Speakers & Presenters - NMU Indigenous Perspectives Symposium

Jonathan Thunder infuses his personal lens with real-time world experiences using a wide range of mediums. He is known for his surreal paintings, digitally animated films, and installations in which he addresses the subject matter of personal experience and social commentary. He is an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe and makes his home and studio in Duluth, MN.

April E. Lindala (Six Nations) is a full professor of Native American Studies at Northern Michigan University (NMU). She earned a Ph.D. in Rhetoric, Theory, and Culture at Michigan Technological University in 2023. She also earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in English (2006) and a Master’s degree in English (2003) from NMU and has had creative works published in numerous anthologies. 

Lindala was a runner-up for the Upper Peninsula Poet Laureate in 2021. She worked with Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College on the NEA-funded project, the Great Lakes Indigenous Art, Education, and Healing project in 2020. She was hired by Lac du Flambeau to serve as the project coordinator for the Giikaandaasowin Ojibwe Village Project in 2019. Lindala led the NMU Center for Native American Studies team to offer the first baccalaureate degree solely dedicated to the field of Native American Studies in the State of Michigan in 2016. 

Lindala co-edited the Decolonizing Diet Project cookbook [NMU Press] in 2014. Lindala co-edited, Mikwendaagozi: to be remembered, a self-published photo book featuring American Indian youth photographers from Michigan’s central Upper Peninsula in 2013 based on a summer art program designed by Lindala with artist, Kristine Granger. Lindala worked with the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in the NEA-funded program, Creating and Learning Art in Native Settings in 2012. Lindala also created and has offered a Native American beadwork class that has been running over fifteen years. Lindala is also a bead artist, singer, and powwow dancer. 

William Johnson is a descendant of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan.  He is the Curator/Operations Manager of the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways where he has worked for over 26 years.  He is also one of two Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) Designees.  William is the Chairman of the Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation & Repatriation Alliance (MACPRA) and is serving his fourth 4-year term.  MACPRA is composed of the 12 Federally-recognized Indian Tribes and 2 State Historic Indian Tribes in the State of Michigan. He continues to serve on the University of Michigan’s Advisory Committee on Culturally Unidentifiable Human Remains under NAGPRA since 2011.

Candice Dalsing is an award-winning Director/Producer based in Los Angeles, CA. As a part of the LGBTQ+ community and a descendant of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, she is known for her unwavering commitment to inclusive storytelling. With a career spanning over a decade in the film industry, Candice has become a pivotal figure in bringing to light the nuanced narratives of underrepresented communities. Her work, characterized by its depth, authenticity, and innovative approach, aims not only to entertain but to provoke thought and foster understanding across diverse audiences. She is also Co-Owner of Deer Woman Productions which is a nonprofit Native/women-run production company. Her work includes Four Cousins & a Christmas (2021), Brood (2012), Chosen Warriors (2014), and Bring Them Home (2024).

Sherri Loonsfoot is an Anishinaabe mixed media artist from Keweenaw Bay Indian Community. Painting has been a continuous source of healing that has helped connect her with my culture and identity. Sherri's work focuses on transitions and the relationships we cultivate through the cyclical nature of the seasons.

Woodland Sky Native American Dance Company is an authentic and theatrical dance performance company focused on Ojibwe, Menominee, Potawatomi, Lakota, and Apache dancers.  They tell historic Native American stories using traditional songs and dances.  

Kareen Lewis ndizhnakaaz, mishiikehn ndodem, Traverse City ndonjibah.  She is Odawa and grew up in Hart, Michigan, where she teaches and creates beadwork, makes regalia, star quilt blankets, as well as a variety of other Indigenous inspired art forms. Kareen is a writer and a poet.

Caroline LaPorte, J.D. (Immediate Descendant of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians)
Caroline is a Texas Bar Licensed Attorney, an Associate Trial Court Judge for Little River, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and the Academic Department Head and Associate Professor of Native American Studies at Northern Michigan University. She is also a mother, a wife, a daughter, and a niece.

Caroline previously served as the Director of the Indigenous Safe Housing Center at the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center (a project she started) and as NIWRC's Senior Native Affairs Policy Advisor in Washington, D.C. She also previously served as an attorney and the Judicial Advisor to the Seminole Tribe of Florida's Tribal Court.  She graduated cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law, was named a Henry Bandier Fellow for her Human Rights advocacy, and received the Natasha Pettigrew Memorial Award for child welfare advocacy work. Her legal career has focused on Indian country, specifically child welfare, housing, human rights, and gender-based violence. She serves on the American Bar Association's Victim’s Rights Task Force, previously chaired the Victim’s Committee for the Criminal Justice Section of the ABA, and is the chair of the Board of Directors for StrongHearts Native Helpline.  She is also a member of the White House's Trilateral Working Group on Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls. She has worked at CASA in Dallas,Texas (Guardian ad Litem Program for children in foster care), has worked on Amicus Briefs, and was a family law attorney. She clerked for the Department of Justice's Office of Tribal Justice and for LRBOI when she was in law school. She has written and received numerous federal grants, has been published by the American Bar Association, American University's Law Review and others, and has been the Department of Justice's 904 Task Force Facilitator for the past few years. She has also worked on key federal legislation such as the Violence Against Women Act, the Not Invisible Act, and Savanna's Act. 

Her grandfather, Francis J. LaPorte, was an Indian Boarding School survivor, having attended Holy Childhood in Harbor Springs.

Tracy Wascom earned her BFA in Art from the University of Louisiana Lafayette and her MFA in Photography from Syracuse University. Currently, she is Professor of Foundations & Art History at the School of Art & Design here at Northern Michigan University. As a professional artist, her creative practice is driven by a desire to explore the myriad edges we use to define and demarcate our world–from our ethical and aesthetic boundaries to the geography of maps. As an educator, she works to foster experiences that enable thoughtful questioning and reflection, including institution-wide initiatives, such as NMU’s Diversity Common Reader and the Great Lakes Indigenous Arts, Education and Healing Project. In our community, she has served on the City of Marquette’s Public Art Commission for over five years, acting as its chair.

Mindy Bailey is the Digitization Specialist of the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways where she has worked since July 2022. Her primary responsibilities are to organize, inventory, scan, photograph and digitize the Mt. Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School collection. She is completing this work through 3 grants including the Council on Library Information Resources, National Endowment for the Humanities and Institute of Museum and Library Services. She is a member of the Mt. Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School Committee and is dedicated to the historic preservation of the school. Mindy is also a Forensic Anthropologist and Medical Examiner Investigator serving 14 counties in the State of Michigan.   

Chelsea Monaghan is the artist behind Sawftsea /soft-see/. She is an all around creative, specializing in large scale public murals and illustration. Her inspiration comes from wildlife, collaboration, and community. Currently living on Anishinaabeg land in the Upper Peninsula, her work often tells a story of the Great Lakes and the life that surrounds them. In addition to her love of painting she also spends her time as a singer, songwriter, and musician.   

Michelle Reed is an enrolled member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Ojibwe. She lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with her husband and their two children. She dances jingle, hoop, traditional and fancy shawl. She is the manager and co-founder of the Woodland Sky Native American Dance Company as well as the lead female dancer for the #1-selling Native American recording artist Brule’. She has developed N8V Dance Fitness, a workout designed to combine culture, health and wellness, and has had the opportunity to personally share this with native communities and Universities. She is a clothing and accessories designer, doing custom sewing and beadwork for many champion dancers as well as a full purse line, MReed Designs Purse Co. Her latest project is the Indigenous Girl Doll Collection. For the past four summers, she has been managing the cultural events at the newly renovated Waaswaaganing Living Arts and Culture Center in Lac du Flambeau, WI.