Indigenous Student Seminar Seminar Faculty

The Hoover Indigenous Student Seminar offers top college students and recent graduates an opportunity to engage with scholars and policy practitioners on the campus of Stanford University.

Attendees of the week-long, fully funded program participate in focused seminars led by scholars and policy practitioners who focus on issues affecting indigenous communities in the United States and elsewhere.

Please see below to reference confirmed faculty for the 2023 Indigenous Student Seminar. We will update the faculty bios as we confirm our speaker lineup.

Terry Anderson
Terry L. Anderson has been a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution since 1998 and is currently the John and Jean De Nault Senior Fellow. He is the author or editor of 41 books including He is Unlocking the Wealth of Indian Nations (2016) and Renewing Indigenous Economies (forthcoming in June 2022).

Dominic Parker
Dominic Parker is the Ilene and Morton Harris Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he joins Hoover Senior Fellow Terry Anderson in directing the Hoover Project on Renewing Indigenous Economies. He is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Daniel Stewart
Daniel Stewart is Professor of Entrepreneurship & Director of the Hogan Entrepreneurial Leadership Program at Gonzaga University. He has co-edited two of the leading volumes in Native American business and economics, American Indian Business (2017) and Creating Private Sector Economies in Native America (2019).

Bart J. Wilson
Bart J. Wilson is Professor of Economics and Law and Donald P. Kennedy Endowed Chair in Economics and Law at Chapman University. He is tenured in the Argyros School of Business and Economics and the Fowler School of Law. Bart is the co-author of Humanomics: Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations in the Twenty-First Century, published by Cambridge University Press, and the author of The Property Species, published by Oxford University Press.  The title of his current book project is Meaningful Economics.

Richard Monette
Richard Monette was twice elected to serve as Chairman and CEO of Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe. Richard is Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin - Madison where he teaches Federal Indian Law, Conflict of Laws, State Constitutional Law, and Water Quantity Law.  For thirty years Richard has served as the Faculty Director of the Great Lakes Indigenous Law Center.  At the start of his career, Richard served as Staff Attorney for the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs under the leadership of Senators Dan Inouye (D-HI), John McCain (R-AZ), and Dan Evans (R-AZ).

Adam Crepelle 
Adam Crepelle is a Professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and a Campbell Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In addition to his juris doctor, Professor Crepelle holds a master’s degree in public policy and a master of laws in indigenous peoples law and policy. He is a co-founder of the Gulf States American Indian Chamber of Commerce and a commissioner on the American Bar Association's Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence. Professor Crepelle is an enrolled citizen of the United Houma Nation. Professor Crepelle has been admitted to practice in federal, state, and tribal courts. He serves as an associate justice on the Pascua Yaqui Tribe’s Court of Appeals. Professor Crepelle has published in both academic and popular journals. 

Robert J. Miller 
Robert J. Miller (Eastern Shawnee) has been a professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University since 2013. He is also the director of the Rosette LLP American Indian Economic Development Program and the Willard H. Pedrick Distinguished Research Scholar at ASU. He is the author and co-author of five books including Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark and Manifest Destiny (Praeger 2006) and Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies (Oxford University Press 2010). His latest book is A Promise Kept: The Muscogee (Creek) Nation and McGirt v. Oklahoma (University of Oklahoma Press 2023).

Deanna Kennedy 
Deanna M. Kennedy is the Associate Dean in the School of Business at the University of Washington Bothell and a tribal member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. She serves on the board as Co-Director of the UW Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies. She is published in Creating Private Sector Economies in Native America, Tribal Wisdom for Business Ethics, and Indigenous Aspirations and Rights: The Case for Responsible Business and Management. She was an editor of the book American Indian Business, Principles and Practices and is collaborating on the forthcoming book called Native Education Leadership from the Pacific Northwest: Advancing Native Ways of Knowing, Traditions and Culture.

Dr. André Le Dressay 
Dr. André Le Dressay has over 25 years of experience working with Indigenous communities, organizations, institutions and local governments. He has written numerous academic and consulting reports in his areas of expertise: building the legal, administrative, fiscal and institutional framework to support economic growth. He is the Director of Fiscal Realities Economists, the Director of the Tulo Centre of Indigenous Economics, and a professor at Thompson Rivers University. He co-authored a book which was nominated for the Donner Book Prize in 2010. He was the principal author of the Tulo Centre online textbook—Building a Competitive First Nation Investment Climate (2015). He has also authored the closing chapter, Unlocking First Nation Wealth:  Past Efforts & Future Opportunities, in a compilation entitled, Unlocking the Wealth of Indian Nations (2016) edited by Terry L. Anderson at Stanford University. His most recent working paper is Renewing Indigenous Economies Through Creative Destruction. He has received a distinguished alumni award from Thompson Rivers University and a lifetime achievement award from the First Nations Tax Administrators Association. He has helped facilitate over 20 service agreements between First Nations and local governments. He has developed the curriculum for 14 original courses in First Nation Tax Administration and First Nation Applied Economics. André holds a PhD in Economics from Simon Fraser University, a Masters in Applied Economics from the University of Victoria and an Honors degree in Math and Economics from the University of Regina. 

Michael LeBourdais 
The chair of the Tulo Centre is Michael Lebourdais. He served as the Chief of the Whispering Pines/Clinton Indian Band for many years—a small but vibrant community. Michael Lebourdais grew up familiar with the challenges many of today’s youth face when creating economic opportunity on First Nations land. As a child, his parents were turned down for a credit card due to a lack of collateral—despite owning a ranch and two houses. Because of the Indian Act, Michael’s parents didn’t own the land in the eyes of the credit card company. The barriers in place by The Indian Act prevent First Nations from participating in the economy. These obstacles are the driving force for Michael to be the Chair of the Tulo Centre. He wants to help communities and First Nations actively participate in the economy by developing their knowledge and skills. Indigenous economics are a vital ingredient to helping communities grow and prosper. 

Derrick Watchman 
Derrick Watchman is President and owner of Sagebrush Hill Group LLC, an advisory, acquisition and development company in Indian Country. Derrick is a financial expert and has worked in Indian country on gaming, banking, energy, economic development, and tribal affairs. Derrick is Navajo and was raised on the Navajo reservation. He was formerly CEO and CFO for the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise. He was also a Chase Bank Senior Relationship Manager/Vice President for Native American banking. Previously, he worked for Wells Fargo in Native American banking. Mr. Watchman was COO/GM of Navajo Power Authority. He was also the Navajo Tax Commission Director. Mr. Watchman served as the U.S. DOE’s Tribal Affairs Director. Mr. Watchman worked as a banker at Prudential Capital Corporation. Derrick serves on several boards including Chairman of the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development and Vice Chairman of the Native American Bancorporation Board. Mr. Watchman holds an MBA from Berkeley and a BA from the University of Arizona.

C. Matthew Snipp
C. Matthew Snipp is the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. He is also the Director for the Institute for Research in the Social Science’s Secure Data Center and formerly directed Stanford’s Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE). Before moving to Stanford in 1996, he was a Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin -- Madison. He has been a Research Fellow at the U.S. Bureau of the Census and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Professor Snipp has published 3 books and over 70 articles and book chapters on demography, economic development, poverty and unemployment. His current research and writing deals with the methodology of racial measurement, changes in the social and economic well-being of American ethnic minorities, and American Indian education. For nearly ten years, he served as an appointed member of the Census Bureau’s Racial and Ethnic Advisory Committee. He also has been involved with several advisory working groups evaluating the 2000 census, three National Academy of Science panels focused on the 2010 and 2020 censuses. He also has served as a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Centers for Disease Control and the National Center for Health Statistics as well as an elected member of the Inter-University Consortium of Political and Social Research’s Council. He is currently serving on the National Institute of Child Health and Development’s Population Science Subcommittee. Snipp holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

Donn Feir 
Donn Feir is an applied labor economist and economic historian who has published on reconciliation, modern Indigenous labor market experiences, health, and the impact of historic policies on Indigenous economies and people. Donn is a Research Fellow at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics and the Center for Indian Country Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Donn received their Ph. D. from the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia.

Manny Jules 
Manny Jules has dedicated over 40 years of his life to public service in support of Aboriginal issues. He is a member of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc and served as Chief from 1984 to 2000. Mr. Jules led the amendment to the Indian Act in 1988 so that First Nations could exercise the jurisdiction to levy property taxes on-reserve. The Indian Taxation Advisory Board (ITAB) and the current First Nation property tax system were created as a result of his vision and efforts. Mr. Jules served as Chair of ITAB from 1989 to 2003 and 2005 to 2007. He was the driving force behind the First Nations Fiscal Management Act, passed by Parliament in 2005, creating the First Nations Tax Commission. Mr. Jules was the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from both the University of British Columbia in 1997 and Thompson Rivers University in 2006, the Order of British Columbia in 2009, and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal in 2013. Mr. Jules is also a member of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business Hall of Fame.