Iowa City Darwin Day: Science Fest Events

Kim TallBear (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate) (she/her) is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta. She is the author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. In addition to studying genome science disruptions to Indigenous self-definitions, Dr. TallBear studies colonial disruptions to Indigenous sexual relations. She is a regular panelist on the weekly podcast, Media Indigena. You can follow her research group at https://indigenoussts.com/. She tweets @KimTallBear. You can also follow her monthly posts on her Substack newsletter, Unsettle: Indigenous affairs, cultural politics & (de)colonization.

Dr. Patricia Brennan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Mt. Holyoke College. Dr. Brennan is a expert in sexual conflict in evolution and the evolution of animal genital morphology and function. Several videos about her studies of the evolution of animal sex can be found here. Dr. Brennan has also been an outspoken advocate for the value of basic science and its often unpredictable societal benefits.

Dr. Natalie Mueller is an archaeologist and paleoethnobotanist who studies plant domestication and the origins of agriculture in North America. An Assistant Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, she is a leading researcher of so-called “lost crops”, plants that were domesticated but subsequently fell out of use. A recent article in The Atlantic covers some of Dr. Mueller’s recent work on sumpweed, one of the North American lost crops.