Interim Provost Beth A. Winkelstein and Vice Provost for Faculty Laura Perna have announced the appointment of Kim TallBear as the Provost’s Distinguished Visiting Faculty Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year.

Dr. TallBear, author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science (2013), is a professor in the Faculty of Native Studies and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society at the University of Alberta. A citizen of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate in present-day South Dakota, she studies the historical and ongoing roles of science and technology in the colonization of Indigenous peoples and others, especially the increasing role of technoscience in Indigenous governance, asking questions like: How do U.S. tribes and other Indigenous peoples resist, regulate, collaborate in, and initiate research and technology development in ways that support Indigenous governance? What challenges do science and technology pose to Indigenous peoples, and what types of innovative work and thinking occur at the interface of technoscience and Indigenous governance?

The Provost’s Distinguished Visiting Faculty Fellowship is awarded annually to a senior scholar of national or international prominence whose work promotes civic engagement, scholarly innovation, and inclusive communities, with the aim of enriching the intellectual and cultural life of the Penn community. Fellows can be from any academic discipline, with preference for those whose work is interdisciplinary in nature, promotes the growth of academic fields, and involves innovative research, methods, or scholarly themes. Fellows mentor Penn students, participate in panels and public discussions, collaborate on research projects, and provide at least one public presentation to the Penn community.

This year, Dr. TallBear will deliver the annual Provost’s Lecture on Diversity on March 15, 2023. Her talk is titled Beyond Inclusion and Reconciliation to Decolonization in Science Technology.