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Scholars, Lecturers, and Cultural Experts

Dr. Mark Awakuni-Swetland is an assistant professor of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies (Native American Studies) at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Awakuni-Swetland, a Ph.D. graduate of the University of Oklahoma, conducted first-hand interviews with Omaha people for his book Dance Lodges of the Omaha People: Building from Memory. He teaches the Omaha language at UN-L and has received an NEH grant to create a comprehensive Omaha and Ponca digital dictionary. This dictionary will be available online for native communities, students, researchers, and the public. This project will facilitate preservation, teaching, and revival of these native languages.

Nancy Carlson has worked with many archaeological projects in Nebraska and will be our tour guide as we explore Pawnee sites in Nance County, Nebraska. She has an MA degree in Anthropology/Archaeology from UNL with a focus on the Great Plains. She was also instrumental in organizing the annual reunion of Genoa U.S. Indian School alumni for the past 20 years.

Judi gaiashkibos is Executive Director of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs and has been in this position since 1995. The purpose of the Commission is to enhance the cause of Indian rights and to develop solutions to problems common to all Nebraska Indians. She is actively involved as a board member in many non-profit service organizations. She is an enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and has a master's degree from Doane College.

Richard J. Gould has been the site Administrator at the Kansas State Historical Society's Pawnee Indian Museum State Historic Site for twenty years.  A graduate of Kansas State University, Manhattan with a master's degree in history, and Cloud County Community College, Concordia, Gould is a native of Concordia. 

Matt "Sitting Bear" Jones is an Otoe/Missouria who grew up on reservations in Oklahoma. He graduated from Haskell Indian Junior College, Lawrence, KS (A.A.), Wichita State University (B.A.) and has an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. He is a well known storyteller of Native American oral history and often serves as a Native American cultural consultant for various types of media.

Dr. Renee Laegreid is an Associate Professor of History at Hastings College, Hastings, Nebraska.  Her research focuses on the 20th century, and involves three themes-women/gender, the West, and immigration.  She is the author of Riding Pretty: Rodeo Royalty in the American West (2006), and is co-editor for a collection of essays entitled Her Stories: Women's Experiences on the North American Plains (forthcoming from Texas Tech University Press 2010).  Her essay for this book examines the experiences of rural, Native American, and Fourth Wave immigrant women on the Central Plains from the 1930s to the present. 

Pat Leading Fox is a Pawnee Skidi band chief, and was recently re-selected as head chief of the Nasharo Council of the Pawnee Nation, representing the four Pawnee bands. Leading Fox has been active in many recent Pawnee celebrations in Nebraska and elsewhere. He represents the Pawnee each year at the Archway celebration in Kearney, and was present in 2009 when rare Pawnee corn from Oklahoma was planted in Nebraska. Leading Fox was also present in 2008 when sacred Pawnee ground known as Pahaku or Pahuk Hill, situated on a high bluff along the river south of Fremont was returned to his people. He also served as a consultant when the Adler Planetarium in Chicago developed a show centered around the Skidi Pawnee traditions. He resides in Pawnee, Oklahoma.

Christine Lesiak is a Peabody award-winning producer, director, and writer specializing in historical documentaries. She has produced many documentaries, including In The White Man's Image, which was named the best historical documentary of 1992 by the Organization of American Historians. Lesiak has spent 25 years researching, scripting and producing PBS historical documentaries that bring to life the experiences of Native Americans - especially those located on the Plains. She is currently Executive Producer for the Documentary Unit at Nebraska Educational Television (NET) in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Gary Robinette is Director of Cultural Affairs for the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. He attended school through 11th grade at Marty Indian Mission, Marty, South Dakota then graduated from high school in Niobrara, Nebraska. He is a Vietnam veteran. He received his bachelor's degree from Wayne State College in 2000 at the age of 53 and has been employed by the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska since that time.

Dr. Donna C. Roper received her Ph.D. in Anthropology, with emphasis in North American Archaeology, from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1975. She currently is a Research Associate Professor at Kansas State University. She has been involved with Pawnee archaeology since 1983. She has authored numerous reports and journal articles on topics related to Pawnee archaeology, including a review of Pawnee ethnohistory and archaeology in a recent volume devoted to Kansas archaeology. She is a co-editor and the author or co-author of several chapters in a recent book devoted to studies of Plains earth lodges - the first volume published in many decades that is devoted to this major form of native housing in North America.

Joe Starita is the Pike Professor of Journalism, News-Editorial Department, College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Previously, he spent 14 years at The Miami Herald - four years as the newspaper's New York Bureau Chief and four years on its Investigations Team, where he specialized in investigating the questionable practices of doctors, lawyers and judges. One of his stories was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting. Interested since his youth in Native American history and culture, he returned to his native Nebraska in 1992. Starita did research for four years for his new book I Am a Man - Chief Standing Bear's Journey for Justice. It was published in January 2009 and has already gone into a third printing.

Dr. David Wishart is professor and chair, Department of Anthropology and Geography, at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Dr. Wishart is a Historical Geographer who has written a number of books, including An Unspeakable Sadness: The Dispossession of the Nebraska Indians (University of Nebraska Press, 1994), which won the J. B. Jackson Prize for the best scholarly book in North American Geography with appeal to a popular audience in 1995. This book was also nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He also edited the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains (University of Nebraska Press, 2004.) At UNL he received the Distinguished Teaching Award.