noted as an expert in Native American law and tribal recognition litigation. She represented the Lumbee tribe in its quest for federal recognition from 1987 until 2010.
Claudeen Bates Arthur was a Native American lawyer who was the first Navajo woman licensed as a lawyer in the United States and the first female Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Navajo Nation.
Lila Althea Fenwick was an American lawyer,human rights advocate,and United Nations official. She was the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Law School.
Tonya Gonnella Frichner was an American activist and lawyer,known for her Indigenous international work,particularly for her contributions to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Jessica Ann Rickert became the first female American Indian dentist in America upon graduating with a DDS from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry in 1975. She was one of only six women in a class of 140 students. She is a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation,and a direct descendant of the Indian chief Wahbememe (Whitepigeon).
Courtney M. Leonard is a multimedia artist,filmmaker,and activist from the Shinnecock Nation in Long Island,New York. Her work revolves around issues of ecology and Native identity,specifically their intersection with water,which is essential to the Shinnecock. Leonard primarily uses clay and her ceramic artwork has been inspired by the whaling coastal culture of the Shinnecock Nation. She has contributed to the Offshore Art Movement and now focuses on her work,BREACH,which is centered on environmental sustainability.
Erma Jean Vizenor is an Ojibwe politician and educator. She served as the tribal chair of the White Earth Nation from 2004 to 2016. Under her leadership,White Earth adopted a new tribal constitution. She served as an educator in the White Earth Indian Reservation for 20 years. Vizenor earned her doctoral education degree from Harvard University. She also earned degrees from North Dakota State University and Minnesota State University Moorhead.
