Biographies

Brooke Grant is a Professor of Practice in the Teacher Preparation & Certification Program at Tulane University where she prepares new teachers for the PK-12 classroom. In addition to teaching, she works to support teachers in the New Orleans area by running S.S. NOLA and serving as Program Director for AfterClass, both of which were designed with local teachers in mind.

Dr. Grant also works to support first-year Tulane students in their transition from high school to college as a First-Year Faculty Fellow, First-Year seminar instructor, and First-Year Residential Faculty Mentor. Additionally, she is proud to be a College Track mentor and a member of the First Generation Faculty & Staff Council.

Prior to working in higher education, Dr. Grant enjoyed a ten year career as a certified middle school social studies teacher outside of Buffalo, New York. She has an undergraduate degree in Political Science and International Relations from Canisius College, as well a Masters and PhD Degree in Education from the University at Buffalo.

Denise Woltering-Vargas manages educational and community programs for Tulane University’s Stone Center for Latin American Studies. Denise coordinates the Stone Center’s K-12 program by developing teacher workshops, summer institutes, curricular resources, study abroad opportunities and managing the LARC national film lending library. She has developed curriculum units and curriculum guides with teachers as part of annual summer institutes and film festivals including, Teaching Cuba: A K-12 Social Justice Curriculum Unit, Geography & Identity in the Brazilian Amazon, and Ecuador’s Oil Legacy: Media Skills, Justice, and Preservation. She is also currently the Coordinator of the Américas Book Award, an award sponsored by the national Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs. She received her undergraduate degree in Spanish Literature from Reed College, a Masters in International Communication from American University and an MBA from Tulane University.

Donna M. Pierite is a language and cultural lifeways instructor for the Tunica-Biloxi Language and Culture Revitalization Program (LCRP). She is responsible for lesson-planning, teaching and directing educational assignments to promote the learning of the Tunica and Biloxi languages and culture. Donna collaborates with Tulane University linguists in the Kuhpani Yoyani Luhchi Yoroni (Tunica Language Working Group, KYLY) developing Tunica language foundational resources including linguistic texts, manuals, curricula and pedagogical materials. She is a Louisiana State certified educator who has taught more than thirty-three years in Orleans and Avoyelles Parish as well as adjunct professor of French and Spanish at Louisiana State University in Alexandria. In addition to teaching French, Spanish and English as a second language, Donna has studied and taught Tunica since the 1970’s.

Elisabeth Pierite-Mora is a language and cultural lifeways instructor for the Tunica-Biloxi Language and Culture Revitalization Program(LCRP) where she is responsible for facilitating learning of the Tunica and Biloxi languages and culture. Elisabeth collaborates with Tulane University linguists in the Kuhpani Yoyani Luhchi Yoroni (Tunica Language Working Group, KYLY) developing Tunica language foundational resources including linguistic texts, manuals, curricula and pedagogical materials. She participated in the Institute on Collaborative Language Research (CoLang) during 2016 and 2018, a bi-annual training workshop in field linguistics and language documentation for linguistic students, professors and members of indigenous language communities. Growing up in the Tunica, Biloxi and Choctaw traditions of her family, Elisabeth has spoken Tunica since she was a child.

Dr. Judith M. Maxwell received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 1982. She works on discourse primarily within Mayan languages, particularly those of the K'iche'an and Q'anjob'alan families. Questions that interest her within discourse are canons for artistry, encoding of cultural constructs, mechanisms of coherence, co-reference and tracking, knowledge, and belief states, presuppositions, creating and indexing societal relationships, alignments, animacy hierarchies in relationship to syntactic and pragmatic structures, and masking. Dr. Maxwell also works with contemporary language issues: the processes of standardization, language maintenance and shift, bilingual/multicultural education, and issues of language, identity, and authenticity.

Dr. Maxwell works with colonial manuscripts, primarily in Kaqchikel and in Nahuatl, exploring issues in language change, borrowing and restructuring in conditions of contact, and lexical embellishment and shift. She also works with regional varieties of English, again looking at issues of language, power, and identity. The performance of gender provides another arena for research both within English and cross-linguistically. She is interested in the mechanics of how language works and in what it works to do. Kaqchikel, Chuj, Nahuatl, and English provide her primary data, but all languages are fair game to Dr. Maxwell.

Since 2010, she has been heading a collaborative team of Tulane students and Tunica-Biloxi tribal members and scholars working to revitalize Tunica language, a language which has been "sleeping" since the last native speaker, Sesotrie Youchigant, died in the 1950s.

Stephanie Madere Escude’, born on July 3, 1959 in New Orleans, Louisiana. I grew up in a culturally rich family of mostly Louisiana French and Native American lineage. My maternal grandmother Julia Mary Descant Normand was of Tunica-Biloxi decent. My grandmother would always encourage us to make things by hand. She told us many stories of her life in Avoyelles Parish and taught us life lessons that still apply today. I am an artist/crafter who draws inspiration from my Native ancestors. My inspiration comes from my sister’s father-in-law, former Tunica-Biloxi Tribal Chairman Joseph Pierite Jr., and my grandmother. My niece Elisabeth Pierite-Mora and I often collaborate and envision new and unique craft ideas. Many of the ideas for my creations come to me in dreams. On a daily basis various items are dropped off at my house that are in need of an artist’s touch to bring them back to life. People call me the “Fiber Artist”. My creations have gone out too many people all over the world and have made the youngest and the oldest people very happy. This is an example and real life story of how my work has touched peoples’ lives and how they continue to inspire me.

At the Tunica-Biloxi Powwow Education Days, years ago, a little girl came to my booth and was looking at my dolls. She asked if she could bring one particular doll to show her mom and dad. I told her yes. Then I overheard her conversation with her mom. She asked if she could buy the doll to put on her sister’s grave. I gave the doll to the young girl. I had a very emotional response from her request and at the same time thought, what an honor this is.

My work has been featured at the Tunica-Biloxi Powwow and Pow Wow Education Day in Marksville, Louisiana since 2004. Other cultural events and venues include the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Native American Culture Day in Bogalusa, Louisiana, Louisiana Folk Life Festival in Natchitoches, Louisiana, the Smithsonian-National Museum American Indian-Living Earth Festival in Washington, D.C., St. Charles Parish Library-Creative Crafters, New Orleans Children’s Museum –Worlds Fair 2018.

I have written two children’s books, “THE GIFT MAKER-Madame Louise E. Anna” and “Julia Teliyonitamashu/Julia-the doll maker.”