The Advisory Board of the Jim Thorpe Center for the Futures of Native Peoples reflects the brilliance and creativity of our people, and it strengthens this work through collective leadership. The Center is rooted in a place like no other. Carlisle holds deep and complicated histories that continue to shape our responsibilities today, and the work asks for presence, honesty, truth telling, accountability, and relationship building. Without state or federal tribal recognition in Pennsylvania, this work relies on building wider circles of relationship and expertise beyond the local area. For that reason, we are guided by both a national Advisory Board, Dickinson Student Advisory Board Fellows, which also has local community members. Our Advisory Board brings a breadth of experience and knowledge, and includes members with family connections to the Carlisle Indian School. Together, these circles of guidance help shape our programs, steward partnerships, and initiatives grounded in relational accountability, community responsibility, respect for Indigenous knowledge systems, and honoring both past and future generations. In a place this emotionally charged, it takes a village, and this Board is part of how we do the work in a good way.
National Advisory Board
- Sherilyn Analla (Pueblo of Laguna/Gila River Indian Community)
- Morgan Barraza (Onk Akimel O'odham/Kawaika'meh/Tigua/Apache/Thai)
- Dr. Kelly Berry (Apache Tribe of Oklahoma; Kiowa and Choctaw relations)
- Bawaajigekwe Boulley (Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe)
- Wendy Bremner (Blackfeet/Little Shell Chippewa/Gros Ventre/Haida/Tlingit)
- Charlene Burns (Blackfeet/Haida)
- Maredyth Cheromiah Salazar (Laguna Pueblo)
- Reinette Curry (Northern Arapaho/Northern Ute/Pyramid Lake Paiute)
- Kimberly Daingkau-Begay (Kiowa/Caddo/Pawnee)
- Jemzi De La Paz (Northern Cheyenne)
- Gabriel Garcia (Tohono O'odham Nation)
- Jim Gerencser
- Tara Houska (Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe, Bear Clan)
- Jade Kaskaske (Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma; Sac & Fox/Absentee Shawnee/Santee Sioux/Prairie Band Potawatomi ties)
- Glen Kernell (Seminole Nation of Oklahoma/Mvskoke)
- Dr. Darren Lone Fight (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara Nation and Citizen Mvskoke Creek)
- Tina Malotte (Western Shoshone; Washoe/Kickapoo/Potawatomi/Sac & Fox lineage)
- Dr. Henrietta Mann (Southern Cheyenne)
- Councilman Perry Martinez (Pueblo de San Ildefonso)
- Minnie Naylor (Iñupiaq)
- Dr. Christine Nelson (Diné/Laguna Pueblo)
- Dr. Lindsay G. Robertson
- Dr. Royleen Ross (Pueblo of Laguna)
- Dr. Elizabeth Rule (Chickasaw Nation)
- Carissa Sanchez (Tohono O'odham Nation)
- Lynette Stant (Diné)
- Norene Starr (Cheyenne)
- Dr. Joannie Suina (Pueblo de Cochiti)
- Sheelby Thorpe (Absentee Shawnee)
- Mary Thorpe (Sac & Fox/Absentee Shawnee/Prairie Band Potawatomi/Kansas Kickapoo)
- Gerilyn Tolino (Diné)
- Rachel Valdez (Tohono O'odham Nation)
- Chief Phillip Whiteman Jr. (Northern Cheyenne)
Dickinson Alumni, Local Community Members and Affiliates
- Ellen McInnes (Indigenous Andean heritage)
- Kanoa Huner (Native Hawaiian)
- Pia Macini
- Ashley Ott
- Alex Kluge
- Anna Nassar