Cecelia Fire Thunder (Oglala Lakota) is a nationally recognized speaker for tribal education, wellness, and women's rights. She is the Executive Director of Truth and Healing at Maȟpiya Lúta Owáyawa | Red Cloud School. She has a wealth of leadership experience as a nurse, artist, writer, and strong advocate for health and education in Indian Country. She was given the Lakota name of Good Hearted Woman (Tawachin Waste Win). 

Cecelia brings a deep understanding and personal connection to the Maȟpiya Lúta’s Truth and Healing initiative, which seeks to explore the organization’s past as a former American Indian Boarding school known as Holy Rosary Mission. She was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation and is an enrolled citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation. While her early education was largely in Lakota, Cecelia was enrolled at Holy Rosary Mission for high school, which forbade speaking Lakota and imposed strict rules through fear, intimidation, and violence.

As part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ relocation program, her family moved to Los Angeles, CA. There, Cecelia completed high school, and became a nurse, and co-founded the American Indian Free Clinic in Los Angeles. She left the reservation when she was 15 years old but returned home in 1987. Cecelia is the founder of the Oglala Lakota Women's Society and much more. In 2002, she lost her hearing and received surgery for cochlear implants. Cecelia made history as the first female President elected to the Oglala Sioux Tribe in 2004. Cecelia's dedication to preserving Lakota culture extends to her work at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., where she, along with her Uncle John Around Him and Cousin Robert Two Crow, designed and created the Lakota Philosophy Exhibit. In her spare time, she indulges in her creative pursuits, such as sewing, beading, and doll making.