Project Scholars

Lakota Consultants

Joallyn Archambault is an anthropologist, and a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.  She is director of American Indian Programs at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. She has worked internationally on museum programs and exhibitions including Plains Indian Arts, 100 Years or Plains Indian Painting, and Seminole Interpretations.

David Crystal, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on language, and the author of Language Death. Best known for two encyclopedias, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, he  received an OBE for services to the study and teaching of language.

Philip Deloria is a Standing Rock Lakota, and Director of the American Culture Program at the University of Michigan. He has published on a wide range of historical and cultural topics, focusing most frequently on Native American and Western history.  He was awarded the Outstanding Book Award by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights for the book Playing Indian.

Willem J. deReuse, a Belgian-born linguist, teaches at the University of Texas. He specializes in the description of Native American languages and has also written on linguistic theory, and is an expert on the dictionaries of threatened languages.

Donald L. Fixico is of Shawnee, Sac & Fox, Muscogee Creek and Seminole heritage.  He is the  Distinguished Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University. He has published many books on Native American history, and his work focuses on oral history and the complex relations among tribes and the U.S. government.

K. David Harrison is a linguist, author and activist for the documentation and preservation of endangered languages.  He teaches at Swarthmore College, and is a co-producer of The Linguists, a documentary about languages on the verge of extinction.

Mary Hermes is of Dakota and Chinese heritage.  She is Associate Professor of Education in the Eni-gikendosayang Center for Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization at the University of Minnesota. Her work includes an extensive study of the Ojibwe language, as well as projects focusing on Native teacher education.

Clay Jenkinson, a Rhodes and Danforth scholar, won the National Endowment of the Humanities highest honor, the Charles Frankel Prize for his work on American history. Based in  Bismarck, North Dakota, he directs the Dakota Institute, producing books and documentaries on Great Plains history.

Jeff Means is a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and associate professor of History at the University of Wyoming in the field of Native American History. His area of interest is Great Plains Indian culture and Colonial Cultural Encounters and cultural history in the 18th and 19th century.

Jeffrey Ostler is a Professor of History at the University of Oregon. He has published extensively on 19th-century political history and the American Indian experience. A noted expert on Lakota history, his recent book is The Lakotas and the Black Hills: The Struggle for Sacred Ground.

Susan Penfield is the Research Coordinator for the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy and faculty affiliate for the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona.  Her research includes publications on endangered language and language activism.

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve is a Rosebud Lakota, born and raised on the Rosebud Reservation. Since 1972, she’s published 20 books, many short stories, articles and poems. Awarded a National Humanities Medal in 2000, she has an intimate knowledge of the people and customs on the Lakota reservations.

Robert Warrior is a member of the Osage tribe and Director of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  He is the Founding President of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. His books include The People and the Word, a critical study of native nonfiction.

Hawaiian and Maori Language Program Advisers:

Timoti Karetu is a master of the Maori language, and the key figure behind the push to revitalize the Maori language in the 1970s. He is  very active in the language movement, and currently directs a leading language program in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

William H. “Pila” Wilson, is the founding chairperson of Hawaii’s state Hawaiian-language college at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. He is also a founding member of non-profit AhaPūnana Leo, Inc., serving 2,300 students, a national model for Native American language revitalization.