Several AISES members and staff attended the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Portland, Ore., including Dr. Kathy DeerInWater, Sky Wildcat, Dr. Lydia Jennings, Ciarra Green, Jocelyn Painter, Dr. Clint Carroll, and Dr. Melinda Adams.
Dr. Crystal Tulley-Cordova was interviewed for a July 18 PBS NewsHour story on Indigenous water rights. She is the winner of the 2021 Professional of the Year Award and principal hydrologist for the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources.
Aaron Yazzie participated in a panel discussion following a September preview of “New Worlds,” the first episode of season two of the PBS docuseries Native America. The event was held at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles.
Dr. Kelsea Kanoho Hosoda was profiled in the University of Hawai’i at Manoa News. An alumna of UH, Dr. Hosoda was recently awarded a K99 Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers (MOSAIC) grant from the National Institutes of Health, which will help support her current post-doc work at the University of California, San Francisco, and move her closer to her goal of returning to UH as a faculty member.
Johann Weber’s work with Bricks for All, a nonprofit he founded to provide Lego kits to elementary school students, was profiled in an article in the Cherokee Phoenix. A high school sophomore, Weber distributed kits last spring in Oklahoma with a goal of introducing engineering skills through play.
AISES Board of Directors secretary Kristina Halona was a guest commentator on NASA TV, discussing the August launch of the NG-19 mission. Halona and her team at Northrop Grumman work on the Antares Program, which delivers cargo via the Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station.
AISES co-founder Jerry Elliott High Eagle is the subject of a new biography for children from the Cherry Lake Publishing Group. As a retrofire officer at NASA’s Flight Mission Control Center, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his role in the safe return of the Apollo 13 mission.
A profile of the late Dr. Floy Agnes Lee was included in the Business Insider article “The Women behind the Manhattan Project that Nolan’s New Film ‘Oppenheimer’ Completely Ignored.” As a hemotologist she monitored the health of the scientists at Los Alamos and went on to earn a doctorate and study the effects of radiation on chromosomes. For more on Dr. Lee, see the Spring 2022 issue of Winds of Change.
Katsistohkwineh Chrissy S. Benedict is the first graduate of Clarkson University to wear traditional regalia to the commencement ceremony, where a Haudenosaunee flag was displayed on the stage. She was instrumental in reactivating the AISES College Chapter at Clarkson and plans to complete a master’s in social work at SUNY Plattsburgh to serve her Akwesasne community.
Jason Baldes, who manages the bison herd on the Wind River Indian Reservation, was interviewed for the New York Times article “Bison Return to Native American Lands, Revitalizing Sacred Rituals.” For more on Baldes, see the Fall 2017 issue of Winds of Change.
Former AISES Board member Deanna Burgart is a program co-manager of IndigeSTEAM, a Canadian nonprofit that connects Indigenous youth with science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math. IndigeSTEAM was featured on a CBC radio program in June as part of the network’s observance of Canada’s Indigenous History Month.
Devon Parfait was interviewed for a PBS special report on how tribes in coastal Louisiana are dealing with erosion and the rapidly rising ocean. Parfait, who earned a degree in geosciences at Williams College, is the tribal chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha Choctaw. For more on Parfait, see the Summer 2021 issue of Winds of Change.
Chevaun Toulouse was featured in the Canadian Indigenous lifestyle publication SAY Magazine in an article titled “From the Swamp to the Great Lakes, Chevaun Toulouse Brings Indigenous Perspective to Conservation.” The piece described her role as a conservationist working with First Nations communities.
Photos by Gina Manning (Yazzie) and Brad Wakoff (Parfait)
Courtesy of Northeastern State University special Collections and Archives
Living Legacy:Mary Golda Ross
This column celebrates pioneering Indigenous people in STEM who helped establish a heritage of accomplishment, perseverance, and service. This issue spotlights Mary Golda Ross, the first Indigenous aerospace engineer, 1908–2008
An early supporter of the AISES mission, Mary Golda Ross grew up near Tahlequah, Okla. She was the great-great-granddaughter of John Ross, the “Moses of his people,” who was the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation during the Trail of Tears. Ross was well-grounded in Cherokee history and culture, especially the legacy of traditional knowledge in science and math. She majored in math at what was then Northeastern State Teacher’s College, then spent a decade teaching math and science before finishing graduate work in math. With the acute need for skilled mathematicians during World War II, she joined Lockheed Aircraft Corporation as a mathematical research assistant. There she was part of the top-secret Advanced Development Projects group, unofficially known as the “Skunk Works,” where she worked on designs for fighter planes and specialized in aerodynamics. She completed a degree in aeronautical engineering and qualified as a professional engineer in 1949 — the first known Indigenous woman engineer. During the Cold War she remained at Lockheed working for the Missiles and Space division, making lasting contributions to the U.S. aerospace industry — much of it still classified. Ross was a persistent advocate for education, especially for women and Indigenous people in engineering, and Native engineering students continue to be inspired by her story.