Project Directors
Dr. Dorothy Zeisler-Vralsted:
Dr. Zeisler-Vralsted is a Professor of International Affairs at EWU where she teaches classes on modernization and nature, the contemporary politics of water, and modernization and indigenous peoples. Her research focuses on water history with publications on the historical development of major river systems, water use in the American West, and the intersection of race, gender and the environment. Her most recent publication is Rivers, Memory and Nation- Building: A History of the Volga and Mississippi Rivers(Berghahn Books, 2014). Zeisler-Vralsted has a long history of working with teachers in grades 6-12 as she has received two major grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching American History Program (for 30 teachers in each 3-year grant). In addition to this experience, Zeisler-Vralsted has worked in senior administration for over ten years. This background, coupled with previous grant administrative experience, has given her the skills to oversee large projects and work with a diverse community of participants. The logistics of delivering two successful one-week workshops is a familiar undertaking enabling her to devote time to creating an effective learning community.
Dr. David Pietz:
Dr. Pietz is the UNESCO Chair of Environmental History at UA. With a doctorate in Modern Chinese History from Washington University, his early work focused on the history of water management in 20th Century China. More recently, he has leveraged his work on China's historical challenges with water equity to examine similar issues on a global scale, with particular reference to indigenous communities (including those in China). With a focus on "Indigenous Peoples and Water" the UNESCO Chair is currently supporting research on potential groundwater contamination from uranium mining waste on Hopi lands in northern Arizona. At the same time, he is developing an NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) focused on the water-related health challenges of Chlorite'-Mayan communities in Guatemala. Dr. Pietz's work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, and the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton). He has organized or co-organized five K-12 teacher training workshops.
Lead Faculty
Benedict Colombi:
Benedict J. Colombi, Ph.D. is Faculty Director of the University of Arizona’s Graduate Interdisciplinary Programs (GIDPs) and Associate Professor of American Indian Studies and Affiliate Associate Professor of the School of Anthropology, School of Geography and Development, and School of Natural Resources and Environment. He also holds a Faculty Appointment with the Institute of Environment, a center for disciplinary and interdisciplinary environmental and climate change research at the University of Arizona. He is the Past Program Chair of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), Anthropology & Environment section, Past Faculty Fellow with The Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, and is a Fellow with The Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA). In 2014, he served as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar conducting ethnographic fieldwork with Indigenous communities along Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
His area of specialization lies at the anthropology of complex human-environmental problems (i.e. water, climate, fisheries, energy). Recent publications include the book (Colombi and Brooks 2012), Keystone Nations: Indigenous Peoples and Salmon across the North Pacific (Advanced Seminar Series, School for Advanced Research Press) and a number of articles and chapters, including long-term and engaged research with the Nez Perce Tribe (Nimiipuu) about large dams, salmon, and the regional economy in the Columbia River basin. He also pursues interests in expanding his research to include Southwestern Indigenous people and watersheds (Colombi 2010; Colombi 2014; Pasqualetti et al. 2016); complimented with field studies of local-Indigenous resources/management in the United States, Canada, Russia, Iceland, Norway (Ween and Colombi 2013), Japan, and Mexico.
Facilitator
T. Francene Watson:
Dr. Watson is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Education at Washington State University with a focus on secondary pre-service teacher education. Watson also works collaboratively with educators in the College of Education's Clearinghouse on Native Teaching & Learning furthering initiatives related to the state's Sovereignty Curriculum (Since Time Immemorial) and teacher training. As a former high school English and humanities teacher, Watson's teaching, community engagement, and research are tethered to sustainability and environmental education from a place-based learning framework. Using participatory and community-based action research models, project foci connect food, water (namely the Snake and Columbia Rivers) and community, bringing these intersections into a K-12 curricular platform such as interdisciplinary, garden-based learning.
Professional Historians/Scholars
Steven Ross Evans:
Dr. Evans is an Emeritus Professor at Lewis and Clark State College where he received multiple awards for teaching excellence. For the last 11 years he has collaborated with Allen Pinkham on research on the Nez Perce Indians and the Lewis and Clark expedition. He has published on Nez Perce and Western U.S. History.
Allen Pinkham:
Mr. Pinkham is a Nez Perce Elder who, following a long career in the private sector, moved back to the Nez Perce Reservation and dedicated himself to serving the public as a story-telling educator-author. He co-authored, with Dan Landeen, Salmon and His People, and wrote a chapter for Alvin Josephy's, Lewis and Clark through Indian Eyes. He also served on the National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Council and helped create the Chief Joseph Foundation and served on the Board of Trustees for the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
Vincent Lagendijk:
Dr. Lagendijk is an Assistant Professor of History at Maastricht University where he is finalizing his manuscript, Transnationalizing the TVA. Through his research on the TVA, river utilization, the development of electrification networks, and transnational infrastructure, his expertise in modernization, particularly as related to 1930s multipurpose projects, such as Grand Coulee Dam, is well established.
Laurie Arnold:
Dr. Arnold, Colvile Tribal member, is Gonzaga University's Director of Native Studies. Before joining Gonzaga, she oversaw Native American Initiatives at Notre Dame University and was Associate Director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies. She has a robust publishing record, including Bartering with the Bones of Their Dead: The Colville Tribes and Termination, book chapters on tribal sovereignty, and "Preparing Students for Informed Public Discourse through Native American History."
Margo Hill:
Dr. Hill, Spokane Tribal member, is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at EWU. She has also worked as a Tribal Attorney for the Spokane Tribe of Indians where she provided legal counsel to the Spokane Tribal Business Council, program managers, and staff in areas of federal Indian law, employment law, and land management. She also assisted the Tribal council in amending the Spokane Tribal Law and Order Code.
Museum/Historical Center Staff
Jennifer Ferguson:
Ms. Ferguson is a member of the Colville Confederated Tribes (Arrow Lakes/Colville) and a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Two Dimensional and Museum Techniques and Studies. She has served as an archaeological and traditional cultural technician for the Colville Tribes History/Archaeology Program. Ferguson also serves as the coordinator of the Colville Confederated Tribal Museum in Coulee Dam, Washington.
Steve Schott:
Mr. Schott has been a long-time supporter of the Kettle Falls Historical Center, serving as president since 2014. He is a well-respected local historian and has hosted public events, workshops and seminars at the Center, and led numerous tours of the Center and the surrounding region for area schools.
Ivan Snavely:
Mr. Snavely is the Supervisor for guided tours at the Grand Coulee Power Office Visitor Center. In this capacity since 2011, Snavely has led numerous tours of Grand Coulee Dam for engineers, teachers, K-12 students, and tourists. In 2015, he oversaw tours for 21,000 visitors.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT
Endowment programs do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age, or sexual orientation. For further information, write to NEH Equal Opportunity Officer, 400 Seventh Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20506. TDD: 202/606 8282 (for the hearing impaired only).
