Bruin Highlight: Past, Present & Future 
This September 2024 we are highlighting Native Bruin Catie Galbraith from the Chickasaw Nation with an MA in American Indian Studies class of 2024.We are pleased to introduce our current Student Services Advisor in the American Indian Studies Department at UCLA and our September UCLA Native Bruin highlight.
Catie is a proud citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and was raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In 2018, she relocated to Montreal, where she obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Geography, complemented by minors in Environmental Science and Indigenous Studies from McGill University. During her time in Montreal, she actively participated in organizing anti-pipeline solidarity blockades, which significantly shaped her research interests in resource extraction and envisioning Indigenous futures that transcend extraction practices.
In 2022, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a MA degree in American Indian Studies at UCLA. Catie is a graduate from the MA program, class of 2024, with her thesis focusing on a collaborative web map she contributed to, which investigates a speculative ecology surrounding a gold mine in Quebec. Furthermore, she examined the ethical responsibilities associated with co-creative research and how both the physical infrastructure of resource extraction and the digital framework of mapmaking can disrupt relationships between humans and non-human entities. Throughout her academic journey, she was an active member of the American Indian Graduate Student Association, serving as co-chair during the 2023-2024 academic year.
In here leisure time, she is cooking meals for friends and is making ceramic light fixtures.
“I feel very privileged to have learned from Tongva and Tataviam people and lands, from the incredibly supportive AIS faculty, and from my fellow Native students.”