American Indian & Indigenous Studies Program

Peter Thais (Kanien:keha'ka/Mohawk), a rising senior undergraduate student studying Biological Engineering with a minor in American Indian and Indigenous Studies, placed 2nd in the undergraduate oral presentation research category at the American Indian Science and Engineering (AISES) National Conference in spring 2024. His presentation titled “Impacts of Dispossession on Indigenous Food Systems that Benefitted Land Grant Universities”, highlighted a novel dataset that is extending previous data from “Land Grab University” (Lee and Ahtone, 2020) to include metrics such as food productivity and production potential compared between current federally recognized Tribal land and land that founded university endowments associated with the Morrill Act of 1862. This project was done in collaboration with the Charles Research Group at Cornell led by Professor Michael Charles (Dine/Navajo).

Cannon Cline (Nanticoke, Lenni Lenape) is a rising senior studying Earth and Atmospheric Science with a minor in Environment & Sustainability. Cannon shares that his cultural connections to the waters around his home state of Delaware strongly motivated him to pursue coastal and ocean science. As a McNair Scholar Cannon completed a research project on 'Analyzing Output Variance in Saltwater Intrusion Modeling' during Summer 2024 with the Srikrishnan Lab. Cannon is co-president of the Cornell AISES student club. After graduation Cannon plans to pursue his PhD. in Earth Science with an intention work with vulnerable communities in assessing and building resilience to coastal hazards.

Amaya Garnenez (Diné/Navajo) is a rising senior majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on chemistry and double minoring in American Indian and Indigenous Studies and Education. Her interdisciplinary approach integrates Indigenous Philosophies into her chemistry work, considering environmental and cultural implications. She advocates for a holistic STEM education that incorporates storytelling, community-based learning, and traditional ecological knowledge. Following graduation Amaya plans to pursue a PhD in Chemical Education, aiming to develop teaching strategies that blend Indigenous philosophies with chemistry education. As a 2024 McNair Scholar, Amaya completed a summer research project on 'Direct Funcationalization of Polymers Containing Acidic C-H Bonds Via Reverse Polarity Hydrogen Atom Transfer' with the Stache Lab.