Meet Our Students

Emily Charmaine Coon is Kanien’keha:ha, Wolf Clan, and her matriarchal family is from Kenhte:ke (also known as Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory). She will be carrying out her PhD in Indigenous Studies at UB, where she hopes to research Kanien’keha:ka futurities and apocalyptic land-based pedagogies in post-secondary education. 

Coon has spent the past several years as a full-time lecturer working with undergraduate students in so-called Canada. Her teaching focuses on interrupting the permanence of settler colonialism, radically re-thinking how we can present Indigenous knowledges, stories and desire in our classrooms, and dreaming about creative ways to build decolonial futures.

Coon completed her master of arts in child and youth care at the University of Victoria where she focused on her contemporary Haudenosaunee identity, the practical resurgence of sken:nen and digital ways of (re)mapping settler-occupied spaces with Indigenous knowledges.

Molly Dunfield, a settler scholar, received her bachelor’s degree in art history from Buffalo State University. Disillusioned with the highly Eurocentric views within art history and lack of settler colonial accountability, her current research aims to denaturalize these universalisms and agitate colonial frameworks. Her thesis focuses on Haudenosaunee collage art from the 1950's to now, foregrounding Indigenous art histories through notions of visual sovereignty. She places her own collage work, which interrogates settler colonialism, in dialogue with Indigenous voices, disassembling colonial technologies and reassembling them for anti-colonial purposes. She is also a Graduate Assistant for the NAGPRA Coordinator at UB. Molly seeks to increase her capacity as an honorable treaty partner and ally as she moves through spaces.

Sarajane Gomlak-Green is Kanyen'kehá:ka (Six Nations of the Grand River) and was born and raised in the city of Buffalo. They received a bachelor’s degree in geology with a minor in Japanese, as well as a master’s degree in geology from the University at Buffalo. For a number of years, they worked in the field of informal STEM education, primarily at the Buffalo Museum of Science. In 2023, they completed a two-year Kanyen’ké:ha (Mohawk Language) immersion program at Onkwawén:na Kentyóhkwa at Six Nations of the Grand River. They are interested in Indigenous language revitalization, as well as Haudenosaunee languages and linguistics.

Delaney McNulty, citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, grew up at-large in Utah. She holds a bachelor's and master's degree in philosophy from the University of Utah and the University at Buffalo, respectively. Her research sits at the intersection of Indigenous Studies, Critical Theory, and Political Philosophy. Her dissertation topic concerns the relationships between Indigenous Nations and Muesums, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), and the right to destroy cultural property. Distinguished as a Western New York Prosperity Fellow, she is also a graduate fellow at the Romanell Center for Medical Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine. She is the Graduate Assistant for Graduate Professional Development at UB and facilitates the Pathway to the PhD – Preparing for Success Micro-credential. She is in the adult learner program for the Cherokee language and enjoys balancing her scholarly pursuits with her role as a dog mom.

Jean-Luc Pierite (Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana) is an MLK Visiting Scholar at MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning, president of the North American Indian Center of Boston, and the founder of InDigiFab with areas of focus in: supporting distributed networks for education; public policy advocacy for social justice; and supporting philanthropic foundations.

Jean-Luc has been awarded with the inaugural LaDonna Brave Bull Allard Science Activist Award at The Global Community Bio Summit which is hosted by the Community Biotechnology Initiative at the MIT Media Lab. He is also part of the Global Community Bio Fellows 3.0 and participates in the BIPOC Makers Collective as supported by Nation of Makers. Jean-Luc previously served as co-convener for the Institute for Collaborative Language Research (CoLang) which fosters relationships between academics and community language activists.

Jean-Luc has earned a master in design for emergent futures from the Institut d'Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. Jean-Luc also earned a bachelor of arts in humanities with a co-major in mass communication and Japanese from Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Jean-Luc also earned an associate of science in video game design from Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida.

Serena Posluszny is Kanien'kehá:ka, Turtle Clan (Six Nations of the Grand River) and grew up in Western New York. She obtained a double Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Philosophy from Weber State University in Utah before receiving her Master of Legal Studies in Indigenous Peoples' Law from the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Throughout her academic journey, she completed a semester abroad in South Korea attending Yonsei University and interned for a semester in Washington, D.C. with the U.S. House of Representatives. She has worked for years in the nonprofit sector as a case manager and advocate for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Her dissertation research as a current Ph.D. student at the University at Buffalo concerns applying Tribal Sovereignty and Self-Determination to reframe and wield Federal Indian Law and Policy in a good way, specifically regarding the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA 1978) and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA 1990), as her work focuses on reconnecting and repatriating all of our lost relatives throughout the seven generations. 

Bernadette Scott, Onödowa'ga:' (Seneca), deer clan resides on the Seneca Nation – Cattaraugus Territory, NY,  a current Board of Trustees member at the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum (SINM), and Haudenosaunee artist/educator. She’s pursuing a PhD in Indigenous Studies while focusing on complexities of Indigenous histories, art, environmental relationships, and the significant impact of Haudenosaunee women in our society. Bernadette received a M.A. American Studies at the University at Buffalo, B.S. in Audio/Radio Production with a minor in American Indian Studies from State University of New York at Fredonia, and an A.A.S. in Travel and Tourism from Paul Smith’s College.          

For over two decades, Bernadette has been conducting Haudenosaunee cornhusk workshops and demonstrations throughout Turtle Island with various libraries, schools, colleges/universities, organizations, and groups of all ages. Innovating educational, hands-on, and engaging cornhusk workshops and demonstrations is an opportunity to engage and exchange in cultural learning is a vital component to preserving traditions for future generations. 

Alyssa Warrior grew up on Seneca Cattaraugus Territory. She began her undergraduate degree at SUNY Fredonia in physics. Her research at Fredonia included developing a program for the calibration of the campus telescope. In the summer of 2019, she attended an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) at the University of Chicago where she worked on kinetic inductance detectors for future cosmic microwave background detection. After transferring to the University at Buffalo in 2019 she joined AISES (American Indian Science & Engineering Society) and eventually became club president during the last semester of her undergraduate studies. In the summer of 2023 she interned with NASA at the Glenn Research Center based in Cleveland Ohio. There she worked with a team furthering work in the field of hybrid electric aircrafts. Alyssa graduated with a bachelor of arts in physics in the Fall of 2023.