Participants

Programs  >  Native American Studies  >  Nations Within Nations  >  Participants

Dialogue Participants

Juana Domingo Andres -- Pican Ixim, the Maya community in Omaha. Andres is a Mayan Indian born in Santa Eulalia, Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Speaks her native language, Q'anjob'al, and has a teaching degree. She attended Jose Simeon Canas, a Jesuit university in El Salvador and Universidad Rafael Landivar another Jesuit School in Guatemala. She is chair of the executive team of Pixan Ixim, the Mayan Community in Omaha.

Frank Brennan, S.J. – Australian Catholic University.  Fr. Brennan is a professor of Law and has worked extensively in the area of indigenous rights in Austalia.  He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for services to Aboriginal Australians in1995. He also received the inaugural ACFOA Human Rights Award in 1996.  

Marissa Begay – Creighton University. Begay is a Navajo from Arizona and a sophomore at Creighton studying Biology, Pre-Med.  She serves as the president of RAISE (Recognizing American Indian Success in Education), a campus organization of Native students that mentor freshmen students and is the Secretary for NAA (Creighton's Native American Association).  

Raymond Bucko, S.J . – Creighton University. Dr. Bucko is chair of the Sociology/Anthropology Department and director of the Native American Studies Program. He is author of The Lakota Ritual of the Sweat Lodge (Univ. Nebraska Press 1998).

Adae Deer – Director of American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Deer is the former head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of Interior. She is a nationally renowned Native rights leader, a fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a member of the Menominee Nation.

Senator Aitor Esteban – University of Deusto. Sen. Estaban is a Basque member of the Spanish Parliament as well as an expert on comparative constitutional law and the position of ethnic minorities in modern states.

Heather Fryer – Creighton University. Fryer is associate professor of History and do-director of American Studies. She authored Perimeters of Democracy: Inverse Utopias and the Wartime Social Landscape in the American West and works on control of colonial populations and issues of Native American termination.

Michael Kelly – Creighton University. Kelly is a professor of International Law at the School of Law. He is the author of Ghosts of Halabja: Saddam Hussein & the Kurdish Genocide (Praeger 2008), and is an expert on comparative constitutional law.

Taylor Keen – Creighton University College of Business. Keen is a member of the Omaha and Cherokee Nations. He holds a Master’s degree in economics from Harvard University. His specialization is Nation-building and Native American corporate and economic development.

Adnan Kochar – ( C.H.A.K ) Centre of Halabja against Anfalization and Genocide of the Kurds. Kochar is the director of C.H.A.K. and the Halabja Centre, two NGOs based in London, England, which advocate on behalf of the Kurdish minority in Iraq. He is involved in the state government of Kurdistan.

Tracy Leavelle -- Creighton University.  Dr. Leavelle is associate professor of History and co-director of the American Studies Program at Creighton.  He is completing his first book, Colonial Conversions: Religious Encounters and Cultural Translation in French and Indian North America.  He is also examining conflicts between Native Hawaiians and astronomers over development on the sacred mountain of Mauna Kea.

Saw Lot – Creighton University. Lot is a Karen from Myanmar. He was forced out of Miramar in 1999 and spent five years on the Thai border in a refugee camp. He is a freshman at Creighton and continues to serve the Karen community in Omaha as a translator and general facilitator.

Abraham Lotha – St. Joseph’s College. Dr. Lotha is a Naga from the Nagaland region of India. He has recently completed his Ph.D., on Ethno-nationalism and the Naga. He is an expert on networking among Indigenous peoples, particularly within the United Nations.

Rudi Mitchell – Creighton University. Dr. Mitchell is a professor of Native American Studies and the head of the Native American Learning Community.  He holds a Ed. D in Psychology, working for many years in human services and served as the chairman of the Omaha Tribe.  

Larry Nesper – University of Wisconsin, Madison. Dr. Nesper is a cultural anthropologist who works in the areas of tribal law and treaty rights. He works extensively with the Ojibway court system in Wisconsin and published a book on Ojibway fishing rights in Wisconsin.

Richard Witmer – Creighton University. Dr. Witmer is an expert in Native Americans and American politics and policy development. His work focuses on American Indian/federal/state policy as well as political participation in the Forced Federalism era (1988-present). He is an associate professor in the department of Political Science and International Relations.