Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative

Graduate Students

Breadcrumb

Graduate Students

Brown University does not currently offer a graduate degree or certificate in Native American and Indigenous Studies; however, NAISI provides professional, academic development, and community-building opportunities for Native American and Indigenous graduate students and graduate students working in the field of Native American and Indigenous Studies.

These opportunities include support to attend the NAISA annual meeting and/or other discipline-specific conferences, symposia, workshops and similar gatherings to present on or engage in Native American and Indigenous Studies.

  • Mark Agostini

    Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropological Archaeology Program, Department of Anthropology, Lewis and Clark Field Scholar (American Philosophical Society), Haffenreffer Museum Proctor
    mark_agostini@brown.edu
    Research Interests Ancestral Pueblo archaeology; Ceramic analysis; Tribal Sovereignty; Repatriation

  • Chase Bryer​ (Chickasaw Nation)

    Program Coordinator, NAISI, Ph.D. Student, School of Behavioral and Social Health Sciences (School of Public Health)
    chase_bryer@brown.edu
    Research Interests Historical trauma research, culturally responsive approaches, Indigenous Queer and Two-Spirit health and wellness

    Chase Bryer (Chickasaw) is a current Ph.D. student in Behavioral and Social Health Science at the Brown University School of Public Health. He joined NAISI in 2022, and serves as a liaison between NAISI faculty and students, while contributing to various initiatives focused on building a stronger intellectual environment for undergraduate and graduate Native American and Indigenous and NAIS students at Brown. Through his research, he uses community-based participatory methods to create interventions that will improve health outcomes, with a particular focus among Indigenous queer and Two-Spirit communities. His research, ultimately, aims to inform state actors including social workers, public health professionals, and biomedical researchers with ways to more sensitively engage with marginalized communities through resilience-based approaches to disrupt cycles of historical trauma. Chase holds an MSW from Washington University in St. Louis and a BA in Human Rights and Media from the University of Oklahoma.

  • Kimonee M. Burke (Narragansett)

    Ph.D. Student, Department of History
    kimonee_burke@brown.edu
    Research Interests Native American and Indigenous Studies, Northeastern Native History, Federal Acknowledgment Policy

  • Harper Dine

    Ph.D. student, Department of Anthropology
    Harper_dine@brown.edu
    Research Interests Food security/food sovereignty, political economy, and people-plant relations

    Harper is an anthropological archaeologist working in the northern Maya lowlands (Yucatán), and is broadly interested in food security/food sovereignty, political economy, and people-plant relations. Harper's research involves the use of paleoethnobotanical and archaeological methods to examine local household food production and consumption in the context of grand-scale political and economic change across the landscape of the Yaxuna-Coba region in the Classic period (250-900 AD). 

  • Dan W. Everton

    MA Student, Public Humanities
    Daniel_everton@brown.edu
    Research Interests NAGPRA, global repatriation issues, and human remains

    As a historian and archaeologist, Dan works within cultural heritage institutions to decolonize and instill ethics in collection management and repatriation. 

  • Luiz Paulo Ferraz

    Ph.D. Student, Department of History
    Luis_Paulo_Ferraz@brown.edu
    Research Interests Modern Latin America, especially Brazil; Indigenous History; Transnational History; Environment and Society; Public History

    Luiz Paulo Ferraz's research examines the struggles for Indigenous rights and environmental protection in Brazil, exploring the interconnection of Indigenous and environmental history during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) and its aftermath from both a national and transnational perspective.

  • Makana Kushi (Kanaka Maoli)

    Ph.D. Student, Department of American Studies
    haylee_kushi@brown.edu

    Makana's dissertation research is about the multiethnic and Indigenous history of East Hawai'i Island in the early 20th century.

  • Phoebe Labat

    Ph.D. Student, Department of History
    phoebe_labat@brown.edu
    Research Interests Atlantic History; Native American and First Nations history; Environmental history; Race and slavery; Indigenous natural knowledge and spirituality

  • Ally LaForge

    Ph.D. Candidate, Department of American Studies
    allyson_laforge@brown.edu
    Research Interests Native American and Indigenous Studies; Histories of the Native Northeast; Decolonizing Methodologies; Public Humanities; Material Culture

  • Dominique Pablito (Zuni, Navajo, Comanche)

    Ph.D. Student, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry
    Dominique_pablito@brown.edu
    Website
    Research Interests Identifying New Therapeutic Target Genes and Candidate Small Molecules to Treat Glioblastoma Multiforme

  • Laurel Tollison

    PhD Student, Slavic Studies
    laurel_tollison@brown.edu

    Laurel is a PhD student in the Slavic Studies department at Brown University. Her research focuses on the women and gender history of Russian Alaska. She applies indigenous methodologies to this area in hopes of helping decolonize the field of Slavic Studies.