photo by aaron Atcitty
Dr. Stan Atcitty, Diné, has a record of tremendous technical success and remarkable achievements as a leader. His ability to cultivate and maintain relationships is paramount to his success. Whether he is presenting to a packed gymnasium at his high school alma mater in Shiprock, N.M., or coaching junior staff members on his team, Dr. Atcitty is energized by finding ways to build people up.
At Sandia National Laboratories, Dr. Atcitty leads over a dozen power electronics research and development projects as part of the Department of Energy’s Energy Storage Power Electronics Program. Additionally, he helps secure funding and helps maintain a partnership with Navajo Technical University and other tribal colleges and universities (TCUs). Under this partnership, Dr. Atcitty mentors Indigenous students and hires TCU students as summer interns.
Within the last year, Dr. Atcitty was both elevated to senior scientist at Sandia and named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a global organization that grants this honor to only 0.1 percent of its voting members each year after an extensive evaluation process.
Dr. Atcitty has also expressed his commitment to “changing lives one person at a time” because, he says, when you change the trajectory of a single person, you also change the trajectory of a community.
Dr. Atcitty has over 70 publications and holds four patents, with another three pending. He was also recognized by AISES in 2007 with the Technical Excellence Award for his community involvement and technical achievement. In 2012, President Barack Obama presented him with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
A decade after getting his PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Virginia Tech, Dr. Atcitty returned to give the keynote address at the 2016 graduate school commencement. Leading up to that event, Dr. Atcitty said, “Inspiring and encouraging students is my passion — that’s where my heart is.”
Dr. Atcitty has also expressed his commitment to “changing lives one person at a time” because, he says, when you change the trajectory of a single person, you also change the trajectory of a community. As his mentees and students pursue their professional and educational goals, those possibilities become more realistic for others. “It has a ripple effect,” he explains. This is Dr. Atcitty’s focus in his work and in his personal life: building up others so they can accomplish their goals and enhance their communities.
In practice, this “building up” might be weekly conversations or encouragement to accept an internship opportunity for a student who might think they’re unqualified. Or it might be investing quality time with a student thinking about quitting. Being there for someone else can look simple, but the impact can be profound.
During his motivational presentations to a group of students or young professionals, Dr. Atcitty might draw a jagged line on a white board that shows how life will have highs and lows. He advises his listeners not to travel those mountains and valleys alone and encourages them to reach out to relatives or to him. Advisors, faculty members, and others also often want to help. In his work as a mentor, Dr. Atcitty demonstrates that he is their “number one fan.”
In his professional life, Dr. Atcitty is optimistic about progress in his discipline. In response to his recent recognition from IEEE, Dr. Atcitty noted how the work of its members would “allow us to further enhance power electronics research and development for energy storage systems in the nation and throughout the world.” In addition, and in the spirit of “building up,” he noted that his IEEE recognition also “allows me to take some of my national and international influence to increase tribal energy sovereignty, enabling tribes to become more self-determinate nations.”
Dr. Atcitty modestly characterizes himself as a “typical Native dude who grew up on the rez, likes to eat mutton, and speaks the language.” This “typical Native dude” is also a genuinely kind person who focuses on putting others first and knows his words have power. As Dr. Atcitty observes, building each other up is what life is all about.
— Kyle Coulon
Unlike many other tribal communities, the Diné (or Navajo) people do not typically live in villages. Instead, agricultural practices and limited grazing land have encouraged them to band together in small groups, usually near water, dispersed across the vast Navajo Nation.
photo by Ty Lloyd, courtesy of Sarah Gauthier
A profound connection to the beautiful boreal forests and freshwater lakes of her Lac La Ronge Woodland Cree homelands has guided Sarah Gauthier’s journey from microbiology studies to a successful career in water resources engineering, teaching, and mentoring.
Returning to her University of Saskatchewan alma mater as a STEM coach within the Indigenous Student Achievement Pathways (ISAP) program, Gauthier is also pursuing a PhD in public policy, addressing environmental issues from a larger lens to create meaningful change in First Nations communities. “I went from studying tiny microbes to getting a broader and broader view of problems and solutions,” Gauthier says. “I was longing for more meaning in the work that I was doing, to see the bigger picture.”
With Nîhithaw (Woodland Cree) and French-Scottish ancestry, Gauthier grew up in a small Indigenous community adjacent to the reserve because her mother had lost her Native status by marrying her non-Indigenous father. Her mother — the oldest of 10 children raised by parents who lived off the land and spoke predominantly Cree — modeled trailblazing independence that was an inspiration to Gauthier.
As her grandparents’ home on the reserve had no running water until 1996, Gauthier remembers her grandfather’s meat harvests boiling on the stove and her grandmother filling a huge potable water pail in the kitchen. Gauthier recognized her family’s relative privilege and said growing up in a mixed-race household has helped her navigate the “dance between different cultures” in the workplace.
Along with her two bachelor's degrees — in microbiology and civil engineering — Gauthier became the first Lac La Ronge band member to earn a master’s degree in civil engineering.
In high school Gauthier won a regional science fair that took her to a prestigious national competition. That success inspired her to study microbiology with an interest in veterinary medicine. But during summer jobs at a northern mine, Gauthier realized she much preferred the outdoors to laboratory work and observed that the “boss jobs" went to engineers. “A degree in the biosciences coupled with an engineering degree is a really good match,” asserts Gauthier. “In any courses that are water or soil related, there's a lot of microbiology as well.”
Along with her two bachelor’s degrees — in microbiology and civil engineering — Gauthier became the first Lac La Ronge band member to earn a master’s degree in civil engineering. Before accepting an offer to return to the university in a teaching capacity, Gauthier worked in industry for 14 years as co-founder of engineering consulting firm Missinipi Water Solutions and several high-level corporate and board member positions.
Gauthier takes a pragmatic approach to the mining industry that first brought her father to the region and has been a frequent source of employment for herself and family members. While she recognizes that resource extraction can only be reduced by limiting our society’s consumption dependencies, she’s also adamant that any potential development must first be accepted by the people who have lived on the land since time immemorial.
She was drawn toward a PhD program at the university partly because of her anger at a proposed project near her home community that lacked such consultation. Affirming that “decolonization starts with self,” Gauthier recalls first wrestling with industry’s hidden costs on the shores of a pristine lake in the province’s far north that had been slated for a tailings management facility of a proposed mine exploration site. “We had finished surveying the lake and the stream flowing out, and I started to feel this pull,” Gauthier shares. “I started questioning whether I was on the right side of things. What happens to the animals or people who use this water?”
Having children has brought new gravity to residential school realities that have increasingly come to light in Canadian society and in her own family. It’s also fueled a growing responsibility to give back to her community, the biggest financial supporter of her academic journey.
As Gauthier mentors a new generation of Indigenous STEM leaders, she admits that she had suppressed her cultural connection under pressure to conform and succeed at her university. She now believes the deep depression she suffered during her third year resulted from missing the land and her community’s Cree humor.
An Indigenous advisor who knew her family was a lifeline during this time and continues to be an influential presence through weekly Cree language lessons. Expanding Cree language and values in her life has extended to her PhD research, which recently took her to the AISES in Canada National Gathering for a presentation about living in harmony together and industry’s duty to consult.
“Community consultation needs to be grounded in relationship,” Gauthier insists. “Our values can provide a framework for things like environmental policy. When you see everything as having spirit or relationship with each other, that’s very different from approaching a mineral deposit as just monetary value to extract.”
— Patrick Quinn
With a membership of more than 11,000, the Lac La Ronge Indian Band (LLRIB) of Woodland Cree First Nation is the largest in Saskatchewan and one of the largest in Canada. The LLRIB has six communities, all of which are located near the geographic center of the province.
Photo Courtesy of Jordan Sahly
Jordan Sahly has lost track of the number of baking soda volcanoes he made in his driveway as a child. But he hasn’t lost his passion for the sciences, chemistry in particular. After honing his interest in science, Sahly set his sights on chemical engineering and hasn’t looked back. Now a senior at Yale University, Sahly is well on his way to becoming a chemical engineer with the goal of helping Native communities combat energy and climate crises and limit harm to the land.
Growing up in Maple Grove, Minn., a small suburb about 30 minutes outside Minneapolis, Sahly had plenty of opportunities to connect with the land. “Whenever I had breaks from school, I would find myself either in the north woods of Minnesota swimming in lakes and exploring pine forests or traveling back to the homelands in Wyoming,” explains Sahly.
With his father’s family in Minnesota and his mother’s family in Wyoming, Sahly experienced both suburban and more rural sides of life. In Wyoming he learned about, and became interested in, his Native heritage. “My maternal grandfather was raised back in the homelands and has always had a strong connection to the people, animals, and lands that our tribe holds sacred,” explains Sahly. “He is one of the largest influences on my journey.”
Sahly has also been influenced by the hard work and determination of his parents, whom he watched work long, hard hours to provide for their family. “From a young age, my parents’ only goal for me was college,” says Sahly. “They wanted for me what they could not have for themselves.”
As much as Sahly tried to make the most of his time at Maple Grove Senior High School, as one of only a handful of Native students in the school, and with little connection to his tribe back in Wyoming, Sahly felt unsupported. “It was an environment not well suited to creating success for Native students,” he says.
Fortunately, this lack of support did not stop Sahly from applying to colleges, even though as a first-generation student he had little idea of what his next steps should be. “It was difficult to visualize what colleges I could or should attend and how to get there,” explains Sahly. “I ended up applying to a range of schools as I really was not prepared for the college application process at all.” Sahly clearly did something right, as he was accepted at an Ivy League school, Yale University in New Haven, Conn.
While he was excited to pursue a college degree, Sahly was unprepared for the transition to campus, especially in light of the pandemic. “As part of the original high school senior–college freshman class affected by the pandemic, I began my college career thousands of miles from home without my family even helping me to move in,” notes Sahly. “We then experienced a year of lockdown and isolation; this was a huge challenge for me.” After being sent home from Yale and required to complete his spring semester remotely, Sahly turned to an unlikely source for comfort: beadwork.
Beading is a big part of his family’s heritage, but Sahly had no prior experience with the art, and little artistic skill. “I am not a natural artist,” he says. “Stick figures were about the height of my skills!” Sahly spent hours each day teaching himself to weave, stitch, and thread, and grew his skill to the point where he now sells beadwork (@blueshadesbeadwork) to help cover college expenses. “Beadwork gave me the strength to persevere through those many months where I felt lost,” he explains.
“I transitioned into chemical engineering because it’s far more versatile, it offers more skills to explore with, and it is more useful for my communities.”
Once back on campus, Sahly needed to get reaccustomed to the college culture and community. The Native community had been isolated due to the pandemic, so it took him longer than expected to connect with other Native students. He also wasn’t as prepared academically, struggling in math and science courses.
Although acclimating was difficult, Sahly soon found elements of the Yale community that resonated with him, and he became involved in groups and organizations across campus. “I maintained my love for music by joining the Yale Concert and Jazz Bands, as well as the Davenport Pops Orchestra,” notes Sahly. But he didn’t stop there. “I joined my first research lab as a sophomore, and this year I joined a new lab research group where I help analyze urban wastewater for COVID, monkeypox, and other viral pathogens.” In addition to his scientific extracurriculars, Sahly has also become heavily involved in Native and Indigenous groups on campus, including the Native and Indigenous Students Association at Yale, Red Territory (Yale’s intertribal drum group), Yale’s Native American Cultural Center, and Yale's AISES College Chapter, for which he was elected and serves as co-president. He also serves as a peer liaison for the NACC, helping younger Native students adjust to college life.
Once Sahly began to feel like a part of the Yale community, his goals and dreams became clearer. While he had always loved chemistry, Sahly’s time at Yale has helped him understand how to hone that interest. “I transitioned into chemical engineering because it’s far more versatile, it offers more skills to explore with, and it is more useful for my communities,” he explains. “Particularly as we face energy and climate crises, engineers in practice will be able to effect change in a hands-on way.”
Now Sahly is truly enjoying his time at Yale, and is excited to see where his path takes him. “My ultimate goal would be to be an engineer who helps consult on ways to make our industry more inclusive, sustainable, and impactful,” says Sahly. “Engineering has not always been kind to our Indigenous communities, and I would love to have the option to fight within the industry for our communities.”
Sahly believes that his ability to find perspective and create community has been important to his journey, and he encourages others to stay true to themselves and their stories. “Identify the why,” he says. “What will drive you to find success? What do you want to learn?” Sahly believes asking yourself questions like these can help you understand yourself, and where you want your journey to take you. Don’t worry about having it all figured out. As he says, “I don’t believe in forcing a journey. I’m sure I will end up where I’m needed most.”
— Alexa Panza
The Wind River Eastern Shoshone Tribe shares the 2.2 million–acre Wind River Reservation in Wyoming with the Northern Arapaho. Their expansive, unspoiled homelands are the seventh largest reservation in the United States.