Lynn Aho
Lynn Aho currently serves as Dean of Instruction at Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College (KBOCC) and Project Director of the Weaving Our History: Voices of Wisdom and Memory oral history study, a “We the People” project supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has been an instructor and researcher at KBOCC since the college re-opened in 1998. She was the Principal Investigator for KBOCC’s Diabetes Education in Tribal Schools (DETS) project, a curriculum e ort in collaboration with seven other tribal colleges, the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases, the Indian Health Service Division of Diabetes Treatment and Prevention (IHS/DDTP), the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control Native Diabetes Wellness Program, and the National Institutes of Health O ce of Science Education. In the DETS project, she co-authored the Health Is Life In Balance curriculum, and a number of related articles and presentations. Lynn Aho earned an M.A.and Ph.D in Communication at Michigan State University and a B.A. at Valparaiso University.
Miranda Belarde-Lewis
Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit) is a mother, author and museum professional. She has worked with the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center, the Suquamish Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, the Arizona State Museum, the Seattle Art Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian. Miranda has an M.A. in Museology and a Ph.D. in Information Science. Her doctoral research included an examination of intellectual property rights to protect Native art, artifacts and knowledge, as well as community-based protections of our ways of knowing. She is a founding member of the Indigenous Information Research Group and an instructor at Northwest Indian College.
Edward Benoit, III
Edward Benoit, III is a doctoral candidate and adjunct instructor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with focuses on digital collections and archives. His research focuses on increasing access to digital collections, history of digital collections, copyright, social tagging, participatory archives, and non-textual materials. He holds both an MLIS and MA-History from UW-Milwaukee, and has previously worked and interned at a wide range of organizations including the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Waukesha County Historical Society.
Kimberly Christen Withey
Kimberly Christen Withey is an Associate Professor in the Department of English, the Associate Director of the Digital Culture and Technology Program and the Director of Digital Projects at the Plateau Center, Native American Programs Office at Washington State University. Her academic research focuses on the intersection of digital technologies, archival practices, cultural heritage movements and intellectual property rights within indigenous communities and the global commons. Dr. Christen is currently directing the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal (http://plateauportal.wsulibs.wsu.edu/), an online collaboratively curated site for Plateau cultural materials house at the WSU Libraries and Mukurtu CMS(www.mukurtu.org) a free, open source digital archive and content management tool specifically designed to meet the needs of indigenous communities as they manage and share their digital cultural heritage. Dr. Christen is also a co-director of Local Contexts, an educational website and platform for traditional knowledge licenses and labels. More of Dr. Christen’s work, including publications and projects, can be found at her website: www.kimchristen.com and you can follow her on twitter @Mukurtu.
Holly Cusack-McVeigh
Holly Cusack-McVeigh is a cultural anthropologist and Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She is a former museum curator and professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska Anchorage -Kenai Peninsula College. Her areas of specialization include Social, Medical and Cultural Anthropology, Folklore Studies and Oral History, Museum Studies, Native American and Arctic studies. Her most recent fieldwork involves sense of place on the Bering Sea Coast. Her research, recently published in a work entitled “Living with Stories,” explores the importance of place among the Yup’ik Eskimo people of the Bering Sea Coast. Holly has spent many years working as a research consultant for Native tribal communities in the United States and Canada. She has served as a liaison between museums and Native groups under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). She continues to serve as a research consultant on community-based, collaborative projects working to protect ancestral lands for Alaska Native communities, tribal museums and tribal village councils.
Saul Sopoci Drake
Through most of Saul’s professional experience he has been focused on developing and promoting new and unique ways to tell stories through exhibitions and has had the privilege of carrying this out through esteemed organizations such as the Smithsonian Institution/Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, and the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Seminole Tribe Museum. However, this is only a part of what he has acquired professionally. Over the course of his experience he has become attuned to how we as exhibition developers need to reach out to people in innovative ways. Saul has his M.S. in Cultural Anthropology and a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and has been working in the museum world for 10 plus years.
Valoree Gagnon
Valoree Gagnon received her Bachelor’s in Social Sciences with a concentration in Secondary Education from MTU in 2009. In the spring of 2011, she attained her Master’s in Environmental Policy and is currently a doctoral student at MTU in Environmental and Energy Policy. She resides in L’Anse MI with her husband and 4 children, all boys, ages 6 to 21. Valoree is interested in environmental outreach, educational initiatives, and environmental history and justice issues. She is currently researching perspectives of health and environment in two ways: perspectives within hunting, fishing, and gathering lifeways in the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, and perspectives within environmental policymaking. Valoree believes that understanding health and environment through diverse perspectives is essential to good policy and the everyday decisions by which we live. In 2011, she completed an Oral History project based on Keweenaw Bay Indian Community fishing families and their experiences which is being preserved at the Tribal Historic Preservation Office. Since that time, she has been involved in an Oral History project and training for the Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College. She believes that an important and meaningful part of history lives in the memories and voices of everyday people. Through her research and teaching, she has developed secondary teaching curriculum, broadened public outreach, volunteered hundreds of hours of community service, and contributed to the science of learning with numerous federal, tribal, and state organizations.
Amy Lonetree
Amy Lonetree is an enrolled citizen of Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She received her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2002. Her scholarly work focuses on the representation of Native American history and memory in national and tribal museums, and she has conducted research at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the British Museum, the Mille Lacs Indian Museum in Minnesota, and the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways in Michigan. Her publications include, Decolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums; a co-edited book with Amanda J. Cobb, The National Museum of the American Indian: Critical Conversations; and a co-authored volume, People of the Big Voice: Photographs of Ho-Chunk Families by Charles Van Schaick, 1879-1942. She is currently working on a visual history of the Ho-Chunk Nation from 1879-1960 while in residence at the School for Advanced Research during the 2013-2014 academic year. This research explores the intersections of photographic images, family history, tourism, and Ho-Chunk survivance through an examination of photographic collections currently housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Shannon Martin
Shannon Martin has served as the Director of the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways since December 2007. The Ziibiwing Center, the Midwest’s Premier Award-Winning American Indian Museum, is owned and operated by the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan. Shannon leads a team that addresses cultural & historic preservation, repatriation & reburial of ancestral remains, artistic expression & promotion, Tribal collections & archival management, cultural resource conservation, Ojibwe language revitalization, exhibition development, protection of intellectual property, and stewardship of Tribal cemeteries, burial grounds & sacred sites.
Shannon began her tenure with the Ziibiwing Center project in November 2001 as the Community Education Research Specialist and Cultural Resource Development Manager. She was integral to the design of the 9,000 sq. ft. permanent exhibition about the Anishinabe people entitled, Diba Jimooyung (Telling Our Story). She also assisted in the development of the educational, marketing, and visitor programming plans for the ten-million dollar 34,349 sq. ft. cultural center and museum. Opening to the public on May 21, 2004, the facility located near Mt. Pleasant, Michigan also contains a research center, Ojibwe language immersion room, changing exhibition gallery, Tribal collections & archives storage space, gift shop, and meeting rooms.
Alex Merrill
Alex Merrill wears many hats at WSU libraries reflecting his diverse skill set and academic background. Alexi is the Systems/Operations Manager, where he supports and coordinate the work of the desktop support group that resides within the Library Systems Unit. The Systems/Operations Group has the responsibility of supporting 400+ computers for both public and library personnel use. As Digital Initiatives Librarian he manages the WSU Libraries CONTENTdm installation and corresponding server software and hardware (including streaming media support). He also acts as technical point person on an array of on-going digital projects and perform training and support duties as needed for the on-going digitization of library materials. He is the local project coordinator for the Western Waters Digital Library and serves on the GWLA Digital Collections Committee. He is currently managing the digitization of the J. Elroy McCaw Memorial Film Collection supported by an award by the Apex Foundation. He is the lead technical director of the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal and is a co-PI of the Sustainable Heritage Network.
Elayne Silversmith
Elayne has been an academic and special librarian for over 18 years with experience in reference, collection development, outreach, programs, instruction, and technical services. In June 2012, Elayne became the Librarian for the Vine Deloria, Jr. Library at the National Museum of the American Indian with the Smithsonian Institution. Prior to NMAI, she was a tenured librarian at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado where she managed the Robert W. Delaney Research Library at the Center of Southwest Studies. Elayne is a past-President of the American Indian Library Association, and served as Chair of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Advisory Board at Fort Lewis College for two terms, and was a 2011 Native American Fellow at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. She a full-blood member of the Navajo Nation and was raised in Shiprock, New Mexico. Currently, she lives in Alexandria, VA.
Sally Stanton
Dr. Sally Stanton was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and has also lived in Minnesota, New Jersey, and Illinois. Since 2005, she has taught grant writing and other technical writing courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level at several Milwaukee-area public and private colleges and universities, including UW-Milwaukee, Mount Mary College, and Carroll University. She developed the first-ever online grant writing courses at UW-Milwaukee and Mount Mary, and created a new course, Professional Writing for Nonprofits, for UW-Milwaukee’s professional and technical writing program. She also teaches business writing.
In 2008, Sally re-launched her freelance efforts as Write Now! Consulting, a communications consulting firm specializing in grant writing and research for community-based nonprofits, particularly in the arts. Her clients included the African American Children’s Theatre, the Friends of the Hank Aaron State Trail, Youngblood Theatre, and RedLine Milwaukee. In 2012, RedLine, a 22,000-square-foot arts incubator, contemporary gallery, and artist residency program located in downtown Milwaukee, appointed her as its first paid Executive Director.
Ziibiwing Cultural Resource Development Team
The mission of the Cultural Resource Development team is to contribute and support the growth and productivity of the Ziibiwing Center mission through research, development, production and presentation of culturally relevant activities, educational materials, publications and exhibits.
The Visitor Services Development Team serves as the primary point of contact for the Ziibiwing Center. The Visitor Services staff members are responsible for providing quality educational information on the Anishinabek, the Ziibiwing Center, and the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan while ensuring a positive guest experience. The CRD team is central to the collection of visitor, events, and program data which is used for grant writing, budget reports, and reporting to our stakeholders.
