"Each of us is surrounded by webs of relationship and connection. My drum is part of my bundle. It connects me to my cousin who made it, the deer whose hide is stretched across it, the tree whose wood forms its shape, and the fire that was burning when it was given to me. These webs stretch outward. Together we hold the world." (Krawec, 2022, p. 117).
kinSTEM: Kinship in Sciences Conference is designed to create a welcoming space for reflection, connection, and growth. Rather than defining a single path or outcome, the conference invites participants to bring their own experiences, questions, and interpretations into the conversation.
The kinSTEM Conference aims to:
- Create opportunities for scholars to share their research, knowledge, and lived experiences and to explore Indigenous ways of conceptualizing and enlivening kinship in STEM.
- Support the development of kinship-based networks that foster academic, personal, and professional relationships.
- Provide moments for participants to reflect on the historical, political, and ethical dimensions of STEM through Indigenous perspectives.
- Encourage collective imagining of futures in STEM rooted in care, community, and responsibility.
By centering kinship, kinSTEM redefines what it means to engage in scientific inquiry by grounding discovery in relationships, accountability, and shared stewardship of knowledge.
Reference:
- Krawec, P. (2022). Becoming kin: an Indigenous call to unforgetting the past and reimagining our future. Broadleaf Books.
This event is open to all eligible persons regardless of race, color, or national origin. Reasonable accommodations are available upon request. Please contact the Native American House at nah@illinois.edu.
Registration is required to attend. Registration has been closed.
2025 Conference Schedule
Friday, November 7
Location: Room 314A, Illini Union (1401 W. Green St., Urbana)
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 4:00 p.m. | Registration |
| 5:00 p.m. | Welcome Dinner |
| 5:30 p.m. | Convergence Science: A Process of Emergence Opening Keynote Speaker: Daniel R. Wildcat (Yuchi Member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma), Ph.D., Professor, Indigenous and American Indian Studies, Haskell Indian Nations University About the speaker: Daniel R. Wildcat is a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma and has dedicated 39 years to teaching and administration at Haskell Indian Nations University. Dr. Wildcat earned his interdisciplinary Ph.D. from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. In 1994, he partnered with the Hazardous Substance Research Center at Kansas State University to establish the Haskell Environmental Research Studies (HERS) Center, and later launched the HERS summer undergraduate internship program in collaboration with KU professor Dr. Joane Nagel. Dr. Wildcat is currently the principal investigator of a $20 million, five-year NSF-funded project to develop the Rising Voices, Changing Coasts Research Hub at Haskell. His publications include Power and Place: Indian Education in America (with Vine Deloria, Jr.), Destroying Dogma: Vine Deloria’s Legacy on Intellectual America (with Steve Pavlik), and Red Alert: Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge, which emphasizes Indigenous ingenuity—“Indigenuity”—as essential to addressing environmental challenges in the Anthropocene. He also co-authored the Southern Great Plains chapter of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. His most recent book, released in fall 2023, is “On Indigenuity: Learning the Lessons of Mother Earth.” |
| 6:00 p.m. | Printmaking: A Kinship-making Activity We invite you to participate in a creative cycle of making by designing your own commemorative kinSTEM print. Though each print will share a common origin, every piece will be uniquely shaped by your individual touch and expression. Together, these prints will symbolize the creation of new relationships; connections that reach across generations, disciplines, and geographies. |
Saturday, November 8
Location: Room 612, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) (1206 W. Gregory Dr., Champaign)
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 8:00 a.m. | Registration at IGB, Conference Room 612 |
| 8:45 a.m. | Opening Prayer by Lisa Schroeder (Navajo) |
| 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. | Taking Anti-Science Seriously: What Should Emerging Indigenous Scholars Do? Invited Keynote Speaker: Rosalyn LaPier, (Blackfeet Tribe of Montana/Métis) Ph.D., Professor, Department of History, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Description: Anti-science sentiment has existed in the U.S. since its founding in colonial times. However, in the past few years, public distrust of climate change science, vaccines, and public health measures has grown. And Indigenous peoples have their own history of mistrust of the scientific community as objectifying and extractive. How should Indigenous peoples address this new anti-science sentiment and "direct attack" on science? What role does Indigenous Knowledge play? About the speaker: Dr. Rosalyn LaPier is an award-winning Indigenous writer, environmental historian, and ethnobotanist. She works within Indigenous communities to revitalize traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and to strengthen public policy for Indigenous languages. She has written two award-winning books, two Blackfeet language lexicons, and dozens of articles and commentaries, and she has over 25 years of teaching experience at research universities & Native American-controlled institutions at the undergraduate & graduate level. She splits her time between living in the lands of the Peoria & Potawatomi peoples in Urbana, Illinois, the Salish in Missoula, Montana, and the Blackfeet reservation. She is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis. |
| 10:00 to 10:10 a.m. | Self-Care Break Location: Varies Description: While we’ve scheduled dedicated self-care breaks throughout the conference, please know that you’re welcome to take an intentional pause at any time. You can access sacred plant medicines for smudging and feel free to simply step away to stretch, hydrate, and enjoy a few quiet moments. We encourage you to listen to your body and honor the practices that help you stay grounded, balanced, and fully present in this shared space. Outdoor Smudging Location: IGB Outdoor Patio Description: Participants are welcome to use the sweetgrass and sage provided for smudging throughout the Conference. A designated outdoor space is available for this practice. Please connect with a volunteer wearing a white kinSTEM t-shirt, who will be happy to assist you. |
| 10:10 to 11:00 a.m. | Unsettling Systems: Indigenous Interventions in Education and Institutional Spaces Title: Disrupting Western Mathematics: Analyzing Arithmetic Word Problems Used in Native American Boarding Schools Mary Smith (Diné), Ph.D. Student, Education Policy, Organization & Leadership, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Description: This paper analyzes arithmetic problems from the Estelle Reel Papers, arguing that early 20th-century Indian boarding school mathematics promoted settler colonial ideologies. We demonstrate how the word problems involving Land sought to displace students from their relationships to the natural world and promote ideologies of private property and individualism. Title: Expansive Information Work: The Ribbon Shirt Framework and the Ethics of Tickling Electricity David Eby (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma/Muscogee Creek) Ph.D. Student, School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Description: This presentation explores how information science work can be practiced with care and relationality, challenging norms of efficiency and neutrality in libraries and museums. Through storytelling, autoethnography, and a proposed “Ribbon Shirt Framework,” it reimagines presence, reciprocity, and responsibility as guiding principles for more ethical, relational information work. |
| 11:00 to 11:10 a.m. | Self-Care Break |
| 11:10 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. | The Living Earth: Indigenous Science and Reciprocal Relationships with Non-Human Beings Natasha Myhal, Ph.D., (Ojibwe), Assistant Professor, American Indian Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Description: This talk explores Indigenous science as a framework for knowledge production, centering Anishinaabe water-land relations. By supporting Indigenous governance, we move beyond deficit narratives toward recognizing Indigenous peoples as essential knowledge holders and stewards of lands and waters. |
| 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. | Lunch |
| 1:10 to 2:25 p.m. | Indigenizing Purdue: Weaving Indigenous Pedagogy into Students’ Academic Success at the NAECC Felica Ahasteen-Bryant (Dine’), NAECC Director, Purdue University, West Lafayette campus; Tommy Martins (Navajo), undergraduate student, Mathematics, College of Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette campus; Alyssa Nez (Navajo), graduate student, Linguistics, College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University, West Lafayette campus Description: Navajo rug weaving is an artform which uses complex patterns to create rugs and incorporate traditional knowledge passed down from generations to generation. Join us to learn how the Native American Educational and Cultural Center (NAECC) at Purdue University “weaves” Indigenous pedagogy into undergraduate and graduate students’ academic success. |
| 2:35-3:45 p.m | kinSTEM Collaborative Zine Description: Zines (pronounced “zeens”) are self-published works that serve as powerful platforms for creativity, reflection, and independent storytelling. In partnership with the University Library at Illinois, we invite you to contribute a page to the kinSTEM Collaborative Zine, a collective creation that captures the spirit and conversations of this Conference. If you’d like to receive a digital copy of the finished zine, leave your name and email with a University Library staff member. |
| 3:45 to 4:55 p.m. | We Belong Here: Indigenous STEM Scholars at Illinois Description: For college students, belonging reflects a sense of connection to community, culture, and campus life. Kinship, a related but distinct concept, emphasizes how relationships are structured, nurtured, and maintained. In this session, Dr. Jenny Davis engages undergraduate and graduate Indigenous scholars to explore how kinship practices actively foster belonging by creating culturally grounded spaces of support and recognition in STEM, broadly, and at Illinois, specifically. Moderator: Jenny L. Davis (Chickasaw Nation), Ph.D., Associate Professor of Anthropology and American Indian Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Panelists: Will Bartee (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma), Major: Integrative Biology; Mia Davlantis (Menominee), Major: Aerospace Engineering; Josh Diaz (Tübatulabals of Kern Valley), Doctoral Student, Department of Anthropology; Yanaba Schroeder (Navajo), Major: Human Development & Family Studies; Alyssa Spencer (Navajo), Ph.D. Candidate, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering |
| 4:55 p.m. | Closing Remarks by Dr. Ripan S. Malhi, Professor of Anthropology; Director, Center for Indigenous Science, Affiliate, SIB & AIS; IGB About the speaker: Ripan S. Malhi is Professor in the Department of Anthropology, School of Integrative Biology, American Indian Studies program and Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He earned his PhD from the Department of Anthropology at UC Davis and then completed a postdoc in the Department of Human Genetics, University of Michigan Medical School. Prior to starting at the University of Illinois, Ripan co-founded a biotechnology company, called Trace Genetics, Inc., in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a molecular anthropologist who collaborates with Indigenous communities to study the evolutionary histories of Indigenous peoples of North America. Ripan currently directs the Center for Indigenous Science, a partnership between the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and the American Indian Studies Program that uses Indigenous Science frameworks promoting ethical, sustainable and community collaborative research. |
| 5:15 p.m. | Closing Prayer by Lisa Schroeder (Navajo) |
| 5:30 p.m. | Dinner featuring a musical performance by William Buchholtz (Métis) |