Kim TallBear

Kim TallBear, author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science (2013), is a newly appointed Professor in the Department of American Indian Studies, University of Minnesota. From 2015-2025, she was Professor in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta and a Canada Research Chair. She has also been a faculty member in anthropology at the University of Texas; Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at University of California Berkeley; and American Indian Studies at Arizona State University. She is a co-founder of the Summer internship for INdigenous peoples in Genomics (SING) Canada and was a founding faculty member of SING USA. In the summer of 2025, she was a faculty member for the newly launched SING Sábme in Julevu/Luleju/Luleå, Sweden and in the Gällivare Forest Sámi territories.

In addition to studying genome science disruptions to Indigenous self-definitions and the colonial contexts of genomic and other physical sciences, Dr. TallBear works to help train Indigenous people in Indigenous and anti-colonial sciences, ethics, and policy practices. Dr. TallBear studies a second major colonial disruption to Indigenous forms of relating, that is to sexual formations and practices. She also studies and promotes Indigenous scientific and cultural challenges to settler-colonial study and objectification of Indigenous populations. Finally, TallBear’s research and public intellectual work include researching and organizing against the widespread phenomenon in US and Canadian society of self-indigenization, more colloquially known as “pretendianism.”

Dr. TallBear has published research, policy, review, and opinion articles on a variety of issues related to science, technology, environment, sexualities, and Indigenous peoples in academic and popular journals including Wicazo Sa Review; American Indian Culture and Research Journal (AICRJ); Social Studies of Science; Science, Technology, and Human Values (ST&HV); Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Journal of Research Practice, Indian Country Today, Buzzfeed, and High Country News, as well as in edited volumes published by the University of Chicago Press, Routledge, and University of Washington Press. She is widely quoted by media, including Los Angeles Times, New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, CBC, the Aboriginal Peoples’ Television, Network, and The Rolling Stone, for stories covering the variety of topics she studies.

As a creative non-fiction writer and sometimes performer, Dr. TallBear co-founded in 2015 the sexy storytelling and cabaret show, Tipi Confessions, with McMaster University professor Dr. Savage Bear (Nehiyaw’iskwew from Montreal Lake Cree Nation) and University of Alberta Faculty of Native Studies PhD student, Kirsten Lindquist (citizen, Métis Nation of Alberta). Tipi Confessions is an offshoot of the popular former Austin, Texas show, Bedpost Confessions. After seeing the success of the Tipi Confessions show in Edmonton and across Canada, TallBear, Bear, and Lindquist founded a research-creation group in which faculty, students, and community members produce arts-based research and performance. Tipi Confessions and associated research programs are now co-produced and lead by Kirsten Lindquist and her fellow University of Alberta Faculty of Native Studies student, Brittany Johnson (member, Beaver First Nation) with occasional participation by Drs. Bear and TallBear. Dr. TallBear occasionally co-produces a related show for science symposia, Sexy Science Confessions that mixes themes related to sex and science.

Kim TallBear is a citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in present-day South Dakota through her mother’s mother’s line and was formerly enrolled in the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, where her maternal grandfather was enrolled. Dr. TallBear was also raised in Flandreau, South Dakota with relatives in the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe and in Minneapolis and St. Paul, where her mother worked for many urban Native organizations. In addition to the aforementioned tribal nations, TallBear has ancestry among Cree, Métis, and Anishinaabe Peoples. But since ancestry alone is not a claim, she would never assert that she is more than a distant relative to individuals among those Peoples. She was grateful to live for ten years previously in amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton), Treaty 6 territory, a traditional gathering place for diverse Indigenous peoples including Cree, Blackfoot, Métis, Nakota Sioux, Iroquois, Dene, Ojibway/ Saulteaux/Anishinaabe, Inuit, and many others. She is happy to have returned home to Dakota traditional territory in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

You can read Kim TallBear's regular essays and audio/video posts on her Substack newsletter, Unsettle: Indigenous affairs, cultural politics & (de)colonization.