Poetic x Indigenous Intelligences
Wednesday, April 29, 2026 online
3:30pm – 5pm EDT / 12:30pm – 2pm PDT
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Fill your cup! Gather with Dr. Kathryne Daniel of Yellow Mountain Institute and University of Arizona, Dr. Carmela Roybal and Kamella Cruz of the Native American Budget & Policy Institute, in conversation with Dr. Gurtina Besla from University of Arizona, and Helen Yung from Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence to explore collaborations for pluralism and other ways of being in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
What would make physics and astronomy feel like Indigenous youth can have ownership, and join these fields with their whole selves as uniquely-positioned contributors?
While STEM education as a whole needs to evolve to embrace diverse ways of being, seeing, and doing, how might Indigenous communities, and queer, creative spaces lead?
Who can contribute? What models and practices do we admire? What actions and initiatives can we help amplify?
We will begin with poet Kamella Cruz guiding us in a short Poetic Journey:
Immerse in the Tewa lifeway grounded in clay, reciprocity and community. Engage with the oral storytelling tradition and discover what we each carry gently within our pottery.
Art/In Forum’s COFFEE & TEA gatherings are seasonal opportunities to connect as colleagues while exploring image/desire through lightly facilitated creative process.
COFFEE & TEA gatherings are led by hosts interested in identifying possible directions for future activities. Have an idea? Contact us.
Biographies
Kamella Cruz is from Ohkay Owingeh, Village of the Strong People, in Northern New Mexico. She is a Tewa matriarch and a mother of five. Cruz raises her children in the Rocky Mountain foothills on her ancestral homelands where her family is nourished by the songs and language of her people. Cruz holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Cruz is a national facilitator and poet with the Native American Budget & Policy Institute out of the University of New Mexico. Cruz has presented for the White House Council on Native American Affairs, Sociologists for Women in Society, United National Indian Tribal Youth Conference, GearUp West, and is an invited poet with the Health Equity Council. She is an advocate of language revitalization, matriarchal knowledge and maternal health. Her writing appears in Yellow Arrow Journal, Terrain.org, Tribal College Journal and Gift of Animals and the co-edited Anthology Rocky Mountain Field Guide is due out Spring 2027. Cruz is an Assistant Creative Writing Professor at IAIA.
Carmela M. Roybal, Ph.D., MBGPH, MA, is a senior adviser at the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is a research professor and executive director of the Native American Budget and Policy Institute at the University of New Mexico. Roybal is a leading expert on Native American health, policy, and government to government relations. Her research and scholarship examine gender, medicine, indigeneity, and the intersections of state, tribal, and federal policy. Roybal uses data to develop innovative solutions for improving the life chances of Indigenous people in the United States and globally.
Roybal is a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women; is the treasurer of RC32 Women, Gender, and Society of the International Sociological Association; and is a senior research fellow at the School of Indigenous and Global Studies at AUSN. She also is a founding council member of the American Sociological Association’s Indigenous Peoples and Native Nations Section.
Kathryne J. Daniel is an Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona and an Associate Astronomer at Steward Observatory. She has undergraduate degrees in Archaeology and Physics from Bryn Mawr College and received her Ph.D. in Physics & Astronomy from Johns Hopkins University. Daniel’s research broadly focuses on the evolution of galaxies and focuses on how spiral arms work, the role of chaos in galaxy self evolution, and how expanded dimensional datasets can help us understand the dynamical history of our own Milky Way. Daniel is particularly proud to have co-founded the Society of Indigenous Physicists, which she currently co-directs. She is also the founder and president of The Yellow Mountain Institute, a non-profit organization that supports Indigenous scholars and knowledge systems in physics and astronomy through community gatherings, educational and knowledge exchange programs, and sustained individual support. Her perspective from the margins informs her scientific approach, teaching methods, mode of engagement with community, and commitment to strong mentorship of the next generation.
