Faculty List Alphabetical

Faculty, Staff and Indigenous Community Representatives

Department of Biology

  • Maria-Luisa Veisaga, Ph.D. is a Senior Teaching Lab Specialist in the School of Integrated Science and Humanity. A Quechua from Bolivia, her research focuses on the chemical properties of medicinal plants.

Department of Earth and Environment

  • Dr. Jim Riach has a Ph. D. in Anthropology, is the Director of Honors College Summer Fieldschool to the Amazon. His research includes interconnections between ecosystems and human well-being of Indigenous peoples of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon.
  • Dr. David Bray has Ph. D. in Anthropology, is the Director of the Institute for Sustainability Science in Latin America and Caribbean Center. His work includes Indigenous land use and forest management in Mexico, Central America and globally.

Department of History

  • Dr. David Cook has a Ph. D. in History. One of his major publications centered on the catastrophic impact of European diseases on Native North and South Americans as well as other aspects of Spanish and Indigenous contacts on Peru and Ecuador.
  • Dr. Sherry Johnson has a Ph. D in History. Some of her research and teaching interests include Caribbean and Florida history as well as environment, climate change and hurricanes and disaster in the Caribbean basin.

Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies

  • Dr. Mitzi Uehara Carter has a Ph.D. in Anthropology. Her research centers on Okinawa, US militarization and race. She teaches courses in Anthropology, Asian Studies, and African and African Diaspora Studies and all include Indigenous content.
  • Dr. Juliet Erazo has a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Environmental Studies. Her research focuses on Indigenous governance and organizing in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Her latest work explores the new challenges of the people of Rukullaktak a large Indigenous territory in Ecuador.
  • Dr. Katherine Lineberger has a Ph.D. in Sociology. Her experience centers on program and population analysis. Some of her teaching and research interests include Native women’s rights and urban issues.
  • Dr. Rod Neumann has a Ph.D. in Geography. His interests include the co-constitution of nature, society and landscape as well as the political economy of the environment. His research includes National Parks and Indigenous people of California and Africa.
  • Dr. Genevieve Reid has a Ph.D. in geography. Her work in critical GIScience and Indigenous mapping focuses on Indigenous geospatial data sovereignty and the next-generation mapping technologies that consider non-western ways of mapping, transferring knowledge, and conceptualizing the world. She collaborates with the Eastern Cree in Northern Quebec.
  • Dr. Dennis Wiedman has a Ph.D. in Anthropology. His interests include Native North America and global Indigenous rights to health and religion. His research ranges from the Miccosukee of South Florida to the Inuit of the Alaskan Arctic with much of his work in Oklahoma with the Delaware, Plains Apache, and Cherokee. As a medical anthropologist he specializes in social and cultural causes of Type II diabetes.

Department of Religious Studies

  • Dr. Anna Bidegain has a Ph.D. is the current program director for Research at the Latin American and Caribbean Center. Her main research themes revolve around society, politics and the presence of women in Latin American Christian History and the Religious Experience of Indigenous, Latin American and Caribbean migrants.
  • Mary Louise Pfeiffer has an LL. M degree. She is a Faculty Fellow of the Honors College and Adjunct Professor of the Department of Religious Studies. Her teaching interests and research include Native American Women, World and Native American Religions, Healers and the Miami Circle.
  • Dr. Andrea Seidel is Professor Emeritus in the Religious Studies Department. She retired on May of 2014 and may still teach classes on her research interests such as Native American dance, music and religion.

School of Journalism and Mass Communication

  • Leonardo Ferreira, Ph.D., J.D. is a Worlds Ahead Scholar in International Communication. His research focuses on comparative media policy, community communications, and journalism history including indigenous media since pre-Columbian times.

Law School

  • Manuel Gomez
    Indigenous Rights and Law. Environmental law. Ecuador.

FIU Museums

  • Carol Damian
    Director of the Frost Art Museum
    Andean Art and Culture
  • Annette Fromm
    Coordinator of the Museum Studies Program at the Frost Art Museum
    Native North American Art and Material Culture
  • Frank Luca, Historian, Archivist
    Chief Librarian at Wolfsonian Museum
    Indigenous contact with Spanish Missions in North Florida

FIU Staff and Support Units

  • Althea Silvera., Dept. Head. Special Collections and University Archives. FIU Green Library
  • Jeannette Cruz, Multicultural Programs and Services. Student Affairs
  • Amy Sosa, Student Counseling Services. Student Health Services

Indigenous Community Representatives

  • Rubi Hurtado, Quechua. Kuyayky Foundation. FIU Alumni
  • Dennika Mays, Anishinaabe. Past president of the Global Indigenous Group, FIU
  • Lee Tiger, Miccosukee
  • Houston Cypress, Miccosukee
  • Van Samuels, Seminole