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 received her bachelor's degree in art history from Buffalo State University and is seeking her master's degree in Indigenous studies. Her scholarly interests reside in the topics of Indigenous art, art history, visual culture, literature, socioeconomics, philosophy, and more specifically, Indigenous Plains ledger art. In her research work, she aims to expand academic fields such as art history in their presentation of Indigenous art forms. Through her research, she seeks to increase her capacity to act as an ally to Indigenous communities.

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, a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation, is originally from Utah. She holds a master’s degree in philosophy. Her current research focuses on Indigenous philosophies, particularly epistemology, feminism and philosophy of law. 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. Additionally, she holds the position of vice-president at the University at Buffalo's chapter of Minorities and Philosophy, where she contributes to fostering an inclusive academic environment. A passionate advocate for academic excellence and personal growth, McNulty enjoys mentoring undergraduate students and peer-to-peer mentoring. She participates in the adult learner program for the Cherokee language, reflecting her dedication to her heritage and community. Balancing her scholarly pursuits with her role as a dog mom, she cherishes companionship and responsibility in all aspects of her life.

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.

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.