Recent Dissertations in Related Fields

The University of Minnesota has a tradition of training students in the field. UMN has produced perhaps more PhDs working in AIIS than any institution in the world. Since 1995, at least 79 students have graduated with PhDs across a range of disciplines whose work wholly or substantially falls into the field of American Indian and Indigenous studies, having been advised by our core and affiliated faculty.

Visit our Placements page for more detailed information on the careers alumni have pursued.

Kaylen James (Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska)

"Fame, Technology, and New Media: The Technologies and Anxieties of Settler Colonialism"

Department: American Studies
Placement: Charles A. Eastman Postdoctoral Fellow, Dartmouth College
Advisor: Jean O'Brien

Jayne Kinney

“’The Heart of the Nation’: The Roles of Female Leadership in Mandan and Hidatsa Resistance and Resilience”

Department: History
Placement: College Possible
Advisors: Jean O’Brien and David Chang

E Ornelas

"Speculating Abolition: Alternative Models of Redress in Black and Indigenous Feminist Speculative Fiction"

Department: Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies
Placement: Assistant Professor, Dartmouth College
Advisors: Aren Aizura and Jigna Desai

Catherine ʻĪmaikalani Ulep (Kanaka Maoli)

“Makaʻāinana Wāhine: Clothing, Power, and the Sex-for-Gods Trade in Nineteenth-Century Hawai‘i”

Department: History
Placement Assistant Professor, Whitman College
Advisor: David Chang

Amber Annis (Cheyenne River Sioux)

“’The use of your reservation is important’: The Militarization and Exploitation of Lakota Land and Lakota Sovereignty of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe”

Department: American Studies
Placement: Director, Native American Initiatives, Minnesota Historical Society
Advisors: Jean O’Brien and Kevin Murphy

Adrian V. Chavana

“Reclaiming Tribal Identity in the Land of the Spirit Waters: The Tāp Pīlam Coahuiltecan Nation”

Department: History
Placement: Assistant Professor, Department of History, Texas A&M University
Advisor: David Chang

Caroline Doenmez

“The Medicine We Carry: Indigenous Women’s Arts of Creation, Care, and Birthing Sovereignty along the Red River”

Department: Anthropology
Placement: Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University
Advisors: Hoon Song and Jean O’Brien

Sarah Pawlicki

“’I Hear That God Saith Work’: Mortality and Labor in Massachusetts, 1619-1680”

Department: History
Placement: National Historic Landmarks Women’s History Postdoctoral Fellow
Advisors: Jean O’Brien and Katharine Gerbner

Kristi Rudelius-Palmer

“Stories as Theories: Illuminating Human Rights Education through the Narratives of Human Rights Educators”

Department: Comparative International Development Education
Placement: Fulbright Specialist, The Fulbright Program
Advisor: Elizabeth Sumida Huaman

Jason Herbert

“Beast of Many Names: Cattle, Conflict, and the Transformation of Indigenous Florida, 1519-1858”

Department: History
Placement: National Park Service
Advisors: David Chang and Katharine Gerbner

Hana Maruyama

“What Remains: Japanese American World War II Incarceration in Relation to American Indian Dispossession”

Department: American Studies
Placement: Department of History, University of Connecticut
Advisors: Juliana Hu Pegues and Erika Lee

Elan Pochedley (Citizen Potawatomi Nation)

“Neshnabé Ethics and Innovations: Intergenerational Expressions of Reciprocity between the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and their Other-Than-Human Relatives”

Department: Anthropology
Placement: Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, Michigan State University
Advisors: Hoon Song and Jean O’Brien

Macey Flood

“Simple Medicines: Land, Health, and Power in the 19th-Century Ojibwe Western Great Lakes”

Department: History of Medicine
Placement: Visiting Scholar, Institute of Bioethics & Health Humanities, UTBM, Galveston
Advisors: Jennifer Gunn and Dominique Tobbell

Kai Pyle (Métis)

“Folks Like Us: Anishinaabe Two-Spirit Kinship and Memory Across Time and Space”

Department: American Studies
Placement: Assistant Professor, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Advisors: Jean O’Brien and Juliana Hu Pegues

John Little (Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota)

“Vietnam Akichita: Redeploying Lakota and Dakota Tradition in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries”

Department: History
Placement: Director, Native Recruitment and Alumni Engagement, University of South Dakota
Advisor: Jean O’Brien

Sasha Suarez (White Earth Ojibwe)

“Gakaabikaang: White Earth Ojibwe Women and the Creation of Indian Minneapolis in the Twentieth Century”

Department: American Studies
Placement: Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Advisors: Jean O’Brien and Brenda Child

Joseph Whitson

“#Explore: Outdoor Retailers, Social Media, and Assaults on Indigenous Sovereignty in the Contemporary United States”

Department: American Studies
Placement: Content Creator/Marketer
Advisors: Jean O’Brien and Kevin Murphy