John Norder (Anthropology)has teaching and research interests in Native American ethnohistory and archaeology that focuses on Upper Great Lakes/Sub-Arctic hunting and gathering societies. His topical areas of specialization include: landscape archaeology, Woodland period archaeology, hunter-gatherer research, rock-art studies, religion and ritual, public and applied archaeology. His doctoral thesis and current research has examine the role of pictographic rock-art in the construction of social and sacred landscapes among northern Algonquian communities in northeastern Ontario. As part of this project, he works with contemporary indigenous communities in the region examining the status of traditional land tenure practices and landscape knowledge. His work and other interests in public and applied archaeology look at issues of cultural heritage management among indigenous communities in North America, pedagogical approaches to teaching indigenous culture and archaeology in the classroom, and the globalization of archaeology in the 21st century.

Rocio Quispe-Agnoli (Spanish and Portuguese) Rocío Quispe-Agnoli is currently Associate Professor of Colonial and Postcolonial Latin American Studies at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at MSU, and the Acting Director of the Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities. She is also Core Faculty of CLACS and WID.She is a native Peruvian. Her last name “Quispe” derives from Quechua “Qespi” and means “reflection, crystal, mirror.” She has published La fe indígena en la escritura: resistencia e identidad en la obra de Guaman Poma de Ayal ((The Andean Faith in the Script: Resistance and Identity in Guaman Poma de Ayala’s Works. Lima: Universidad de San Marcos Press, 2006). This book has received many engaging reviews and has led her to public presentations/interviews in Peru’s NPR and TV. Professor Quispe-Agnoli keeps a very active research agenda with many articles published in diverse journals in the US, Latin America, Europe and Asia. She has edited a special issue of Cuaderno Internacional de Estudios Hispánicos y Lingüística entitled “Beyond the Convent: Colonial Women’s Voices and Daily Challenges in Spanish America” (2006). She currently leads a project to design a Summer Institute on representations of Latin America in the US textbooks for K-12 teachers, and lately she has been invited to give lectures on colonizing and postcolonial readings of Latin American native-ness (San Francisco State, University of Nevada, San Jose State. and Duke University).

Jodie O'Gorman is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Michigan State University and Assistant Curator of Anthropology at the MSU Museum. Dr. O’Gorman has conducted archaeological research in the mid-continental U.S. with a focus on late prehistory in the Great Lakes region. Her current research interests deal with Upper Mississippian adaptations and interactions in the Great Lakes and Mid-continent, the early fur trade in the Upper Great Lakes, gender and community studies. She is actively involved in archaeological resource management and conducts field schools and public outreach in the Great Lakes region.

Bill Penn (English) is a professor of Creative Writing here at MSU. Dr. Penn is a novelist, and has written and edited numerous books and essays, including As We Are Now: Mixblood Essays on Race and Identity; The Telling of the World: Native American Stories and Art; and Killing Time With Strangers. In 2003, Dr. Penn won a Michigan State University Distinguished Faculty Award. Dr. Penn is also one of the founding members of the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers.

Malea Powell (Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures) is a mixed-blood of Indiana Miami, Eastern Shawnee, and Euroamerican ancestry.  She is an Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric and American Culture at Michigan State University where she directs the graduate program in Rhetoric & Writing.  As a faculty member of both the Writing & Rhetoric program and the American Indian Studies program, she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in writing, rhetoric, critical theory, material rhetorics and American Indian rhetorics.  Her published research focuses on examining the rhetorics of survivance used by 19th century American Indian intellectuals, and has appeared in such venues as CCCC, Paradoxa, Race, Rhetoric & Composition, AltDis, and other essay collections. Her current project investigates the material rhetorics used by American Indian "makers" of baskets, beadwork, ribbonwork, quillwork and writing. She is the outgoing editor of SAIL: Studies in American Indian Literatures, a quarterly journal devoted to the study of American Indian writing, and is the Assistant National Director of the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers & Storytellers.

Alison Rautman (Anthropology) Visiting Associate Professor and Associate Chair, specializes in the archaeology of the American Southwest. Her research focuses on the economic and social changes associated with the transition from foraging to farming that occurred from about A.D. 900 to 1350 among people living in what is now central New Mexico. Her current work examines how villages were organized--economically, politically, and socially-- among the ancestral Puebloan Indians. She has received research grants from the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, The National Geographic Society, the USDA Forest Service, and the American Philosophical Society, and has held a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Association of University Women. Dr. Rautman also has an interest in geology and its application to the field of archaeology. She has studied archaeological site formation at various sites in Germany and the USA, and has done a number of petrographic studies of ceramics from archaeological sites in Bolivia, Israel, Egypt, and India, in collaboration with others. She serves as Associate Chair in the Department of Anthropology at MSU and enjoys teaching general anthropological and archaeological method and theory, economic anthropology, and biocultural evolution.

Helen Roy (Linguistics and Languages) is a tribal member of the Wikwemikong First Nations Band, Canada’s only unceded Indian Reservation on Manitoulin Island in Ontario. Despite the residential (boarding) school system and the prohibition of Native Languages, Helen Roy has maintained Ojibwe as her first language. Helen has worked for the Lansing School District as a Language specialist, taught at Central Michigan Univeristy,Western Michigan University, and at Bay Mills Community College. Helen currently teaches Ojibwe Language courses on and off campus, while organizing Anishnabemowin events such as the Ojibwe Language Quiz Bowl and Anishinaabemowin Pow Wow which combine community and the university around the importance of language maintenance and revitalization. Additionally, Helen is one half of the duet Diiva miinwa Davis, which performs pop songs translated into Anishinaabemowin. This is another way in which Helen works to revitalize the language. This year's Language Quiz Bowl and Anishinaabemowin Pow Wow will be held February 22-23 at the Residential College for the Arts and Humanities at MSU.

Denise Saint Arnault (Nursing) research interests include: Japanese & Native American Women’s Mental Health and Cross-Cultural Mental Health. International health is of interest importance  to Saint Arnault because “whether we work abroad or in the U.S., we are continually challenged to understand the variety of factors that shape illness experiences and how we try to regain health. Traditionally, the health disciplines have focused on beliefs and values, while overlooking the importance of power, economics and behavior in culture and health. Finally, I want to contribute to the development of cultural competence in American health care practitioners of all disciplines.”

Le Anne E. Silvey is a member of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians and is a first generation college graduate. She received her BS from Eastern Michigan University, an MSW from Western Michigan University, and her Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Her research interests are in the area of American Indian women and human development, ethnic/diverse families, and cross cultural practices. She recently published Ordinal Position and Role Development of the Firstborn American Indian Daughter Within Her Family of Origin, based on a qualitative study of 5 American Indian middle aged women. Dr. Silvey also served as a McNair/SROP Scholar mentor to an AISP student whose research focuses on the Indian Child Welfare Act and American Indian adoptees. Dr. Silvey is on the faculty of the department of Family and Child Ecology.

Wenona Singel is an enrolled member of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, an appellate judge for the Little Traverse Bay Bands Appellate Court and assistant professor at Michigan State University College of Law and Associate Director of the Indigenous Law Program.  She is also Of Counsel with Kanji & Katzen, PLLC. In her time with Kanji & Katzen, Singel served as general counsel to the tribally-owned Grand Traverse Resort, participated in the Indian gaming litigation of Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians v. U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan, negotiated a tribal-state omnibus tax agreement and performed land claims research. Professor Singel has taught Federal Indian Law, Advanced Topics in Indian Law, Natural Resources Law and an experiential learning class in which students complete research and writing assignments for tribal governments and judiciaries.  Her recent publications include "Labor Relations and Tribal Self Governance," published in the North Dakota Law Review in 2004, "Power, Authority and Tribal Property" co-authored with Matthew L.M. Fletcher and published in the Tulsa Law Review in 2005, and "Cultural Sovereignty and Transplanted Law:  Tensions in Indigenous Self-Rule," forthcoming in the Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy. 

Susan Sleeper-Smith (History) Susan Sleeper-Smith is an Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University. She received a 2002-2003 research fellowship at the Newberry Library in Chicago Teaching interests include18th and 19th century U.S. History, Native American History and Women's History. Sleeper-Smith has several recent publications on First Nations peoples and the fur trade in the Great Lakes areas and elsewhere. Her book Indian Women and French men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes, published in 2002 in paper and hardcover, has gone into its third printing.

2008-09 AISP Pre-Doctoral Fellow:

Cristina Stanciu