▸ Honors, Accolades, and Milestones
Chief Little Raven descendants. Pictured (l-r): Montoya Whiteman, Rory Little Raven, Troy Little Raven, Dennis Little Raven
Montoya Whiteman was present at the dedication of Little Raven Park in Arvada, Colo., honoring Southern Arapaho Principal Chief Little Raven (c.1810–1889). A diplomat, leader, and peacemaker who guided his people during multiple displacements in the 1800s, Chief Little Raven is Whiteman’s great-great-grandfather. Whiteman is the AISES managing director of editorial and special projects.
Sequoyah Fellow Dr. Robert E. Megginson has retired from the University of Michigan, where he was an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and professor of mathematics. Among many honors, he received the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in STEM Mentoring and is represented in the book 100 Native Americans Who Shaped American History.
Yona Wade, winner of the 2019 Indigenous Excellence Award, has been appointed secretary of education and recreation for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. He is active in the Qualla Education Collaborative, which partners with AISES, and in May he was the subject of an extensive profile in The Daily Yonder.
Hailey Hoog, an Honors College Fellow and honors biomedical engineering major at the University of Arkansas, has won a prestigious Udall Foundation scholarship. She plans to attend medical school and work with the Indian Health Service.
A leader in the effort to decolonize programming at libraries and museums, Hillary Kempenich has been named a 2023 Bush Fellow. The St. Paul–based Bush Foundation recognizes leaders working to effect change in their communities.
PHOTOS: Courtesy of Brook Thompson; Courtesy of Anna Quinlan; Courtesy of Tocabe (Jacobs); COURTESY OF MONTOYA WHITEMAN (LITTLE RAVEN PARK)
The Q-AISES team at Queen’s University in Ontario scored the highest at the 14th annual First Nations Launch Mars Engineering Challenge, an opportunity provided by NASA’s Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium. For the grand prize, the winning rocket scientists were treated to a VIP tour of the NASA Kennedy Space Center. Melanie Howard is the team advisor. The National Rocket Competition is open to students who are members of an active AISES College Chapter or who attend a tribal college or university (TCU) or a Native American–serving nontribal institution (NASNTI).
Region 7 is celebrating the success of its conference, which broke attendance records with 250 participants. The event, held at Robeson Community College, raised $45,000 and provided an endowment for scholarships for future AISES students at RCC, as well as eight scholarships for students at the conference and donations to the University of North Carolina at Pembroke College Chapter and the North Carolina Professional Chapter.
The AISES Circle of Support Program acknowledges the generous investment of partners whose support is integral to the AISES mission. Circle Partners are organizations that established a multiprogram partnership with AISES in 2022. We wish to thank each of our Circle Partners for their continued efforts to serve AISES student and professional members.