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➜ AISES CEO Sarah EchoHawk was the closing keynote speaker at the January 2019 Tech Intersections: Womxn of Color in Tech Conference in Oakland, Calif. She spoke to the need for increased representation for women in fast-growing tech fields, where they make up less than 20 percent of the workforce. In February she was on a panel at the national convocation of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that focused on minority-serving institutions and STEM workforce preparation.
➜ AISES founding member J.C. Elliott High Eagle will give a solo guitar performance of his compositions, including “Malaguena Nueva,” his own adaptation and arrangement of the 1928 work “Malaguena” by Ernesto Lecuona. The concert date is May 4 in Maricopa, Calif. He was also interviewed by the classical music radio station KUCO in Oklahoma City.
➜ Former AISES executive director and former Board of Directors member Sandra Begay has been appointed by the mayor to serve as executive director of Environmental Health for the City of Albuquerque, a role that assumes responsibility for municipal public health as well as health of the environment. She has also been nominated by the governor of New Mexico to rejoin the Board of Regents of the University of New Mexico, where she had previously served. Begay, a lifetime AISES member who holds an MS in structural engineering from Stanford University, was previously a principal member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M. Among her achievements has been an effort to provide electricity from alternative sources to remote areas of the Navajo Nation; and among her many honors is the Ely S. Parker Award, the highest AISES distinction.
➜ Traditional Hopi pottery by AISES founding member and Sequoyah Fellow Al Qöyawayma was exhibited in February at the King Galleries in Scottsdale, Ariz., and in March at the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market in Phoenix. His most recent awards include “Best of Pottery” at both the 2016 Santa Fe Indian Market and the 2017 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market.
➜ John-David Lancaster was the subject of a profile article in the Bartlesville, Okla., Examiner-Enterprise. The story mentioned that Lancaster has landed his dream internship at Intel thanks to connecting with a company recruiter at the AISES National Conference. Lancaster is a sophomore electrical engineering major at the University of Arkansas, where he is a member of the AISES College Chapter.
➜ An interview with former AISES deputy director and Board of Directors chair Dr. Robert Whitman was published in the Bridge, a publication of the University of Denver, where Whitman is a longtime faculty member and teaching professor in the Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science. Among other topics, he discussed his work at AT&T in the 1990s, where he developed a Navajo language text-to-speech synthesizer, the first software to recognize a Native language.
➜ Climate scientist Dr. Roger S. Pulwarty became a new Sequoyah Fellow at the 2018 AISES National Conference. He is the senior science advisor for climate and the director of the National Integrated Drought Information System at NOAA’s Office of Oceans and Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
➜ AISES Council of Elders member Dr. Henrietta Mann gave a presentation in February at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in Eads, Colo. Part of a series examining Native and non-Native perspectives on the historical context of Sand Creek, Dr. Mann’s presentation was offered to the public as well as to National Park Service employees who staff the site. Dr. Mann was also quoted in Creating Visibility and Healthy Learning Environments for Native Americans in Higher Education, a new report issued by the American Indian College Fund.
➜ Dr. Patricia Nez Henderson, the first Native American woman to graduate from the Yale School of Medicine, discussed her work promoting wellness in Native communities last fall as part of the President’s Women of Yale lecture series. Dr. Henderson, who currently serves as vice president of the Black Hills Center for American Indian Health, also earned an MPH at Yale, and her efforts as an activist for Native American health were recognized with the 2017 AISES Ely S. Parker Award.
➜ The Columbia River Professional Chapter in Richland, Wash., sponsored an arts, crafts, and culture event at the Richland Public Library in November.
➜ The College Chapter at Vanderbilt University (VAISES) co-presented the annual Art of Resistance event showcasing Native American performance through song, dance, poetry, and storytelling as part of the school’s celebration of National Native American Heritage Month.
➜ The University of Wisconsin–Madison College Chapter was part of the planning leadership for Native November, a series of events marking the campus observance of National Native American Heritage Month.
➜ As part of the school’s observance of National Native American Heritage Month last November, the College Chapter at Colorado State University hosted the 36th annual CSU AISES Powwow.
➜ The College Chapter at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla., took part in last fall’s “welcome back” event sponsored by the school’s Center for Tribal Studies and Native American Support Center.
➜ The annual Falling Leaves Moon Powwow at Michigan Technological University was hosted by the AISES College Chapter last October. Chapter president Ron Kyllonen, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, reports that more than 500 people came to enjoy the traditional dancing, foods, and crafts vendors.
➜ The College Chapter at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is working with school administrators to officially change MIT’s calendar observance of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. MIT’s hometown of Cambridge, Mass., as well as surrounding communities of Boston, Brookline, and Somerville have all officially changed the name of the holiday. MIT libraries, which keep their own calendars, now observe Indigenous Peoples Day as well.
➜ The Oklahoma Professional Chapter elected the following new officers in 2018: president, Dr. Cara Cowan Watts; vice president, Chrystal Antao; secretary, Melissa Sturdivant; treasurer, Dr. Carol Crouch; and parliamentarian, Lynnetta Eyachabbe.
