Experts
Four Experts will lead the 2024 Summer Institute on Native American, Indigenous and land-based social and political philosophy.
Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner
University of Maryland
Joseph Len Miller
West Chester University
Yann Allard-Tremblay
McGill University
Kyle Powys Whyte
University of Michigan
Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner (Luiseño & Cupeño) is an Indigenous feminist philosopher. Shelbi researches, teaches, and consults on Indigenous research and evaluation methods, cultural and language reclamation, Indigenous epistemologies, Indigenous feminist interventions in critical social work, and land-based feminist coalition-building. Shelbi is fascinated by the intersections of Indigenous knowledge systems, caretaking, power, and trauma. Shelbi is a proud first-generation descendant of the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians, and is of both Luiseño (Payómkawichum) and Cupeño (Kupangaxwichem) descent. She is an assistant professor in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at University of Maryland, College Park and the founding director of the Indigenous Futures Lab, a hub of Indigenous feminist research and evaluation.
Joey Miller, Ph.D. comes to the Department of Philosophy as an Assistant Professor specializing in Native American philosophy and Ethics. After undergraduate studies in philosophy and psychology from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, he received his M.A. in Philosophy from Virginia Tech and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington, Seattle. As an enrolled member of Muscogee Nation, his research focuses on understanding the ethical frameworks of his ancestors and how these frameworks have been adapted to address settler colonialism. Before coming to West Chester University, he had taught philosophy courses at Marian University and Elon University. His work has been published, among other places, in The Journal of Value Inquiry and Philosophical Studies.
Professor Yann Allard-Tremblay obtained his PhD in philosophy from the universities of St Andrews and Stirling. He previously held postdoctoral research fellowships at the Centre for Research in Ethics of the University of Montréal and at the McGill Research Group on Constitutional Studies. Professor Allard-Tremblay is a member of the Huron-Wendat First Nation. Professor Allard-Tremblay’s current research in political theory is focused on the decolonization and Indigenization of political theory. More specifically, he is interested in investigating ways in which existing mainstream concepts and methods in political theory may silence and distorts the thoughts and claims of Indigenous peoples.
Kyle Whyte is a faculty member at the University of Michigan where he is George Willis Pack Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, and Professor of Philosophy in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Kyle teaches in the SEAS environmental justice specialization. He is founding Faculty Director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment, Principal Investigator of the Energy Equity Project, Faculty Associate of Native American Studies, and Senior Fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows. His research addresses environmental justice, focusing on moral and political issues concerning climate policy and Indigenous peoples, the ethics of cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and science organizations, and problems of Indigenous justice in public and academic discussions of food sovereignty, environmental justice, and the anthropocene.