Biography

Hello! My name is Joseph. I am an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation in northeastern South Dakota. I have been working on community development for a number of years now, and I am delighted to have to have been part of a growing community of Tribal scholars promoting STEM to our young Native students.

My interests stem from my late father Creighton's lifetime of work with Tribal communities in ministry, social justice, and community development. While I was a student at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon many years ago, I had the opportunity to interview my father in an oral history project that really opened my eyes to his call to not only ministry but service to our Tribal communities. I have always felt a strong draw to serve my community; but I wasn't always sure if I was capable or equipped with the tools necessary.

Like most things in life, the call to community service is not simply something that drops into your lap, and requires experience, forethought, and a lot of hard work. As I have grown over the years, it became apparent that higher education coupled with community service seemed to be the best way for me to explore the complex avenues of forming relationships with Tribal communities.

Today, I have undertaken a number of projects with my tribe the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and have been working to expand my expertise to serve a greater purpose with my dissertation. To expand beyond simple data analysis and work towards data driven policy initiatives using citizen science is how data science becomes the cornerstone of Indigenous nation building for economic development.

I hope you will share in making this vision of data a reality as we move forward with serving our communities in the best way possible.

Joseph