November: Math & Native Americans
Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte
I am a dreamer who dreams, sees visions, and always listens to the still, small voice. I am the trailblazer. ~ Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte
Dr. Susan La Flesche PicotteSusan La Flesche Picotte was first person to receive federal aid for professional education, and the first Native American woman in the United States to receive a medical degree IN 1889. In her remarkable career she served more than 1,300 people over 450 square miles, giving financial advice and resolving family disputes as well as providing medical care at all hours of the day and night. Susan La Flesche was born to Chief Joseph La Flesche (Iron Eyes) and his wife, Mary (One Woman) on the Omaha Reservation in northeastern Nebraska. | As a child, Susan La Flesche had watched a sick Native American woman die because the local white doctor would not give her care. She later credited this tragedy as her inspiration to train as a physician, so she could provide care for the people she lived with on the Omaha Reservation. |
Susan La Flesche Picotte: The First Female Native American Doctor
Mary Golda Ross
I was the only female in my class. I sat on one side of the room and the guys on the other side of the room. I guess they didn’t want to associate with me. But I could hold my own with them, and sometimes did better ~ Mary Golda Ross
Mary Golda RossMary Golda Ross (August 9, 1908 – April 29, 2008) was the first known Native American female engineer, and the first female engineer in the history of Lockheed. She was one of the 40 founding engineers of the renowned and highly secretive Skunk Works project at Lockheed Corporation. She worked at Lockheed from 1942 until her retirement in 1973, where she was best remembered for her work on aerospace design – including the Agena Rocket program – as well as numerous "design concepts for interplanetary space travel, manned and unmanned earth-orbiting flights, the earliest studies of orbiting satellites for both defense and civilian purposes." | In 2018, she was chosen to be depicted on the 2019 Native American $1 Coin by the U.S. Mint celebrating American Indians in the space program. |
Mary Golda Ross Induction Ceremony Video
David Close
“By getting more Native peoples into the sciences with masters’ degrees and doctorates, we can work through the political tool of self-determination to protect our tribal resources,” Close said. “Most of the time we have been hiring people to come in and do this science for us. They can miss important insights into natural processes that are known to our cultures, because of their cultural biases.” ~ David Close
David CloseUniversity of British Columbia Professor David Close has discovered a steroid hormone in the Pacific lamprey that may help in the conservation of this eel-like fish, which dates back 500 million years and is culturally important to the tribes of the Columbia River. The identification of the stress hormone also provides insight to evolutionary science about the development of stress hormones. | “This corticosteroid hormone is a clinical indicator of stress and is important for monitoring environmental impacts causing stress on the lamprey,” said Close, who is director of the Aboriginal Fisheries Research Unit at UBC’s Fisheries Centre. “If the Pacific lamprey are stressed because they are going down the river in barges or because they are trying to negotiate fish ladders designed salmonid, we can now monitor that stress using this finding.” |
John Herrington
“I think native kids are probably the most natural scientists, engineers, in existence. Their ancestors have had to solve engineering problems for millennia without western science methods,” ~ John Herrington
John HarringtonCOMMANDER JOHN BENNETT HERRINGTON (born Sept. 14, 1958), a Chickasaw American Indian, is the first tribally-enrolled Native American to fly in outer space, he is also the first Native American to walk in outer space. During NASA flight STS-113 aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor in November 2002, Mission Specialist 2 Harrington docked the space shuttle to the International Space Station and became the first American Indian to walk in space during the space mission during the historic #-day NASA space mission. | To honor his Chickasaw heritage, Herrington, an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation, carried its flag on his thirteen-day trip to space. The flag had been presented to him by Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Herringtonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Herrington |
John Herrington, First Enrolled Native American in Space
Thomas David Petite
“You are all immigrants. We didn't invite any of you here.” ~ Thomas David Petite
Thomas David PetiteThomas David Petite is a registered member of the Fond Du Lac Tribe (one of 6 Chippewa tribes), and he is the son of a Chippewa Chief from Wisconsin. He continues to extol and embrace his treasured family heritage through his work as the founder of the Native American Inventors Association and as a member of the American Indian Science Engineering Society. As a young boy David and his father, a sonar engineer, would work on radios by taking them apart and putting them back together. | This is how his love of technology developed into a career as an inventor in wireless communications. Today, David is respectfully noted as the key inventor of wireless ad hoc networks, and as the creator of the Essential Wireless Mesh™ (EWM™) Patent Portfolio. |
The Forgotten Genius Thomas David Petite Native American Inventor
Chris Cornelius
We should be thinking about the physical things we put into the world and what relationships are we creating? Is it making the situation better or is it making it worse? ~ Chris Cornelius
Chris CorneliusChris Cornelius is a citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. He is Professor and former Chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of New Mexico. Chris is the founding principal of studio:indigenous and creates artifacts that offer a distinct vision of contemporary Indigenous culture. Chris was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and raised on the Oneida Reservation in Wisconsin. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a Master of Architecture from the University of Virginia.
| Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, studio:indigenous is working at intensely varied scales. Their distinct and highly personal approach leverages the cultural underpinnings, devices, and thinking of Indigenous culture to manifest original architecture, art, and objects. In 2025, Cornelius was inducted into the National Academy of Design. His other awards include the inaugural Miller Prize from Exhibit Columbus, multiple Best of Design Awards from the Architect’s Newspaper, and an Artist residency from the National Museum of the American Indian. |
Chris Cornelius presents | Making Indigenous Space
Chris Cornelius
Many countries such like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand and succeeded in advancing their technologies and I think the Philippines is in a position to jumpstart some of the technologie that are her. ~ Josefino Comiso
Chris CorneliusChris Cornelius is the Dr. Thomas D. McGee and Dr. Ick-Jhin Rick Yoon Endowed Department Chair in Materials Science and Engineering. Before academia, he was a Research Engineer at Dow Plastics, a 3M Process Engineer at 3M, and a staff scientist at Sandia National Laboratories. His research explores fundamental relationships between structure, properties, transport, and function using synthetic polymers, charged polymers, hybrid organic-inorganic materials, and sol-gel-derived inorganic glasses. |
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