20 Notable alumni of
Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development
Updated:
Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development is 2276th in the world, 777th in North America, and 733rd in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 20 notable alumni from Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
-
Joy Harjo
- Occupations
- musicianchildren's writerteacherclimate activistpoet
- Biography
-
Joy Harjo is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2022, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms (after Robert Pinsky). Harjo is a seventh-generation Monahwee daughter (also known as "Menawa"). Additionally, Harjo is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation (Este Mvskokvlke) and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hickory Ground). She is an important figure in the second wave of the literary Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, completed her undergraduate degree at University of New Mexico in 1976, and earned an MFA degree at the University of Iowa in its creative writing program.
-
Tommy Orange
- Enrolled in Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development
- Graduated with Master of Fine Arts
- Occupations
- writer
- Biography
-
Tommy Orange is an American novelist and writer from Oakland, California. His first book, There There (2018), was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and received the 2019 American Book Award. In October 2025, Orange was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
-
Layli Long Soldier
- Occupations
- poet
- Biography
-
Layli Long Soldier is an Oglala Lakota writer, poet, visual artist, and educator. She is best known for her poetry collection Whereas, which references the 2009 United States Congressional Apology to Native peoples. Her work uses visual poetics and often covers Indigenous history.
-
Charlene Teters
- Years
- 1952-.. (age 74)
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
-
Charlene Teters is a Native American artist, educator, and lecturer. Her paintings and art installations have been featured in over 21 major exhibitions, commissions, and collections. She is a member of the Spokane Tribe, and her Spokane name is Slum Tah. She was born and raised in Spokane, Washington, near the Spokane Indian Reservation.
-
Kevin Locke
- Occupations
- teachermusician
- Biography
-
Kevin Edward Locke was of Lakota descent of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Anishinaabe of White Earth. He was a preeminent player of the North American Indigenous Flute, a traditional storyteller, cultural ambassador, recording artist and educator. He was best-known for his hoop dance, The Hoop of Life.
-
Rose B. Simpson
- Occupations
- artist
- Biography
-
Rose B. Simpson is a Tewa of Khaʼpʼoe Ówîngeh (Santa Clara Pueblo) mixed-media artist and sculptor who works in ceramic, metal, fashion, painting, music, performance, and installation. Simpson is the daughter of renowned Santa Clara Pueblo artist Roxanne Swentzell. She lives in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. Her work has been exhibited at SITE Santa Fe (2008, 2015); the Heard Museum (2009, 2010); the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Santa Fe (2010); the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian (2008); the Denver Art Museum; Pomona College Museum of Art (2016); Ford Foundation Gallery (2019); The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian (2017); the Minneapolis Institute of Art (2019); the Savannah College of Art and Design (2020); the Nevada Museum of Art (2021); Whitney Museum of American Art (2023, 2024), and the Norton Museum of Art (2024).
-
Kelly Church
- Enrolled in Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development
- Graduated with associate degree in fine arts
- Occupations
- basket weaverartist
- Biography
-
Kelly Jean Church is a black ash basket maker, Woodlands style painter, birchbark biter, and educator. She lives in Michigan.
-
Marcus Amerman
- Occupations
- painterbeadworker
- Biography
-
Marcus Amerman is a Native American (Choctaw Nation) beadwork artist, glass artist, painter, fashion designer, and performance artist, living in Idaho. He is known for his highly realistic beadwork portraits.
-
Gerald McMaster
- Occupations
- painterdraftspersonwritervideo artistexhibition curator
- Biography
-
Gerald Raymond McMaster CM is a curator, artist, and author and a Plains Cree member of the Siksika Nation. McMaster is Professor Emeritus of Critical Curatorial Studies and Indigenous Visual Culture Studies. He is a former Tier 1 Canada Research Chair and was director of the Wapatah Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge at OCAD University. He was formerly the adjunct curator at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
-
Dan Namingha
- Occupations
- paintersculptor
- Biography
-
Dan Namingha is a Hopi painter and sculptor. He is Dextra Quotskuyva's son, and a great-great-grandson of Nampeyo. He is a member of the Hopi-Tewa member of the Hopi Tribe. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
-
Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie
- Occupations
- photographervideo artist
- Biography
-
Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie is a Navajo Nation photographer, museum director, curator, and professor. She is living in Davis, California. She serves as the director of the Gorman Museum of Native American Art and teaches at University of California, Davis.
-
Richard Aitson
- Occupations
- painterbeadworker
- Biography
-
Richard Aitson was a Kiowa- Ná'ishą Apache bead artist, curator, and poet from Oklahoma.
-
Sherwin Bitsui
- Occupations
- poetpainter
- Biography
-
Sherwin Bitsui is a Navajo writer and poet. His book of poems, Flood Song, won the American Book Award and the PEN Open Book Award.
-
Benjamin Harjo, Jr
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
-
Benjamin Harjo Jr. was a Native American painter and printmaker based in Oklahoma.
-
Alfred Young Man
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
-
Alfred Young Man, Ph.D. or Kiyugimah is a Cree artist, writer, educator, and an enrolled member of the Chippewa-Cree tribe located on the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation, Montana, US. His Montana birth certificate lists him as being 13/16th Cree by blood-quantum, his full sister, Shirley, is listed as 16/16ths. He is a former Department Head (2007–2010) of Indian Fine Arts at the First Nations University of Canada in Regina, Saskatchewan and former Chair (1999–2007) of Native American Studies, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. He is professor emeritus at the University of Lethbridge and University of Regina.
-
Linda Lomahaftewa
- Occupations
- printmakerpainter
- Biography
-
Linda Lomahaftewa is a Native American printmaker, painter, and educator living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a citizen of the Hopi Tribe and a descendant of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
-
Karita Coffey
- Years
- 1947-.. (age 79)
- Occupations
- ceramicist
- Biography
-
Karita Coffey is a Comanche ceramist, noted especially for producing ceramic versions of cultural items from her tribe, in addition to ceramic vessels. She also works in lost-wax cast metals.
-
Heidi Bigknife
- Occupations
- artist
- Biography
-
Heidi BigKnife is a Native American artist living in Oklahoma. She is well known for her unique jewelry, a talent she developed at the Institute of American Indian Art.
-
Jackie Larson Bread
- Occupations
- artist
- Biography
-
Jackie Larson Bread is a Native American beadwork artist from the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Montana. Her interest in bead work was sparked from looking at her late-grandmother's beaded pieces. In awe of these objects, Bread self-taught herself how to bead when she was younger and now, she has been beading for more than 20 years. Continuing through trial and error, Bread has received numerous awards for her beading.
-
Sandy Fife Wilson
- Occupations
- fashion designerteacherartist
- Biography
-
Sandy Fife Wilson is a Muscogee (Creek) art educator, fashion designer and artist. After graduating from the Institute of American Indian Arts and Northeastern Oklahoma State University, she became an art teacher, first working in the public schools of Dewey, Oklahoma. When Josephine Wapp retired as the textile instructor at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Wilson was hired to teach the design courses. After three years, in 1979, she returned to Oklahoma and taught at Chilocco Indian School until it closed and then worked in the Morris Public School system until her retirement in 2009.
