Great Plains Fellows

Welcome new Fellow and Affiliate Fellow

The Center welcomes new Fellows / Affiliate Fellows for spring 2021:

Will Avilés, Professor and Chair, Political Science, University of Nebraska at Kearney

Specialties: Comparative Politics, Latin American Politics 

Dr. Avilés has a Ph.D. from the University of California-Riverside and joined the UNK faculty in 2002. On working with undergraduate students: "I enjoy many of the conversations and discussions that I have had with students in and outside of the classroom. I like exposing them to new ideas, new ways of thinking about politics, Latin America or the 'drug war.' Finally, I appreciate the hard work, dedication and commitment that students in our department have displayed despite the often serious obstacles that confront them."

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Jesse Bell, Claire M. Hubbard Professor of Health and Environment, University of Nebraska Medical Center

Specialties: Relationships of extreme weather, climate variability, and climate change on natural and human processes and health outcomes. 

Dr. Bell's research "explores the relationships of extreme weather, climate variability, and climate change on natural and human processes. The climate that we experience controls much of the world around us. When our climate abruptly changes or gradually shifts, there can be related consequences to both our communities and our health. The goal of my work is to understand these linkages between climate and health, so that we can help prepare our populations for climate- and weather-related disasters."

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Cristián Doña-Reveco, Associate Professor, Sociology and Anthropology, Director, Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS), University of Nebraska at Omaha

Specialties: Latin American Migrations, Social Dimensions of Immigration

Dr. Doña-Reveco is also faculty affiliate with UNO's Goldstein Center for Human Rights. Originally from Chile, he earned a Bachelor's and professional degree in Sociology from Universidad de Chile, an MA in Political Sciences with a concentration in International Relations from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and an MA in Sociology and a PhD in Sociology and History both from Michigan State University (2012). Before coming to UNO in 2015, Dr. Doña-Reveco spent two years in Santiago, Chile doing field research on North-South Migration and teaching at Universidad Diego Portales and Universidad Alberto Hurtado. 

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Helen Fagan, Assistant Professor of Practice, Agricultural Leadership, Education & Communication, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Specialties: Diversity and Inclusion, Inclusive Leadership, Community Inclusive Leadership Development and Intercultural Competence Development 

Dr. Fagan is a leadership, diversity, and inclusion scholar and practitioner. She is the founder of Global Leadership Group, which provides consulting and leadership coaching to organizations, communities, and executives in the field of diversity, inclusion, cultural competence and becoming an Inclusive Leader. In addition to a Ph.D. in Human Sciences with specialization in Leadership from UNL, Fagan holds multiple certifications in Diversity, Emotional Intelligence, and is a trained Executive Coach. Also, she is a qualified administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory which she has used with developing thousands of leaders and healthcare providers.

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Dana Fritz, Hixson-Lied Professor of Art, Art, Art History & Design, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Specialties: Intersections of photography, landscape, and environment

Fritz uses photography to investigate the ways we shape and represent the natural world in cultivated and constructed landscapes. She holds a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Arizona State University and is currently Hixson-Lied Professor of Art in the School of Art, Art History & Design at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her honors include an Arizona Commission on the Arts Fellowship, a Rotary Foundation Group Study Exchange to Japan, a Society for Photographic Education Imagemaker Award, and Juror’s Awards in national exhibitions.

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Andrew Husa, Lecturer, Geography, School of Globally Integrative Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Specialties: Rural geography, small town identity, and attachment to rural landscape, especially in the Great Plains

"I am a first-year lecturer in the Geography program, of which I am also a proud three-time graduate, donning the red N as I received my B.A. in 2015, M.A. in 2017, and Ph.D. in 2020, after studying Human and Historical Geography under Dr. David Wishart. I am also the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain Division Representative for the American Association of Geographers Rural Geography Group. My interests include small town geography and rural identity, and attachment to rural landscape, especially on the Great Plains. This love of the landscape has followed me since I was young, growing up on a farm outside of Liberty, Nebraska, a village of 76 people."

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Ricardo Martinez, Assistant Professor, Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Specialties: Critical Youth Mathematics Studies, Participatory Action Research

Dr. Martinez’s lifework with youth participatory action research (YPAR) works to create mathematical learning experiences that returns the legitimacy of mathematical knowledge creation back to the people. His research seeks to discover and dismantle root causes that lead people to believe that they are not “math people” by investigating how mathematics can be used to empower students and teachers. Dr. Martinez runs a summer mathematics and science YPAR program for Black and Latinx youth that allows for the exploration of the relationships formed with mathematics.

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Athena Ramos, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Promotion, Center for Reducing Health Disparities, University of Nebraska Medical Center

Specialties: Latino health, health disparities, health and safety of agricultural and meatpacking workers, immigrant integration in small towns, community well-being

Dr. Ramos is a Rural Futures Institute Fellow and has served as the Community Health Program Manager at UNMC's College of Public Health, Center for Reducing Health Disparities and an instructor at UNMC's Department of Health Promotion, Social & Behavioral Health.

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Julie Tippens, Assistant Professor, Child, Youth and Family Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Specialties: Forced migration and global health, social and structural determinants of refugees' health and wellbeing

Dr. Tippens is a community-engaged researcher specializing in forced migration, refugees, global health, and health disparities. She has worked as a practitioner and researcher with refugees and asylum seekers in North America, Southeast Asia, and East Africa for more than 15 years. Tippens is broadly trained across the health and social sciences and utilizes ethnographic, participatory, and visual methods to glean insight into the social, cultural, and structural determinants that affect refugees' health and wellbeing in the U.S., Kenya, and Tanzania. She has conducted research on a wide range of topics pertaining to refugee health, including community resilience and social capital, mental health and psychosocial wellbeing, elder and intergenerational social support, sexual and reproductive health, access to health and social services, and health workforce / community health workers.

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Isabel Velázquez, Associate Professor, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Specialties: Sociolinguistics, bilingualism, US Spanish, language contact, heritage speaker pedagogy, minority language maintenance and loss

Dr. Velázquez's area of research includes sociolinguistic variation, Hispanic linguistics, bilingualism and language acquisition, heritage speaker pedagogy, language contact on the U.S./Mexico border, and the role of language in identity formations of US Latin@s. Her current research focuses on linguistic maintenance and loss among Latinx families in the Midwest. Velázquez is the director of Cartas a la Familia/Family Letters. On the Migration from Jesusita to Jane a digital archive that preserves, digitizes, analyzes and makes public a collection of the correspondence and other personal documents of a Mexican American family that migrated from the state of Zacatecas, Mexico, to the states of Colorado and Nebraska during the first half of the twentieth century.

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Ashley Wilkinson, Curator/Director, Great Plains Art Museum, UNL

Wilkinson joined the Great Plains Art Museum at the Center for Great Plains Studies in 2018. From 2011–2018, she worked in various curatorial positions at the Sheldon Museum of Art and contributed to over 100 exhibitions during her seven-year tenure at that institution. She received her MA in Art History and certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 2010. Wilkinson’s research focuses primarily on American art prior to 1950, with particular interests in Regionalism and New Deal printmaking

Specialties: Twentieth-century American art, New Deal-era printmaking

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AFFILIATE FELLOWS

Jacob Friefeld, Illinois and Midwest Studies Research Historian, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

Specialties: Public history, nineteenth-century studies, homesteading

Dr. Friefeld is a historian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. His research deals with the Midwest and Great Plains in the long nineteenth century. His co-authored book, Homesteading the Plains: Toward a New History reconsiders the scholarly consensus regarding the Homestead Act of 1862. He served as the Project Manager for the University of Nebraska History Harvest Project and co-authored the History Harvest Handbook. His current research deals with the history of African Americans who homesteaded in the Great Plains after the Civil War. Friefeld holds a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in nineteenth-century United States history.

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Annika Johnson, Associate Curator of Native American Art, Joslyn Art Museum

Specialties: Native American art

Johnson joined Joslyn in 2019 as Associate Curator of Native American Art. She received her doctorate in art history from the University of Pittsburgh with a specialization in Dakota art. Her research has been supported by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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Cheyenne Marco, Lecturer of English, University of South Dakota

Specialties: Creative writing, rural studies/literature, Great Plains literature, frontier literature, agrarianism, and nature/environmental writing

Dr. Marco teaches undergraduate English at the USD Community College for Sioux Falls. She draws inspiration for her creative writing and teaching from her rural roots.

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Cynthia Prescott, Professor, History and American Indian Studies, University of North Dakota

Specialties: gender in the American West; material culture; historical memory

Dr. Prescott's work focuses on gender in the American West. She combines social history and material culture methods to study the intersections of gender, race, social class, and historical memory. Her first book, Gender and Generation on the Far Western Frontier (University of Arizona, 2007), traced changing gender roles and ideology among early white settlers in Oregon between 1845 and 1900. Her latest book,

Pioneer Mother Monuments: Constructing Cultural Memory (University of Oklahoma Press, (2019) won the 2020 Gita Chaudhuri Prize. In it, she traces changing portrayals of race, gender and national identity in pioneer monuments erected from 1890 to the present.

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James Riding In, Associate Professor, Editor Wicaoao Sa Review, Arizona State University

Specialties: Indigenous justice, human rights, Indian law, policy, racism, social movements

A citizen of the Pawnee Nation, Dr. Riding In is the editor of Wicazo Sa Review: A Journal of Native American Studies. He writes from the perspective that seeks to empower Indian nations, communities, and peoples in their struggles to overcome the harmful consequences of colonialism. Much of his research focuses on the role scientists have played in the desecration of American Indian burials and measures Indians have taken to curb those widespread abuses. His scholarship also examines the effects of colonialism on the sovereignty, landholdings, human rights, health, welfare, religious freedom, and cultural integrity of Indian nations.

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Allyson Stevenson, Assistant Professor, Indigenous Studies and Gabriel Dumont Chair in Métis Studies, University of Saskatchewan

Specialties: Métis history, indigenous child welfare history, gender and indigenous women’s political organizing

Dr. Stevenson's research program is titled “Métis Communities in the West: Politics and Place.” The program seeks to generate a comprehensive history of the diverse Métis communities that emerged Western Canada in the twentieth century, looking at scrip records, homestead records, and government documents along with oral histories. This profoundly important period witnessed the cultural, political and collective re-emergence of a devastated people. Saskatchewan in particular was home to leaders who have transformed the intellectual, cultural and political landscape of Canada.

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Cory Willard, Writing and Learning Strategist, Student Learning Services, Mount Royal University

Specialties: Ecocriticism, Place Studies, Literature of the West

Former Great Plains Graduate Fellow, Dr. Willard has a B.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Calgary, an M.A. in English Rhetoric and Communication Design from the University of Waterloo, and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Department of English

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FELLOW NOMINATION PROCEDURE

Next nomination period: October 1-31, 2021

Fellows of the Center shall include scholars presently holding regular appointments at the University of Nebraska who are concerned with the past, the present, and the future of the Great Plains. Candidates for this status must be nominated by a Fellow and must present evidence of a research, teaching, or public service commitment to the Plains region. Fellows are elected upon recommendation of the Nominating Committee and by a majority of the Board of Governors.

Membership (Governance Document, Article IV, Section 1)

Documentation

Three documents are required for the nomination

1. A letter from the nominee indicating interest in becoming a Fellow
2. Nominee's current short vita (around two pages)
3. Letter of nomination from a current Fellow of the Center for Great Plains Studies

All documentation should be sent by the nominator to:
Margaret Jacobs, Director Center for Great Plains Studies
University of Nebraska
1155 Q Street,
PO Box 880214
Lincoln, NE 68588-0214

or emailed to cgps@unl.edu

Procedure

Upon receipt of the nomination at the Center, it will be sent to the five-member Nominations Committee for their consideration. Following approval, they forward the nomination in the form of a seconded motion to the twelve-person Board of Governors. The Board of Governors votes on acceptance of the nominee. The Director of the Center for Great Plains Studies will notify the nominee and the nominator of the results of the Board action.

Other

No fee is required for designation as a Fellow. Fellows are kept apprized of all Center activities via email, especially the seminars and annual interdisciplinary symposia.

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AFFILIATE FELLOW NOMINATION PROCEDURE

Accepting nominations: October 1-31, 2021

Affiliate Fellows of the Center shall include persons who have a professional interest in the Great Plains and the purposes and program of the Center and are not presently holding regular appointments at the University of Nebraska. Candidates for election must be nominated by a Fellow. The nominator must present evidence of a research, teaching or public service commitment to the Plains region. Affiliate Fellows shall also include any Fellow who no longer has an appointment at the University of Nebraska and who has not provided the Director with a signed letter resigning his or her Center affiliation. Affiliate Fellows shall be elected in the same manner as Fellows, but they shall not have voting privileges.

Membership (Governance Document, Article IV, Section 2)

Documentation

Three documents are required for the nomination

1. A letter from the nominee indicating interest in becoming a Affiliate Fellow 
2. Nominee's current short vita (around two pages)
3. Letter of nomination from a current Fellow of the Center for Great Plains Studies Documentation should be sent by the nominator to: 

All documentation should be sent by the nominator to:
Margaret Jacobs, Director Center for Great Plains Studies
University of Nebraska
1155 Q Street,
PO Box 880214
Lincoln, NE 68588-0214

or emailed to cgps@unl.edu

Procedure

Upon receipt of the nomination at the Center, it will be sent to the five-member Nominations Committee for their consideration. Following approval, they forward the nomination in the form of a seconded motion to the twelve-person Board of Governors. The Board of Governors votes on acceptance of the nominee. The Director of the Center for Great Plains Studies will notify the nominee and the nominator of the results of the Board action.

Other

No fee is required for designation as an Affiliate Fellow. Affiliate Fellows are kept apprized of all Center activities via email, especially the seminars and annual interdisciplinary symposia.

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