Chris Andronicos (Sandia Pueblo)
Assistant Professor
Geology, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences
4126 Snee Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853
Phone: (607) 255-8331
ca98@cornell.edu
Interests: Dr. Andronicos is primarily interested in how mountain belts evolve and how the processes of mountain building relate to processes of crustal growth and destruction
Research: Dr. Andronicos currently leads a collaborative project—funded by the National Science Foundation (United States) and Natural Resources Canada—studying how the crust of western Canada was formed. He also continues research in southwest Colorado, where rocks record about 1.8 billion years of North America’s history and represent the upper two-thirds of the crust of southwest North America—“a super natural laboratory,” he says.
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Eric Cheyfitz
Ernest I.White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters
Director of American Indian Program
Department of English American Indian Program
157 Goldwin Smith 402 Caldwell Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853 Ithaca, New York 14853
Phone: (607) 255-3546 Phone:(607) 255-1755
Fax: (607) 257-5384 Fax: (607) 255-6246
etc7@cornell.edu
Interests: : Native American literatures and federal Indian law. Dr. Cheyfitz publishes and lectures widely and teaches in both areas. In addition to his scholarly work, his commentary on federal Indian law has appeared in Indian Country Today, on public radio, and in the award-winning documentary film, Our Land, Our Life. His most recent publication on these topics is The Columbia Guide to American Indian Literatures of the United States Since 1945 (2006), of which he is the editor and the first part of which contains his book-length essay, "The (Post)Colonial Construction of Indian Country: U.S. American Indian Literatures and Federal Indian Law."
Research: Dr. Cheyfitz's current research is focused in two areas: In the first area, he is writing a book titled What Is A Just Society?: Native American Philosophies and the Limits of Capitalism's Imagination, which analyzes the linked global crises of the environment and poverty from various indigenous perspectives in the Americas. In the second area, he is writing a book titled The Corporate University, Academic Freedom, and American Exceptionalism, which analyzes the changing political culture of U.S universities in the last twenty-five years. Dr. Cheyfitz believes strongly in linking his research to social action and has done so both in and outside of Indian Country throughout his career.
For more information visit Dr. Cheyfitz's website.
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Laura Donaldson (Cherokee)
Associate Professor
Department of English
145 Goldwin Smith
Ithaca, New York 14853
Phone: (607) 255-9312
Fax: (607) 255-6661
ld49@cornell.edu
Interests: American Indian Literature and Culture; Indian Women’s Literature, postcolonial theory, Religion, Gender, Race and Law.
Chuck Geisler
Professor
Department of Development Sociology
237 Warren Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853
Phone: (607) 255-1691
Fax: (607) 254-2896
ccg2@cornell.edu
Interests: Dr. Geisler’s interest is in community-based water management and conservation among Native American communities and Nations.
Research: Within the framework of ownership and control, Dr. Geisler is devoting himself to research new forms of ownership in society and the conditions that generate or suppress them. He is interested in "win-win" ecology or the ways in which conservation can be effected beyond the borders of protected areas and in the environmental consequences of war and terrorism.
For more information visit Dr. Geisler’s website.
Angela Gonzales (Hopi)
Assistant Professor
Department of Development Sociology
339 Warren Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853
Phone: (607) 255-1795
Fax: (607) 254-2896
aag27@cornell.edu
Interest: Sociology of identity,; U.S. Indian Law and Policy; indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights.
Research: Dr. Gonzales’ research seeks to advance and integrate knowledge and practice in the fields of Development Sociology and American Indian Studies through theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions in three areas: (1) contemporary constructions of identity, (2) the social impact of economic development on community life and social organization, and (3) the relationship between health and community development.
For more Information visit Dr. Gonzales’ website.
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Kurt Jordan
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
210 McGraw Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853
Phone: (607) 255-3109
Fax: (607) 255-3747
kj21@cornell.edu
Interests: Dr. Jordan's teaching interests include the archaeology of North American Indians, the global historical archaeology of indigenous peoples, the representation of Native American histories and cultures, political economy in archaeology, the North American fur trade, and hands-on training courses in archaeological excavation and laboratory analysis that tap into the rich archaeological resources of the Finger Lakes region.
Research: Dr. Jordan's research centers on the archaeology of Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) peoples, emphasizing the settlement patterns, housing, and political economy of seventeenth and eighteenth century Senecas. The empirical evidence provided by archaeology can do much to combat inaccurate narratives of Indian decline and powerlessness that pervade scholarly and popular writing about Native Americans. For example, fieldwork at the 1715-1754 Seneca Townley-Read site near Geneva, New York, recovered data indicating substantial Seneca autonomy, selectivity, innovation, and opportunism in an era usually considered to be one of cultural disintegration.
For more information visit Dr.Jordan’s website.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Jordan's book.
Karim-Aly Kassam
Associate Professor
International Professor of Environmental and Indigenous Studies
8A Fernow
Ithaca, New York 14853
Phone: (607) 255-9757
Fax: (607) 255-0349
ksk28@cornell.edu
Interests: Dr. Kassam works in partnership with Native communities in the Alaskan, Canadian and Russian Arctic and Sub-Arctic; the Pamir Mountains in Afghanistan and Tajikistan; and the rainforest in the south of India.
Research: Dr. Kassam is interested in applied research that has immediate impact and is of relevance to communities. His research interests include: Arctic social science; Bio-cultural diversity; Circumpolar cultures and change; Climate change and its impacts; Community economic development; Gender analysis; Human ecology; Indigenous knowledge (ways of knowing); Indigenous land and marine use; Natural resource policy and management; Participatory action research; Social change in indigenous communities; and Social history of Muslim society Pluralism.
For more information visit Dr. Kassam's website.
Jane Mt. Pleasant (Tuscarora)
Associate Professor
Department of Horticulture
15-G Plant Science
Ithaca, New York 14853
Phone: (607) 255-4670
jm21@cornell.edu
Interest: Plant and human well-being; traditional and Iroquois agriculture; indigenous ecological knowledge.
Research: Dr. Mt. Pleasant’s research focuses on Indigenous cropping systems, plants, and human well-being. She lectures frequently on Indigenous agriculture and its links to contemporary agricultural sustainability, and is considered a national expert in Iroquois agriculture. Dr. Mt. Pleasant has been exploring Iroquois agriculture from a multi-disciplinary perspective that includes history, archaeology, paleobotany, and cultural /social anthropology in order to provide a critically needed bridge between scholars in the humanities and social sciences who work in Iroquois Studies.
For more information visit Dr. Mt. Pleasant’s website.
Paul Nadasdy
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
229 McGraw Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
Phone: (607) 255-4040
Fax: (607) 255-3747
E-mail: pn79@cornell.edu
Interests: My interests include the anthropology of North American Indians and the circumpolar North, the anthropology of science and knowledge, environmental/ecological anthropology, the relationship between indigenous peoples and the State, ethnography of the State, the politics of wildlife management, political economy, property and ownership, and the study of hunting societies
Research: I have been conducting ethnographic research in Canada's Yukon Territory since 1995, principally with the people of Kluane First Nation, the indigenous inhabitants of the southwest Yukon. My research has focused on the politics surrounding the production and use of environmental knowledge in wildlife management, land claim negotiations, and other political arenas. Currently, I am currently conducting a socio-cultural analysis of tripartite land claim negotiations among the governments of Canada, the Yukon Territory, and the Kluane First Nation.
Jon Parmenter
Assistant Professor
History Department
304 McGraw Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853
Phone: (607) 255-1876
Fax: (607) 255-0469
jwp35@cornell.edu
Interests: Early America, Native Americans, the Iroquois, Great Lakes Algonquians, indigenous governance, cross-cultural contacts and treaty rights
For more information visit Dr. Parmenter’s website.
Troy Richardson (Saponi/Tuscarora)
Assistant Professor
Department of Education
415 Kennedy Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853
Phone: (607) 254-4681
Fax: (607) 255-7905
tar37@cornell.edu
Interest: Dr. Richardson works in the area of philosophy of education, employing Continental and Indigenous philosophical traditions to the question of building more ethical and hospital relationships across cultural differences.
Research: Dr. Richardson’s primary research focus is in multi-cultural education, where he investigates the benefits and limitations of this educational programme and how it is being re-conceived by a variety of philosophers and theorists for the 21st century.
For more information visit Dr. Richardson's website.
Jolene Rickard (Tuscarora)
Associate Professor
History of Art / American Indian Studies/ Art department
G35 Goldwin Smith
Ithaca, New York 14853
Phone: (607) 255-0570
Fax: (607) 255-0566
Email: jkr33@cornell.edu
Interests: Theoretically engaged in issues relevant to post to neo coloniality.
Research: Dr. Rickard is concentrating on the aesthetic practice of First Nations and Indigenous peoples within a global context