TRIBAL WATER QUALITY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe
Autumn Harry is a member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe in Northern Nevada studying Geography with an emphasis on Indigenous mapping at the University of Nevada, Reno. Autumn has worked within Indigenous communities - learning about how climate change affects cultural and natural resources. Recently, Autumn has been involved in organizing actions such as the Reno Women's March, bringing awareness to the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the importance of preserving water in Nevada.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan
is George Willis Pack Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. The following web pages have more information about Kyle's current work and courses. Previously, Kyle was Professor of Philosophy and Community Sustainability and Timnick Chair at Michigan State University. Kyle's research addresses moral and political issues concerning climate policy and Indigenous peoples, the ethics of cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and science organizations, and problems of Indigenous justice in public and academic discussions of food sovereignty, environmental justice, and the anthropocene. He is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Kyle has partnered with numerous Tribes, First Nations and inter-Indigenous organizations in the Great Lakes region and beyond on climate change planning, education and policy. He is involved in projects and organizations that advance Indigenous research methodologies, including the Climate and Traditional Knowledges Workgroup, Sustainable Development Institute of the College of Menominee Nation, Tribal Climate Camp, and Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga. He has served as an author on reports by the U.S. Global Change Research Program and is former member of the U.S. Federal Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science and the Michigan Environmental Justice Work Group. Kyle's work has received the Bunyan Bryant Award for Academic Excellence from Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, MSU's Distinguished Partnership and Engaged Scholarship awards, and grants from the National Science Foundation.
Kate A. Berry received her Ph.D. in Geography in 1993 from the University of Colorado, Boulder and is currently is a Professor of Geography at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her expertise lies in the fields of environmental governance, water conflict transformation, and identity studies, with a focus on indigeneity. She has authored or co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications. She has also served as the President of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, was the Director of the University of Nevada, Reno's Core Curriculum, and was the Chair of an international panel that advises the Dutch scientific agency, NWO, on research funding related to environmental governance in developing countries - the CoCooN and CCMCC Programmes.
Kristin Green is a Ph.D. student at the University of Idaho working with Dr. Teresa Cavazos Cohn. She earned a master's degree in Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Policy from the University of Denver. Prior to graduate school, Kristin worked as a lobbyist and policy advocate in Colorado. She was involved in passage of state legislation to increase water quality protections from adverse hardrock mining impacts and legislation establishing funding to test for lead in schools. Kristin's research focuses on respecting Tribal governance and self-determination in federal natural resource planning processes and policy.
Job Titles:
- Water Quality Program Coordinator With the Nez Perce Tribe 's Water Resources Division
Sierra Higheagle is a Water Quality Program Coordinator with the Nez Perce Tribe's Water Resources Division, and a citizen of the Nez Perce Tribe. Sierra completed her M.S. in 2020 at the University of Idaho focusing on tribal water quality governance and the development of an online GIS and ESRI story map depicting areas of water quality importance to Nimiipuu people across the Pacific Northwest. She currently works on water quality sampling on over 14 tributaries of the Clearwater River and creating restoration projects that aid in the reduction of nonpoint source pollution, among other things. She has also been investigating the Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), occurring more and more frequently, around the Nez Perce Reservation and sampling for the toxins HABs produce. She is an advocate for clean water and a voice when decisions are being made that impact water in a negative way.
Teresa Cavazos Cohn is an Associate Professor in the University of New Hampshire's Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, a climate change fellow at the Harvard Divinity School, and a co-founder of the Confluence Lab, which brings together scholars in the humanities and sciences with community members to engage in environmental issues in rural communities. Dr. Cohn is a human geographer who specializes in hydrosocial relations with emphasis on Tribes of the Western United States, human dimensions of fire, and science communication and the environment. Her research and outreach projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA and Milkweed Press.