Ed Galindo

Dr. Galindo (Yaqui, American Indian) is a faculty member at the University of Idaho, Associate Director for Education and Diversity for the NASA Idaho Space Grant Consortium, Affiliate faculty member at Idaho State University (Biology Department) and Affiliate faculty member at Utah State University (Physics Department). Dr. Galindo has extensive education and research in working with Native American students. While serving as chairman of the science department on the Shoshone-Bannock Indian Reservation, he was twice elected as the National Indian Teacher of the Year, awarded by the National Indian School Board Association.

Dr. Galindo is very proud to currently be serving as a board member with the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. Most recently, he was honored to be inducted as a lifetime (Sequoyah Fellow) member of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) for research and educational outreach in the American Indian communities.

Jenny McNulty

Dr. Jenny McNulty is currently serving as the Interim Provost and Vice-Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs at the University of Montana Western and is on leave from the University of Montana. Dr. McNulty joined the faculty in the Department of Mathematical Sciences in 1993. She works in the area of Combinatorics and is the co-author of the undergraduate textbook Matroids: A Geometric Approach. In 2010, she was appointed Associate Dean and in 2018 as Interim Dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences.

Dr. McNulty has been an invited participant in the NSF supported PNW-COSMOS Indigenous Mentoring Program (2016), the Institute for Advanced Study PCMI Workshop on Increasing Minority Participation in Undergraduate Mathematics (2017) and the NSF-ANSEP Dissemination Conference (2018). She is the mentor coordinator of the NSF sponsored program MTsquared. In 2018, she traveled to Ethiopia as a Fullbright Spoecialist to establish a mentoring network for women.

Karla Bird

Karla (Two Bear Woman) is a member of the Amskapii Pikunii (Blackfeet). She has graduated with a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership, with an emphasis in Higher Education at the University of Montana. She also received an M.A. in Counselor Education, as well as a B.A. in Psychology with a Research Emphasis/ Minor in Native American Studies.  The topic of her doctoral dissertation was on educational persistence among American Indian graduate students. This research orientation was used to view students as sources of strength and resiliency, with tools and assets that help them persist and reach success in academe. Dr. Bird has served in various assets of education and previously served as the President of Blackfeet Community College. Currently, she serves as the Tribal Outreach Specialist at the University of Montana.

William Swaney

Bill Swaney is the Environmental Health Specialist at Elbowoods Memorial Health Clinic in New Town, North Dakota. His current focus is twofold: children's health/wellness and food safety on the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Reservation at Fort Berthold.

Bill started his career at Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe (CSKT) in the field of wildlife biology. He worked mostly in Montana in education for CSKT and for Salish Kootenai College in the environmental regulatory field. As an enrolled member of CSKT, Bill's passion is working with native students blending contemporary science with culturally-relevant concepts. Bill earned his B.S. and M.S. in wildlife biology from University of Montana-Missoula.  In his spare time when he's not fishing, he's thinking about fishing.

Gyda Swaney [1951-2019]

Dr. Gyda Swaney [1951-2019] was an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation.

She served as faculty member in the Psychology Department at University of Montana, Director of the Indians Into Psychology (InPsych) program, and taught Multicultural Psychology at undergraduate and graduate levels and Applied Clinical Practicum at the graduate level. Dr. Swaney had 18 years experience recruiting, mentoring, and training American Indian students in Clinical Psychology. She had an active research lab with students and had examined: stressors and coping strategies in American Indian older adults and elderly, developing a culturally-based Grief Retreat to address grief and historical trauma, and had more recently become interested in health disparities, food sovereignty, and access to healthy food, including a summer garden project for children, in a Montana tribal community.

Gyda was an active member of the Montana Psychological Association and was MPA's representative to the APA's Council of Representatives. She was also a member of the Society of Indian Psychologists and the American Psychological Association. Her presence among us will be greatly missed.