Heres che (that is ‘hello’ in Muscogee)!
I am a Native American philosopher and a first generation college student, receiving my PhD (2015) and MA (2009) from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Washington. I earned my BA in Philosophy from Oklahoma State University.
My research focuses on the philosophy of science, particularly the social dimension of knowledge creation. In my dissertation, Analogical Reasoning and Scientific Practice: The
Problem of Ingrained Analogy, I analyze a potential problem that arises when scientific communities indiscriminately rely on analogies that underwrite metaphor as part of their practice. To address this problem, I argue for strategies that exploit epistemic diversity as part of a constructive account of analogical reasoning.
A member of the wind clan of the Muskogee Nation of Oklahoma, I also research topics relevant to Indian Country and have presented papers on such subjects as identity, sovereignty, and mixed-race contributions to knowledge production. I am an alumnus of American University’s Washington Internships for Native Students (WINS) and interned at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the office of the Director of Tribal Affairs Group.
I have experience teaching a wide range of courses to diverse populations at a variety of institutions. Recently, I served as a Consortium for Faculty Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow at DePauw University. While at DePauw, I had the opportunity to teach courses like Feminism and Science, Native American Philosophy, and Ethical Issues in Indian Country.
During my CFD Fellowship, I wrote and was awarded a Diversity and Inclusion Grant from the American Philosophical Association to develop the Inclusive Summer High School Institute for Philosophy (ISHIP) at The Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University. This summer eighteen high school students from across the United States spent a week on the DePauw campus with faculty mentors, learning about philosophy. I am honored and excited to have created a program that introduces the benefits of philosophy to high school juniors from social groups that are underrepresented in the discipline. An added bonus–I was interviewed by a reporter for my tribal newspaper (link).
If you have any questions, you can contact me using the following form:
