The UCLA American Indian Studies Center Faculty Advisory Committee comprises of members from different departments all over the campus. Click on each individual members’ research focus to read more about them.
Members of the FAC are available for contact by the media: Media Contact List.
2023–2024
Faculty Advisory Committee Chair
Professor Teresa McCarty
UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies
Email: teresa.mccarty@ucla.edu
Research FocusSocial Research Methodology: Educational-linguistic anthropology, Indigenous/minority education, educational language policy, youth language practices, education equity, ethnographic studies of education, and language endangerment, revitalization, and rights.
Members of the Faculty Advisory Committee
Professor Stephen Acabado
Department of Anthropology
Email: acabado@ucla.edu
Research FocusHistorical ecology, landscape archaeology, agricultural systems, settlement patterns, emergent complexity, indigenous peoples; Southeast Asia, Philippines, Guam, Micronesia.
Associate Professor Randall Akee (Native Hawaiian)
Department of Public Policy
Email: rakee@ucla.edu
Research FocusAreas of interest include economic development, ethnicity and development politics, immigration, labor and employment.
Assistant Professor Tria Blu Wakpa
Department of World Arts and Culture/Dance
Email: triabluwakpa@arts.ucla.edu
Research FocusA scholar and practitioner of Indigenous contemporary dance, North American Hand Talk (Indigenous sign language), martial arts, and yoga. Her research combines community-based, Indigenous and feminist methodologies with critical race theories to examine the politics and practices of dance and embodiment historically and contemporarily in educational and carceral institutions for Indigenous peoples.
Associate Professor Jessica Cattelino
Department of Anthropology
Email: jesscatt@anthro.ucla.edu
Research FocusEconomy, nature, indigeneity, and settler colonialism. She studies and teaches about sociocultural life in the contemporary United States.
Associate Professor Nanibaa’ Garrison
Institute for Society and Genetics
Email: nanibaa@socgen.ucla.edu
Research Focus- Her research focuses on the ethical, social, and cultural implications of genetic and genomic research in Indigenous communities. Using community-based research approaches, she engages with tribal communities to develop policies and guidance for tribes.
Professor Paul Kroskrity
Department of Anthropology
Email: paulvk@ucla.edu
Research Focus- Language and culture, language contact, language and identity, language ideologies, anthropology and verbal art, and the ethnography of communication; American Indian Languages (especially the Kiowa-Tanoan and Uto-Aztecan families); the Pueblo Southwest, Central California.
Professor Nancy Marie Mithlo (Chiricahua Apache)
Department of Gender Studies
Email: mithlo@ucla.edu
Research Focus- Visual anthropology, Indigenous visual arts and curation, gender analysis, film studies, photographic archives, museum critique, arts education and Indigenous knowledge production; Native North America, globalized popular culture.
Associate Professor Oona Paredes
Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
Email: oparedes@humnet.ucla.edu
Research Focus- She studies the cultural and historical intersections of religion, politics, and identity, especially the ways in which minority “tribal” communities interact with state power and popular culture. Her current field research project looks at traditions of political authority in the modern Philippine state in an indigenous minority group (the Higaunon Lumad) and how this authority articulates with oral traditions (encompassing both customary law and indigenous religion) to reflect acute internal concerns about identity, indigeneity, and cultural heritage preservation.
Assistant Professor Rodrigo Ranero
Department of Spanish & Portuguese
Email: ranero@g.ucla.edu
Research Focus- Research interests: Syntax (ellipsis, agreement, linearization), Language revitalization, Language reclamation, Phonology (harmony, long-distance processes), Languages (Mayan, Xinka, Spanish)
Professor Angela R. Riley (Citizen Potawatomi Nation)
School of Law
Email: riley@law.ucla.edu
Research Focus- Her research focuses on issues related to indigenous peoples’ rights, with a particular emphasis on cultural property and Native governance.
Dr. Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, ex officio
Director of UCLA Center for Mexican Studies and Project Director at the UCLA IRLE-Labor Center
Email: griverasalgado@ucla.edu
Research FocusHe teaches classes on Work, Labor and Social Justice in the US and immigration issues. He also directs the Institute for Transnational Social Change. He has extensive experience as an independent consultant on transnational migration, race and ethnic relations and diversity trainings for large organizations.
Professor David Shorter
Department of World Arts and Culture/Dance
Email: shorter@ucla.edu
Research FocusEpistemology, Ontology, Axiology, history of science, colonialism, paranormal studies, art and social movements, and the ethics of culture contact.
Rey Soto, ex officio
Staff Representative
MACS Data Manager, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology
Email: reysoto@ucla.edu
Professor Shannon Speed, ex officio (Chickasaw)
Director of American Indian Studies Center; Department of Gender Studies and Anthropology
Email: sspeed@aisc.ucla.edu
Research FocusLegal anthropology; indigenous rights; human rights; indigenous migration; gender; neoliberalism, race and ethnicity; sovereignty/autonomy; activist research methodologies
Associate Professor Aradhna Tripati (Fijian)
Institute of Environmental & Sustainability, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences
Email: atripati@g.ucla.edu
Research FocusShe researches and teaches about climate change; the history and dynamics of changing Earth systems including climate, ice sheets, oceans, the water cycle, carbon dioxide levels; tool development; and clumped isotope geochemistry.