Indigenous Science, Technology, and Society
About Indigenous STS
Indigenous Science, Technology, and Society (Indigenous STS) is an international research and teaching hub, housed at the University of Alberta, for the bourgeoning sub-field of Indigenous STS.
Our mission is two-fold: 1) To build Indigenous scientific literacy by training graduate students, postdoctoral, and community fellows to grapple expertly with techno-scientific projects and topics that affect their territories, peoples, economies, and institutions; and 2) To produce research and public intellectual outputs with the goal to inform national, global, and Indigenous thought and policymaking related to science and technology. Indigenous STS is committed to building and supporting techno-scientific projects and ways of thinking that promote Indigenous self-determination.
Principal Investigators
Kim TallBear is an Associate Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience & Environment, University of Alberta, and a 2018 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellow. She is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor TallBear is the author of one monograph, Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), which won the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association First Book Prize. She is the co-editor of a collection of essays published by the Oak Lake Writers, a Dakota and Lakota tribal writers' society in the USA. Professor TallBear has written nearly two-dozen academic articles and chapters published in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Sweden. She also writes for the popular press and has published in venues such as BuzzFeed, Indian Country Today, and GeneWatch. She is a frequent blogger on issues related to Indigenous peoples, science, and technology. Professor TallBear is a frequent commentator in the media on issues related to Indigenous peoples and genomics including interviews in New Scientist, New York Times, Native America Calling, National Geographic, Scientific American, The Atlantic, and on NPR, CBC News and BBC World Service. Professor TallBear has advised science museums across the United States on issues related to race and science. She also advised the former President of the American Society for Human Genetics on issues related to genetic research ethics with Indigenous populations. She is a founding ethics faculty member in the Summer internship for Indigenous Peoples in Genomics (SING), and has served as an advisor to programs at genome ethics centres at Duke University and Stanford University. She is also an advisory board member of the Science & Justice Research Centre at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Professor TallBear was an elected council member of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) from 2010-2013. She is co-producer of an Edmonton sexy storytelling show, Tipi Confessions, which serves as a research-creation laboratory at the University of Alberta on issues related to decolonization and Indigenous sexualities. She is a citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in South Dakota and is also descended from the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma.
Dr. Jessica Kolopenuk (Cree, Peguis First Nation) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta; and an Assistant Coach for the varsity women’s hockey team. She completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria. Jessica is a co-founder and co-lead of the Indigenous Science, Technology, and Society Research and Training Program (Indigenous STS) at the UofA, which supports capacities of Indigenous peoples to govern science and technology projects affecting them. Kolopenuk is also the co-founder and co-lead of the Summer internship for INdigenous peoples in Genomics Canada (SING Canada) and, more recently, has become an instructor for Science Outside the Lab BC (SOtLBC). With Indigenous self-determination held at the core of her work, Dr. Kolopenuk’s research and policy advising address what technoscientific knowledge means for Indigenous peoples and, also, what Indigenous knowledge can mean for science and technology fields.