Heritage University
Yakima, WA
Winona Wynn, Ph.D., is a Citizen of the Nakota Nation and an enrolled member of the Assiniboine/Sioux Tribe, Ft. Peck. She is a Professor of Native American Studies and Indigenous Psychology at Heritage University, a small liberal arts university located in Eastern Washington State on the Yakama Indian Reservation. She completed her graduate work in American Studies in May 2009 from Washington State University. Her area of specialization is cultural identity and education, emphasizing indigenous community research protocols and methodologies. She works extensively with various Yakama Nation Programs, including the tribal courts, foster care, and the cultural museum. She directed or co-facilitated three consecutive Gates Foundation grants supporting work ranging from environmental sustainability and empowerment of traditional ecosystem knowledge to a cultural museum archive project titled “The Yakama Nation Cultural Museum and the Impact of Intergenerational Storytelling.” She currently focuses on developing STEM-based undergraduate research internships through her position as the Institutional and Summer Coordinator of The Leadership Alliance. These opportunities have facilitated academic partnerships with Research I institutions throughout the United States. Additionally, for three years at the University of Capetown and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, Wynn has directed groups in community research methodology and supervised community-based experiential research projects with South African and United States undergraduate students. Her current work also includes a documentary project focusing on indigenous kinship caregivers, grandmothers caring for relatives on the Yakama Indian Reservation, and women in the township of Khayelitsha in the western cape of South Africa, who are caring for their relatives who are “AIDS Orphans.” The focus of this project is the exploration of intergenerational identity constructs and socially constructed gender roles.
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET