Lowe & Gonzales Lead ILA's First Module

The Indigenous Leadership Academy (ILA) is set to begin this week. This cohort of participants represent 15 tribes from 10 states and Washington D.C. This is a benchmark for the ILA and we are excited to share our journey. The 10 module program is designed with guest speakers for each module. These guest speakers have expertise in their field which directly relates to each module. For module 1 we are delighted to have Dr. Angela Gonzales as our facilitator. She is also a Thought Leaders Fellow at the American Indian Policy Institute. Shelly Lowe  is the Chair of The National Endowment for the Humanities will be the first guest speaker for ILA. You can read more about the facilitator and guest speaker below.

Angela Gonzales (Hopi) is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Transformation and inaugural Fellow in the American Indian Policy Institute’s Thought Leaders Program at Arizona State University. As a community-engaged, interdisciplinary scholar, her research interests cut across and integrate the fields of Sociology, Indigenous Studies, and Public Health. Over the past two decades, she has engaged in a number of community-based research projects with tribal communities. Her research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Ford and Russell Sage Foundations. Dr. Gonzales holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University, a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of California, Riverside. She currently serves on the Board of the Colorado Plateau Foundation, a Native-led foundation that invests in Native-led organizations working on the protection of water and sacred places, preservation of Native languages, and sustainable community-based agriculture. She is also the current President of the Society of Senior Ford Fellows and Chair of the American Sociological Association Section on Indigenous Peoples and Native Nations. As an enrolled member of the Hopi Tribe from the Village of Shungopavy, she is committed to research that supports participatory research to develop community capacity and relationships of trust and reciprocity between tribal partners and academic researchers.

Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo) is Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Lowe is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and grew up on the Navajo Reservation in Ganado, Arizona. From 2015 to 2021 she served as a member of the National Council on the Humanities, the 26-member advisory body to NEH, an appointment she received from President Obama. Lowe’s career in higher education has included roles as Executive Director of the Harvard University Native American Program, Assistant Dean in the Yale College Dean’s Office, and Director of the Native American Cultural Center at Yale University. Prior to these positions, she spent six years as the Graduate Education Program Facilitator for the American Indian Studies Programs at the University of Arizona. Lowe has served in a variety of leadership roles nationally, most recently as a member of the University of Arizona Alumni Association Governing Board and of the Challenge Leadership Group for the MIT Solve Indigenous Communities Fellowship. She has served on the board of the National Indian Education Association and as a trustee on the board for the National Museum of the American Indian. Lowe holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, a Master of Arts in American Indian Studies, and has completed doctoral coursework in Higher Education from the University of Arizona. https://www.neh.gov/staff/shelly-lowe