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Indigenous Peoples Day
Indigenous Education
Sovereigny, Steam and Two-Eyed Seeing
Oct. 13, 2025, 10 AM-5:30 PM
Keynote speakers:
10:30 AM
Megan Bang, PhD
Indigenous STEAM: Learning with Lands and Waters
Megan Bang (Ojibwe and Italian) is the James E. Johnson Professor of the Learning Sciences and the former Director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research at Northwestern University.
Dr. Bang is widely known for her scholarship on human learning and development across the life course with respect to the natural world. Her work focuses on issues of human learning and decision-making central to climate change, adaptation, and sustainability, as well as political, social and civic relations. She is particularly concerned with transforming the ways in which settler-colonialism and racial capitalism have shaped relations between humans and the rest of the natural world. She has been centrally engaged with Indigenous communities and the development and study of forms of intergenerational education and cultural regeneration that cultivate planetary and communal wellbeing.
11:30 AM
Cindy Peltier, PhD
Etuaptmumk (Two-Eyed Seeing) for Research and Indigenization
- Dr. Peltier is Anishnaabe-kwe from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory and Nipissing First Nation. Her research seeks to understand Anishinaabe wellness through the intersections of health, education, and Anishinaabe gikendassowin (Anishinaabe knowledge) using community-based research methodologies. This work centers on concepts such as mino-bimaadiziwin (way of a good life), wiidooktaadyang (we are helping one another), and engwaamzidaa (being careful) and is embodied in the following projects:
- This Was Real – A film that explores the lived cancer experiences of the Mnidoo Mnising (Manitoulin Island) Anishinaabek and their use of Indigenous healing.
- Cancer Prevention through Traditional Healing – This CIHR-funded Waasegiizhig Nanaandawe'iyewigamig Mino-Bimaadiziwin Project shares ways Anishinaabek can benefit from our own healing methods.
- Wiidooktaadyang (We are Helping One Another) – Designed to meet Indigenous health and education outcomes, this book helps to understand the experience of wellness in Nipissing First Nation and laid the groundwork for a micro-credential co-created with Nipissing First Nation.
- Listening to Children’s Voices: Promoting Indigenous Mental Wellness – This research focuses on scale-up of a mental wellness measure developed with and for Indigenous children.
- Indigenous Research Sovereignty and Governance – In a collaboration with Mnidoo Mnising Anishinaabe scholars, this SSHRC-funded project focuses on Anishinaabek perspectives on intellectual property rights and responsibilities.
Emerging Scholars break-out sessions:
- 1:30 PM, Room A
Presented by Jennifer Bonilla, PhD
Jennifer Bonilla is an enrolled member of the Kiowa-Apache Tribe of Oklahoma entering her twentieth year in education. Presently, Jennifer serves the Billy Mills Middle School learning community in Lawrence, Kansas as the library media specialist and co-sponsor of the BMMS Intertribal Club. Bonilla received bachelors degree in Elementary Education from Haskell Indian Nations University; masters degree in library science from Emporia State University and recently defended her doctoral dissertation and will be receiving her degree from Kansas State University, Bonilla is presenting her work What we carry, keep, and create: An urban intertribal community’s survivance storywork navigating K-12 Indian education. 1:30 PM, Room B
Presented by Melissa Peterson, PhD
Melissa Peterson, born and raised on the Navajo Nation, is an Assistant Research Professor in KU’s Office of Sovereign Partnerships, working closely with the Life Span Institute and Indigenous Studies Program. Since arriving at KU in 2015, she has championed Tribal Citizens, first-generation, and underserved students, leading initiatives such as Hawk Link, the Haskell/KU Exchange Program, and the MSP Scholars Program. She also serves on the Kansas Advisory Council for Indigenous Education, shaping statewide policy in partnership with KSDE, KBOR, and the state’s four Native Nations. Peterson earned her bachelor’s in community health from Virginia Commonwealth University, her MPH from KU Medical Center, and her doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from KU.2:30 PM
Presented by Kelly Berry, PhD
Dr. Kelly Berry is an enrolled citizen of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma with affiliations to the Kiowa and Choctaw Nations. Currently, he is a Mellon Impact Post-Doctoral Fellow/Lecturer at the University of Oklahoma in the Department of Native American Studies and is a certified 5-12 social studies teacher in Oklahoma having served as faculty at Riverside Indian School, the Bureau of Indian Education’s (BIE) oldest off-reservation Indian boarding school. He is a current board member for the Oklahoma Council for Social Studies, and his research includes eSports in Indian education and early colonial Indian schools of the Americas (1500s-1700s).- 2:30 PM, Room B
Presented by Chamisa Edmo
Chamisa Edmo (she/her) is a citizen of the Navajo Nation, born for Blackfeet and Shoshone-Bannock. She is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of Kansas, where her research focuses on building more culturally aligned, ethical, and accountable AI systems.Her current work involves auditing large language models to understand how they engage with Indigenous knowledge and community-held data. She is developing evaluation approaches that combine computational methods with Indigenous ways of knowing, aiming to embed community values and cultural protocols into AI systems. This work seeks to promote data practices that are transparent, respectful, and rooted in Indigenous sovereignty.
Chamisa earned her undergraduate degree in Indigenous and American Indian Studies from Haskell Indian Nations University. She has participated in international dialogues on AI policy, data rights, and Indigenous selfdetermination. Across her research and advocacy, she centers relationships, care, and accountability to ensure that emerging technologies serve, rather than harm, Indigenous communities.
Thank you to our sponsors:
College of Arts and Sciences (Department of English; Division of Biology; School of Music, Theater, and Dance; Social Transformation Studies; Chapman Center for Rural Studies) and the Dow Center for Multicultural and Community Studies at K-State Libraries.