Join the UCSB AIIC's

12th Annual Symposium

Indigenous Futures in Higher Education

We welcome you to UCSB while acknowledging the region's traditional custodians, the Chumash people. We pay our respects to Chumash Elders past, present and future for they hold the memories, the traditions, and the culture of this area, which has become a place of learning for people from all over the world.

When: Friday - Sunday, February 21-23, 2025

Where: University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), McCune Conference Room (6020 HSSB)

Dr. Natalie Avalos is as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies and Affiliate Faculty in the Religious Studies and Women and Gender Studies Departments at CU Boulder. Dr. Avalos is an ethnographer of religion whose work in comparative Indigeneities explores urban Indigenous and Tibetan refugee religious life, healing historical trauma, and decolonial praxis. She received her doctorate from the University of California at Santa Barbara in Religious Studies with a special focus on Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions and Tibetan Buddhism. 

She is a Ford Predoctoral Fellow, FTE Dissertation Fellow, and former CU Boulder Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow. Prior to joining CU Boulder, she taught as a Visiting Professor of Religious Studies at Connecticut College. She is currently working on her manuscript titled Decolonizing Metaphysics: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal. It argues that the reassertion of land-based logics among Native and Tibetan peoples not only de-centers settler colonial claims to legitimate knowledge but also articulates forms of sovereignty rooted in interdependent relations of power among all persons, human and other-than human. She is a Chicana of Mexican Indigenous descent, born and raised in the Bay Area.

Dr. Avalos’ approach to research and teaching is informed by decolonial theory as well as critical ethnic studies and critical Indigenous studies frameworks. A critical ethnic studies approach links the multiple intellectual traditions represented in ethnic studies to colonial logics such as heteronormativity, racial capitalism, and white supremacy. A critical Indigenous framework understands settler colonialism as a racial project sustained over time through material and ideological means (beyond an endogenous approach to Indigenous life). 

Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy is an Associate Professor of Native American Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt who researches Indigenous feminisms, California Indians, Environmental Justice, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and decolonization. She is the Co-Director of the NAS Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab & Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute where she leads several research projects focused on the resurgence of Indigenous Science and place-based learning. This includes the "Food for Indigenous Futures Project" which looks at connections between food justice, food sovereignty, mental health, and substance abuse prevention for Native American Youth.​She has also helped organize several community facing events like the Northern California #LandBack Symposium, the Water Advocacy & Water Protectors Certificate Program, the Humboldt Indigenous Foods Festival, and the California Indian Conference. Dr. Risling Baldy is also the Program Coordinator for the Masters of Social Science in Environment & Community.

Her book: We Are Dancing For You: Native feminisms and the revitalization of women's coming-of-age ceremonies received "Best First Book in Native American and Indigenous Studies" at the 2019 Native American Indigenous Studies Association Conference. The book uses a framework of Native Feminisms to locate revitalization within a broad context of decolonizing praxis and considers how this renaissance of women's coming-of-age ceremonies confounds ethnographic depictions of Native women; challenges anthropological theories about menstruation, gender, and coming-of-age; and addresses gender inequality and gender violence within Native communities. The book is available with the University of Washington Press.

She received her Ph.D. in Native American Studies at UC Davis; her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Diego State University; and her B.A. in Psychology with a Specialization in Health and Development from Stanford University. ​ In 2007, Dr. Risling Baldy co-founded the Native Women's Collective, a nonprofit organization that supports the continued revitalization of Native American arts and culture. She is Hupa, Karuk, and Yurok and enrolled in the Hoopa Valley Tribe.

Dr. Amanda R. Tachine is Navajo from Ganado, Arizona. She is Náneesht’ézhí Táchii’nii (Zuni Red Running into Water) born for Tł’ízí łání (Many Goats). She is an Assistant Professor in Educational Studies at University of Oregon. Amanda’s research explores the relationship between systemic and structural histories of settler colonialism and the ongoing erasure of Indigenous presence and belonging in college settings using qualitative Indigenous methodologies. She is the author of the award winning book Native Presence and Sovereignty in College and co-editor of Weaving an Otherwise: In-relations Methodological Practice. She has published in the Journal of Higher Education, Qualitative Inquiry, International Review of Qualitative Research, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and other scholarly outlets. Her work has also been published in Marvel and Grist! She also has published thought pieces in the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, The Hill, Teen Vogue, Indian Country Today, Inside Higher Ed, and Navajo Times where she advances ideas regarding discriminatory actions, educational policies, and inspirational movements.