The American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program (AIISP) provides a unique combination of American Indian and Indigenous Studies (AIIS) courses, student engagement and leadership opportunities, Indigenous community on campus, and an undergraduate residential experience at Akwe:kon, the first Native student residence hall in North America.

Land Acknowledgment

Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ people, past and present, to these lands and waters.

This land acknowledgment has been reviewed and approved by the traditional Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ leadership.

Learn more about land acknowledgments.

In addition to the Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ land acknowledgment but separate from it, the AIISP faculty would like to emphasize: Cornell's founding was enabled in the course of a national genocide by the sale of almost one million acres of stolen Indian land under the Morrill Act of 1862. To date the university has neither officially acknowledged its complicity in this theft nor has it offered any form of restitution to the hundreds of Native communities impacted. For additional information, see the Cornell University and Indigenous Dispossession website here.

Indigenous Student Spotlight

A young man with long black hair wearing a black button down shirt with geometric patterns gestures as a poster titled Peter Thais (Kanien:keha'ka/Mohawk), a rising senior undergraduate student studying Biological Engineering with a minor in American Indian and Indigenous Studies. Two other individuals with their back to the camera are listening intently.

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).

Two men, in a green and grey jacket, speak with two students.

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.

Two young women wearing glasses with their hair pulled back examine a glass beaker filled with bright yellow liquid. Both women wear light blue lab coats and stand in front of a lab founder filled with chemistry equipment.

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.

AIISP Events

students taking notes at a display at the Johnson Museum

Seminar

AIISP Soup'er Series with Leonardo Santamaria Montero
Leonardo Santamaría Montero is a PhD student in the History of Art at Cornell University. He holds a BA and a Licentiate degree in Art History from the Universidad de Costa Rica, where he will return as a professor after completing his doctoral...

Seminar

From 1914 to 1942, Cornell’s Department of Home Economics and later, New York State College of Home Economics, received federal, state, and private funding to create extension programs and scholarships for Hodinǫ̱hsǫ́:nih women. These programs...
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program
Text Reads September 30th Orange Shirt Day. Image includes a orange colored t-shirt on an orange background.

Lecture

Title: Indian Boarding Schools: Legacies, Impacts, and the Mission of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition Date: Monday September 30th; 4:30-5:30pm Location: 102 Mann (237 Mann Drive) Description: For over 150 years...
  • American Indian and Indigenous Program
  • American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program

AIISP News

Michael Charles ’16, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and assistant professor, outside Akwe:kon, a residence hall devoted to Indigenous cultures, where Charles lived as an undergraduate at Cornell. Photo by Jason Koski.

News

For Michael Charles '16, citizen of the Navajo Nation, his research and advocacy are inseparable – and his lab is generating data to help Indigenous communities advocate for and govern themselves.

  • American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program
  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Environment
Two men, in a green and grey jacket, speak with two students.

News

Indigenous students in STEM are creating community and working to increase representation and visibility – all while bringing valuable cultural insights and a community-focus to their academic work.

  • American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program
  • Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
  • Biological and Environmental Engineering

Explore the American Indian & Indigenous Studies Program