From 2007 to 2012 Sonya Atalay served as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of American Studies at Indiana University. In 2012,Atalay was hired as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at University of Massachusetts Amherst,later promoted to Associate Professor in 2014. [4] As of 2025,she is a provost professor at UMass Amherst and a Professor of Anthropology at MIT. She is also the Director and Co-Primary Investigator at the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS) on the MIT campus. [5]
Indigenous Archaeology
Following her PhD,Atalay began shifting her focus from Classical archaeology abroad to public archaeology in the United States. From 2008-2016,while serving in the IP and Research Ethics Work Group of the Intellectual Property in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH),Atalay began drawing on Anishinaabe knowledge systems to develop collaborative community-based program of research with Anishinaabek communities in the Great Lakes region. [6] Atalay collaborated with the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan to create a plan to protect and control the use of ezhibiigaadek asin (Sanilac Petroglyph Site). Included in this plan were initiatives to curtail inappropriate uses of the tribe’s Indigenous Intellectual Property,particularly in relation to commercialization of the over 100 petroglyphs at the site. [7]
Atalay served two terms (2009 –2013;2013 –2015) on the National NAGPRA Review Committee which further guided her research interests in the rematiration and mobilization of Indigenous Knowledges. [8] [9] Atalay,along with Jen Shannon and John Swogger produced a series of comics in partnership with Native nations to educate the public about the repatriation of Native American ancestral remains,return of sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony under NAGPRA law. [10]
Since 2019,Atalay has been a major figure in the advancement of Indigenous Knowledge alongside and equal to Western Science,a concept now termed Braiding Knowledge. With funding by the National Science Foundation’s Science and Technology Centers:Integrative Partnerships program,Atalay alongside co-principal investigators;Ora Marek-Martinez,Bonnie Newsom,and Jon Woodruff,established the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS) on the MIT campus. [11] [12]
