Speakers & Presenters - NMU Indigenous Perspectives Symposium

Dr. Evan Tlesla Adams is a Coast Salish physician & actor from Tla’amin First Nation near Powell River, BC, Canada. Best known for his role as Thomas Builds-The- Fire in the Miramax film SMOKE SIGNALS. He completed his Medical Doctorate at the University of Calgary & a residency in the Aboriginal Family Practice program at UBC in Vancouver, Canada. He was a recent Harkness Fellow at the John A. Burns School of Medicine in Honolulu, HI, & is currently the Assessment Lead for the National Circle for Indigenous Medical Education (NCIME) in Canada.

Tony Duncan is a celebrated Native American flutist and five-time World Champion Hoop Dancer of Apache, Arikara, Hidatsa, and Mandan heritage. Drawing on his Native American heritage, Duncan creates a healing resonance with the soft, soothing melodies of the Apache cane flute and the cedar flute, crafting his music in spacious, gentle layers. He learned the instrument as a boy from his father, Ken Duncan, a noted Apache storyteller from Arizona, who taught him to play and make traditional flutes at age 10, alongside the influence of flute masters like R. Carlos Nakai and John Rainer Jr.  

Duncan has released ten recordings for the Native American flute, five of them albums for Canyon Records, and won Artist of the Year at the Native American Music Awards in 2013. His accolades also include a Dance/USA Fellowship, and recognition in 2022 as one of the Kennedy Center's NEXT 50, an initiative honoring 50 trailblazing cultural leaders. 
Beyond the concert stage, Duncan has performed for First Lady Michelle Obama, appeared at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Smithsonian, and toured with pop artist Nelly Furtado, appearing in her music video and performing twice for former First Lady Laura Bush, plus appearances on MTV and The Tonight Show. He has also consulted with brands including Marvel and Vogue. 

As a hoop dancer, Duncan learned from his father starting at age five, and today balances both art forms as complementary expressions. Tony describes hoop dancing as representing fire, with its quick, flickering movements, while the flute's sound reminds him of water and its healing power. He now lives in Mesa, Arizona, with his wife and children, several of whom are also budding hoop dancers carrying his legacy forward.
 

Dr. Melanie Nadeau (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Bear Clan) is the Vice Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Indigenous Health at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences. Her work centers on Indigenous evaluation, data sovereignty, and community‑driven public health research, with a focus on strengthening Tribal research capacity and advancing Indigenous health sovereignty. She serves on multiple national initiatives supporting Indigenous-led research, governance, and innovation.

Lisa Kahaleole Hall (Kanaka Maoli) is a scholar of race, colonialism, and indigeneity whose work centers the intersections of gender and sexuality within these frameworks. She holds a PhD and MA in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and graduated cum laude with a BA in Women's Studies from Yale University.

Her seminal essay, "'Hawaiian at Heart' and Other Fictions" (The Contemporary Pacific 17.2, 2005), has served as a touchstone for a generation of young scholars grappling with questions of Indigenous identity, authenticity, and belonging, and remains widely taught in Indigenous and Pacific Islander studies classrooms. This foundational work laid the groundwork for the expansive inquiry Hall continues today: she is currently completing a book manuscript, Making Relations in the "House of Difference," which extends her research into the entangled histories of race, colonialism, and Indigenous identity. She is Program Director of Indigenous Studies at the University of Victoria, where she is the recipient of the President’s Chair (2022-2027) in support of her work to build an Indigenous Studies major program and bring the ocean into land-based pedagogies. 

Prior to joining the University of Victoria, she chaired the Women's and Gender Studies program at the former Wells College in Aurora, New York, where she also held the National Endowment for the Humanities Preceptorship in Women's Studies from 2011 to 2016. She also maintained visiting professor status with Cornell University's American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program, reflecting the interdisciplinary and cross-institutional reach of her scholarship.

Photo Credit: Ruth Parrish

Photo note: located on the Tsawout Reserve
 

Dean S. Seneca, MPH, MCURP, serves as the CEO of Seneca Scientific Solutions+, a Public Health and Urban and Regional Planning LLC. In this position, he provides capacity building assistance for Tribal Nations, States, Regions, Cities and Territories in economic and community development that embraces the concepts of “healthy places for healthy people.” Services provided include public health policy, program, training & science; strategic/master planning; community, economic development; grant writing; architectural site planning & building design; performance programing; health research; data collection & management; and program evaluation.

Areas of health expertise include epidemiology, chronic and infectious diseases, emergency preparedness and response, environmental health, social determinants of health, and global health. Mr. Seneca is considered a national subject matter expert on “Indigenous Health Disparities” and holds a Core Investigator appointment in the Office of Health Equity Research at the University of Rochester Medical Center and an adjunct instructor position in the Department of Public Health Sciences. Also, Mr. Seneca holds adjunct faculty positions at the University of Buffalo, School of Public Health and Health Professions and the School of Architecture and Planning. Previously, Mr. Seneca served as a Senior Health Scientist in the Partnership Support Unit within the Office for State, Tribal, Local and Territorial Support at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His main responsibilities were to build CDC’s national public health partners ability to provide greater capacity building assistance to state, tribal, local, and territorial health departments.

Mr. Seneca is a non-enrolled Seneca from the Cattaraugus Territory. He has over 20 years of experience in the field of infectious disease outbreaks having been a first responder to Anthrax, H1N1, Ebola, Zika and now Covid19. Before arriving to CDC, he held the position of Tribal Planning Director for the Seneca Nation of Indians. US Army Reserves, 3rd Medical Command, Company Commander, 345th Entomology Detachment, served until 2007. Received both of his master’s degree(s) from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

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. 

Dr. Bimadoshka Pucan is a member of Saugeen First Nation and a professor with NMU's Center for Native American Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Western Ontario, where her dissertation, "The Anishinaabeg of Chief's Point," centered on a rare collection of 1930s wax-cylinder recordings located at Museum London. These recordings of Anishinaabeg songs, stories, and medicine teachings shared by Robert and Elizabeth Thompson at a time when Indigenous cultural practice was outlawed in Canada. She later curated the exhibit "Voices of Chief's Point," returning those recordings to public life, and taught in the Department of History and School of Public Affairs at Concordia University before joining NMU. Her work continues to center Anishinaabe language, oral tradition, and land-based knowledge.

Pamela Valdez (M'chigeeng First Nation) is an Indigenous artist and employee of the Marquette Food Co-op, where she brings her community-minded spirit to daily work supporting local, organic food access in the Upper Peninsula. Outside the Co-op, Pamela is a co-founder of Skoden Sisters, a beadwork business rooted in Indigenous artistry and tradition, creating handmade pieces that carry forward cultural knowledge and craftsmanship through jewelry and accessories.

Through both her work at the Co-op and her beadwork with Skoden Sisters, Pamela is committed to building community connection by providing nourishing food or wearable art that celebrates Native identity and creativity.

Lori Gambardella serves as the Traditional Medicine Supervisor for the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians' Health Division, based out of the Sault Ste. Marie office. This program serves seven county service area, which includes St. Ignace. She oversees a program established in 1995 as the first tribal traditional medicine program in the United States integrated into a tribal health delivery system and one that has since become a model for similar programs at other tribes.

Under her leadership, the program offers holistic Anishinaabe traditional medicine services addressing spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional needs, working to facilitate the integration of traditional and Western medicine while honoring the cultural and traditional beliefs of the clients it serves. Lori coordinates community ceremonies and events, including Full Moon Ceremonies and Women's Fasts for Mother Earth, helping connect tribal members to traditional healing practices and teachings.

Ghidora is a family-driven "Rez Metal" band from the Hannahville Indian Community, a Potawatomi reservation in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The band fuses Indigenous heritage with heavy music, drawing on powwow rhythms and ancestral storytelling alongside modern metal aggression. Described as a highly aggressive original metal act, Ghidora has built a reputation across the U.P. music scene.

The lineup includes Lexie Keshick on vocals, Sheldon King on bass, and Jose McKitrick on drums; all members of the Hannahville Indian Community, making Ghidora very much a family band. Their sound has been compared to acts like Slipknot, landing somewhere between nu-metal and metalcore, though the band prefers to simply call it "Rez Metal." In their own words, they're a Native American rez metal band who are also all family, bringing a hard, heavy style meant to inspire others to get out there and do the same.

Ghidora has become a fixture of the regional heavy music circuit, playing festivals and events throughout the Upper Peninsula and Eastern U.P.; including St. Ignace's 2nd Street Fest, Brandon's Birthday Bash, and Escanaba's 4/20 U.P. Heavy shows. One local music writer called them one of the hardest-working bands north of Chicago, praising them as good people, hard workers, and dedicated community stewards.

The band remains unsigned and independent, self-releasing music and steadily building a following through relentless live shows across the region.

Old Bridge Singers and Dancers are a Haudenosaunee drum group from the Seneca Nation's Allegany Territory (Ohi:yo'). The group takes its name from three bridges on their territory that were flooded when the Kinzua Dam was built in the 1960s. Old Bridge Singers and Dancers share the Haudenosaunee earth songs and social dances of their people, songs that are traditionally used to have fun and lift the spirits of the community alongside Western powwow-style singing, bringing this living tradition to audiences across Turtle Island. 

RJ Smith is a cultural educator and culture bearer dedicated to the revitalization of Bagodowe, traditional Anishinaabe lacrosse. Known to the Odawa and Ojibwe as Baagadowe or Baaga'adowewin, the game is far more than a sport or activity, as it is a Medicine Game historically used for community healing, conflict resolution, and spiritual alignment.  RJ Smith travels to communities, schools, universities, and regional high schools, to teach the game's history, spiritual significance, traditions, and to play the game.

Dennis Dunlap is an enrolled member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. He is Wolf Clan. He is a retired US Army veteran, and the husband of Donna Dunlap. They have been life partners for 47 years and business partners for 15 years. Dennis’ herbal journey began years before he retired from the service. Family members came to the Dunlap’s for various health issues, asking for sustainable, natural ways to combat minor maladies with herbs as opposed to synthetic drugs. They stepped up to the plate, and designed a line of products, made out of necessity and love. These products became the backbone of their business, Native Blend. As presenters at the Indigenous Perspective Symposium, Dennis and Donna will bring years of experience to instruct and demonstrate the traditional way of making a proper salve. They will include a worksheet with step-by-step instructions, website links for resources, and helpful tips on how to make a superior product.

Destine Alvarado-Seymour (Indigenous Mexican) is a Wetlands Specialist with the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community's Wetlands Program, where they have worked since 2023. A graduate of Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College, they bring both academic training and community-rooted knowledge to their work protecting the wetland resources of the L'Anse Indian Reservation. 

KBIC's Wetlands Program reflects a long, place-based cultural connection to water and wetlands, embracing the responsibility of nurturing, protecting, and healing the natural environment and wetlands the Anishinaabe have long regarded as living medicine cabinets, sustaining culturally significant plants and wildlife. In their role, Destine contributes to the Program's ongoing work assessing and monitoring the reservation's wetland habitats, part of a broader effort supporting fish, wildlife, and plant populations across the region's streams, rivers, and inland lakes.

The Teal Lake Singers are an Anishinaabe big drum and singing group based in the Marquette, Harvey, Ishpeming, and Negaunee area. Over the years, they have become one of the most familiar and trusted voices at community and cultural gatherings across the Upper Peninsula, called upon time and again to sing at regional powwows and to honor traditional spaces with their presence.

Their music carries forward a way of life where traditional singing and storytelling around the drum served as the heart of community social life, offering a gathering point where teachings, memory, and connection were passed on through song. To sit with the Teal Lake Singers is to hear that tradition carried forward, where the big drum is a heartbeat, a medicine, a way of keeping community and ceremony connected across generations. Wherever they sing, the space becomes rooted in respect.