The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development

Dr. Manley A. Begay, Jr. is both director of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy (NNI) in the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and senior lecturer/associate social scientist in the American Indian Studies Program at The University of Arizona (UofA). He teaches courses on nation-building, curriculum development, and indigenous education. He is also co-director of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development (HPAIED), John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. While teaching at UofA and working with NNI and HPAIED, Dr. Begay serves as a member of the: Aboriginal Program Advisory Committee, Aboriginal Leadership and Self-Government Program, The Banff Centre for Management, Banff, Alberta, Canada; National Advisory Board for the Alfonso Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies, Department of Anthropology and the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico; Governing Council, National Institute for Native Leadership in Higher Education, University of New Mexico; and Board of Directors, Four Times Foundation, Red Lodge, Montana.

He has served as a: lecturer in the Administration, Planning, and Social Policy and Learning and Teaching areas on education at Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE); member of Board of Trustees of the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C.; member of the Board of Directors, The Medical Foundation; Faculty Advisory Board member, Harvard Native American Program, Harvard University; and member of Board of Directors, Tuba City Wellness Center, Navajo Nation. He has worked as a consultant for First Nations and bands in Canada, American Indian nations, The University of Auckland in New Zealand, federal agencies in the U.S. and Canada, curriculum development specialist and researcher, and reviewer for several major textbook publishing and film companies. Furthermore, his research and consulting experience has focused on projects about and for indigenous nations in the promotion of strong and effective institutions of self-governance and leadership. He has also presented on a variety of topics from Native leadership to curriculum development and from historical and contemporary Native American issues to American Indian economic development and indigenous nation building at numerous colleges and universities, private and public high schools, conferences, institutes, and symposia.

Prior to working with the HPAIED and NNI, he was a principal and assistant principal on the Navajo Nation and high school teacher on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. He received his A.A. from Navajo Community College (1975); B.A. in Education from University of Arizona (1977); M.Ed. (1984) and Ed.Spec. (1985) in Educational Administration from Brigham Young University; M.Ed. (1989) in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University; and Ed.D. in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University (1997). His doctoral dissertation was titled: Leading By Choice, Not Chance: Leadership Education for Native Chief Executives of American Indian Nations.

Dr. Begay was born in Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation (AZ) and raised in Tuba City via Wheatfields, Navajo Nation (AZ), and his maternal clan is Ma'ii Deesgiizhinii (Coyote Pass - Jemez Clan); paternal clan is Taachii'nii (Red Running into the Water People) and maternal grandfather's clan is Lok'aa dine'e (Reed People) and paternal grandfather's clan is Todichi'ii'nii (Bitter Water People). He is a citizen of the Navajo Nation, married to Carol Goldtooth-Begay, and her maternal clan is Kinyaa'aanii (Towering House People) and paternal clan is Biih bitoodnii (Deer Springs People); maternal grandfather is Tl'izi lani (Manygoats People) and paternal grandfather is Tl'aashchi'i (Red Bottom People). He is the father of a 26 year-old daughter, Mandalyn Echo Cody Begay, and 22 year-old son, Manasseh Cody Begay. As of July 5, 2000, he became a grandfather to Monoka.

Contact:
Tel. (520) 626-8629
Email: mbegay@u.arizona.edu

Stephen Cornell is director of the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy. He also is a professor of sociology and of public administration and policy at The University of Arizona. Prior to joining the Center on July 1, 1998, he was chair of the department of sociology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He is co-founder of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, a research program—headquartered at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University—which he continues to co-direct.

A specialist in political economy and cultural sociology, Cornell holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago and taught at Harvard University for nine years before moving to UCSD in 1989. He has written widely on Indian affairs, economic development, collective identity, and ethnic and race relations. Among his publications are The Return of the Native: American Indian Political Resurgence, What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions in American Indian Economic Development (co-edited with Joseph P. Kalt), and Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World (co-authored with Douglas Hartmann).

Dr. Cornell has spent much of the last dozen years working closely with Indian nations in the United States and Canada on economic development, tribal governance, and tribal policy issues. Among his recent policy-related projects are a study of the on-and-off-reservation economic and social impacts of Indian gaming operations and an analysis of Native self-governance in Alaska. He serves on the faculty of the National Executive Education Program for Native American Leadership and is a member of the editorial board of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Contact:
Tel. (520) 626-4393
Email: scornell@u.arizona.edu

Contact :
Tel: (617) 496-4082
Fax: (617) 496-3900
Email: nicole_grenier@harvard.edu

Megan is the Director of the Honoring Nations program at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. Honoring Nations is a national awards program that identifies, celebrates, and shares outstanding examples of tribal governance. Founded in 1998, the awards program spotlights tribal government programs and initiatives that are especially effective in addressing critical concerns and challenges facing the more than 560 Indian nations and their citizens.

Megan is the Vice-Chair for the Board of Directors at the Rosa Minoka Hill Fund, which provides scholarship assistance to American Indian students and she recently served as the Treasurer on the Board of Native Americans in Philanthropy. Previously, she worked as the Director of Development at the University of New Mexico College of Arts and Sciences and Senior Program Officer at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Megan is also the Founder and President of Minoka Organics.

Megan graduated from the University of Chicago with a Master of Arts Degree in the Social Sciences and received a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs, with an emphasis on Latin America, and Economics from the University of Colorado- Boulder. She also earned an International Baccalaureate degree from the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West.

Contact :
Tel: (617) 496-4229
Fax: (617) 496-3900
Email: megan_hill@harvard.edu

Miriam Jorgensen is Research Director for the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and its sister program, the Native Nations Institute at the University of Arizona. Dr. Jorgensen received her BA in economics from Swarthmore College, MA in human sciences from the University of Oxford, and MPP and PhD from Harvard University.

Her areas of specialty are Indigenous governance and economic development, with a particular focus on the ways communities’ social and cultural characteristics affect development. Her work has addressed issues as wide-ranging as welfare policy, policing and justice system development, enterprise management, financial education, asset building, and philanthropy.

She is a co-author of The State of the Native Nations: Conditions under U.S. Policies of Self-Determination (Oxford University Press, 2008) and editor and co-author of Rebuilding Native Nations: Strategies for Governance and Development (University of Arizona Press, 2007).

She has been a Visiting Scholar at the Washington University Schools of Law and Social Work; has served as an instructor in economics at Harvard University and Washington University; teaches in the Native Nations Institute’s executive education program for tribal leaders; and is a former member of the Swarthmore College Board of Managers.

Contact:
Email: miriam_jorgensen@harvard.edu

Joseph P. Kalt is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Along with Profs. Stephen Cornell and Manley Begay of The University of Arizona, he directs the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. In addition, he is the author of numerous studies on economic development and nation building in Indian Country, co-editor (with Stephen Cornell) of What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions in American Indian Economic Development, and a principle author of the Harvard Project's The State of the Native Nations. Since 1987, the Harvard Project has worked for and with tribes and tribal organizations, providing research, advisory services, and leadership education on issues of nation building. Together with the University of Arizona's Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, the Harvard Project has formed The Partnership for Native Nation Building .

Since 2005, Prof. Kalt has been a visiting professor at The University of Arizona's Eller College of Management. He is also faculty chair for nation building programs at the Native Nations Institute. Professor Kalt has served as the faculty chair of the Harvard University Native American Program, as well as the Kennedy School 's Academic Dean for Research, chair of degree programs, chair of Ph.D. programs, and chair of the economics and quantitative methods section. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of The Communications Institute. He served as advisor to Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, a commissioner on the President's Commission on Aviation Safety, and on the Steering Committee of the National Park Service's National Parks for the 21st Century.

Professor Kalt's work in Indian Country includes serving as mediator in the negotiation of the historic agreement which settled endangered species disputes between the White Mountain Apache Tribe and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and which resulted in the Executive Order providing for tribal assumption of authority in natural resource matters. Along with Prof. Keith Allred, Prof. Kalt also mediated the long-standing jurisdictional dispute between the Nez Perce Tribe and the North Central Idaho Jurisdictional Alliance of cities and counties. Prof. Kalt has testified as an expert on American Indian policy and economics in federal and tribal courts, and before the United States Congress. He is a trustee of the White Mountain Apache Tribe's Fort Apache Heritage Foundation, and has represented various tribes in the negotiation of contracts, the rewriting of tribal constitutions, the reform of tribal governments, the design of tribal enterprises, and the securing of compensation for treaty violations and land confiscation. In 2005, Professor Kalt received the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development's First American Leadership Award for his contributions to research in public policy affecting Native peoples.

Prof. Kalt is a native of Tucson, Arizona . He and his wife, Judy Gans, have two children. He received his Ph.D. (1980) and M.A. (1977) in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles, and his B.A. (1973) in Economics from Stanford University .

Contact:
Tel. (617) 495-4966
Email: joe_kalt@harvard.edu

Jackie Old Coyote serves as the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development (HPAIED) Director of Education and Outreach. HPAIED focuses on what is working and what is not in Indian Country, most basically, creating a viable framework for Nation Building. Additionally, HPAIED administers the Honoring Nations program that identifies, celebrates and shares stories of resilience and success from Indian Country. Through HPAIED, Jackie pursues her life long mission of promoting and perpetuating Native culture. She is an enrolled citizen of the Apsaalooke (Crow) Nation, a Whistle Water clan member and child, and is also of Ho-Chunk descent.

Currently, Jackie serves as faculty for the Native Nations Institute and the Little Big Horn College and serves on the Board of Trustees for the National Museum of the American Indian. In 2006 she journeyed to China and participated in international forums on governmental innovations. Jackie is a life long learner and continually searches for new experiences and realms to learn from and engage with. She is certified to teach “Indianpreneurship,” and has assisted Harvard College professors with their course syllabi and construction through her appointment as a Community Liaison for the Native Voices, Native Homelands pilot project. She served on the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Alumni of Color Advisory Board, and is the 2005 recipient of the Native Americans at Harvard College Role Model of the Year award.

Having enjoyed a career as an international fashion model and actress she returned to her educational path in 2000 with renewed determination and awareness of the need to incorporate creativity and cultural components to formal education. Jackie previously taught drama at her tribal college in Montana (Little Big Horn College), and has continued her drama career as both actress and writer. She was a selected playwright for the Native Voices at the Autry Retreat in 2005; appeared in the 2003 movie, The Last Samurai; and her radio drama, Round Ball, aired on National Public Radio. She interned at The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in 2004.

Jackie received her Bachelor's degree in English Literature from Montana State University in 2003 and an Ed.M. from Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2004. She is a 2002 Rockefeller Brother Fellow, a 2003-2004 Steven J. Ross Scholar and a 2004-2005 Harvard University Administrative Fellow.

Contact:
Email: jackie_old_coyote@harvard.edu

Keith G. Allred, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, teaches and conducts research on conflict and negotiations. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. At an applied level, he investigates ethnic, legal, and international negotiations and conflicts. At a theoretical level, his research investigates anger-driven, retaliatory conflicts and the implications of perceiving oneself differently than one’s counterpart perceives in conflict and negotiation. Before coming to Harvard, he was Assistant Professor in social and organizational psychology at Columbia University. Allred earned his BA from Stanford University and his PhD in organizational behavior, with an emphasis on social psychology, from UCLA. A native of Twin Falls, Idaho, he loves riding his Quarter Horse, skiing, and fly-fishing with his wife Christine.

Contact:
Tel. (617) 495-4337
Email keith_allred@harvard.edu

Gavin Clarkson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. He also has simultaneous appointments at the Law School and in Native American Studies. Dr. Clarkson holds both a bachelor's degree and an MBA from Rice University, a doctorate from the Harvard Business School in Technology and Operations Management, and is a cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School, where he was the managing editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology and president of the Native American Law Students Association.

Dr. Clarkson was on the Computer Science faculty at Rice University from 1991 until 1998 and was a KPMG Fellow at the Harvard Business School from 1998 until 2003. While at Harvard he was also the John M. Olin Research Fellow in Law, Economics, and Business, the Reginald F. Lewis Fellow for Law Teaching, and held a university-wide fellowship, the 1665 Harvard University Native American Program Fellowship. Dr. Clarkson joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in 2003, where he conducts research in two distinct areas: intellectual property management and tribal economic development, including tribal access to capital markets and the determinants of success for tribal entrepreneurship. He recently received the first ever grant from the National Science Foundation to study the dynamics of tribal finance.

An enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Dr. Clarkson has consulted, written, and published extensively on tribal sovereignty, tribal governance and court systems, tribal economic development, and tribal asset management, and has conducted extensive research on the empirical data underlying the American Indian mascot controversy. Dr. Clarkson was also a contributing author for the most recent edition of Felix Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law, providing material on tribal finance, tribal corporations, economic development, and intellectual property.

Dr. Clarkson holds the Series 7, Series 24, and Series 66 Securities licenses from the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD).

Contact:
Tel. (734) 763-2284
Email: gsmc@umich.edu

Catherine Curtis is a Research Fellow at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. Her research interests include intergovernmental relations, Indian government financing and community economic development.

Prior to her work with the Harvard Project, Ms. Curtis advised the Canadian government on economic development initiatives. In addition, Ms. Curtis worked for many years as a policy analyst on Indian self-government. She has also served on a negotiating team that explored new forms of Indian government and natural resource co-management in Canada's North.

Ms. Curtis obtained her undergraduate education in Political Science and Economics from the University of Toronto. She received a Master's of Public Administration and Policy from the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.

Contact:
Email: catherine_curtis@ksg.harvard.edu

Kenneth Grant is a research fellow with the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. He is also a senior consultant at Lexecon, Inc., where he consults tribes and bands in the United States and Canada in the areas of governmental restructuring, institutional capacity, and economic development. In addition to co-authoring several studies, he has also supported litigation testimony for tribes needing economic analysis pertaining to issues of treaty rights and/or tribal policies.

During the course his professional career, Mr. Grant has worked closely with Native American leaders on projects ranging from cost-benefit analysis and enterprise feasibility to tribal sovereignty. Specific projects included litigation-related analysis pertaining the economics and public policy of tribal taxation authority, assessing the social and economic impacts of tribal enterprises, facilitating discussions among state, federal, and tribal authorities concerning the use and regulation of natural resources, and assisting tribes undertaking self-governance and constitutional reform. He is most recently a co-author of the report Alaska Native Self-Governance Policy Reform: Toward Implementation of the Alaska Natives Commission Report. Mr. Grant also has specific industry experience in the oil and gas sectors. Prior to joining the Harvard Project and Lexecon, Mr. Grant was an economist with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in Washington, DC, where he conducted market analyses and researched employment effects and capital requirements of proposed projects. As an instructor for the Harvard Institute for International Development, Mr. Grant taught cost-benefit analysis, project analysis, and microeconomics to officials from utilities, regulatory agencies, and economic development banks in the developing world.

Mr. Grant received a B.A. in economics cum laude from Middlebury College (1986) and an M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (1993).

Contact:
Tel. (617) 520-0214
Email: kgrant@lexecon.com

Eric Henson is a research fellow with the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. He is also a consultant with Lexecon.

Mr. Henson's expertise is economic and financial analysis in the areas of oil and gas valuation, antitrust claims, and market structures. Prior to joining the Harvard Project and Lexecon, he was an Industry Analyst at Fidelity Investments in Boston, where he assisted in the development of quantitative models to forecast outperformance of S&P 500 Industry groups. He also programmed econometric software and macros to process performance reports. From 1995 to 1996, Mr. Henson was the manager of the United States Economic Database at Haver Analytics in New York City.

Mr. Henson holds a B.B.A. in business economics from the University of Texas at San Antonio (1992), an M.A. in economics from Southern Methodist University (1995), and an M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard (1998). At Harvard, Mr. Henson focused on the interaction of government and business. His thesis examined the importance of a Uniform Commercial Code for economic development on Native American Reservations, and he was a Christian Johnson Native American Fellow.

Contact:
Tel. (520) 615-5334
Email: ehenson@lexecon.com

Eric Lemont is a Research Fellow at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. He is also a lawyer at Hobbs, Straus, Dean and Walker, LLP in Washington, D.C., where he represents Indian tribes on a variety of transactional and legislative issues

Mr. Lemont is the founding director of the Harvard Project’s Initiative on American Indian Constitutional Reform. The core of the Initiative is the Executive Session on American Indian Constitutional Reform, a national working group of constitutional reformers from 12 American Indian nations and several leading academics charged with rethinking strategies for strengthening American Indian constitutions and constitution-making processes.

Mr. Lemont currently is editing Valuable Reforms: First Hand Accounts of an Emerging American Indian Constitutionalism. His other publications include Developing Effective Processes of Constitutional and Governmental Reform: Lessons from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Hualapai Nation, Navajo Nation and Northern Cheyenne Tribe, American Indian Law Review, Volume 26:2 (2002) and Overcoming the Politics of Reform: The Story of the Cherokee Nation Constitutional Convention, American Indian Law Review, Volume 28:1 (forthcoming).

Mr. Lemont’s economic development experience includes work on a variety of projects with the Philadelphia Empowerment Zone, the U.S. Agency for International Development in Durban, South Africa and the Boston-based Economic Development Assistance Consortium. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan (B.A.), New York University School of Law (J.D.) and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (MPP).

Contact
Tel. (202) 822-8282
Email: elemont@hsdwdc.com

Amy Besaw Medford is the former Director of Program Development at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Manager of Program Development at the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy at the Udall Center for Studies in Social Policy at the University of Arizona. Through applied research and service, the Harvard Project and NNI aim to understand and foster the conditions under which sustained, self-determined social and economic development is achieved among American Indian nations.

Amy serves on the Faculty Advisory Board for the Harvard University Native American Program, helping HUNAP achieve is mission of teaching, research, outreach, and community support. Previously, she directed on the Harvard Project’s tribal governance awards program, Honoring Nations and was a research associate in the area of family strengthening. Amy was also a private consultant in the areas of team building and organizational leadership.

Amy is Brothertown Indian and Korean. She received her B.A. in Business Administration from University of Washington, M.A. in Organizational Leadership from Chapman University, and Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Contact:
Tel: (617) 496-1759
Fax: (617) 496-3900
Email: amy_besaw@post.harvard.edu

Lance Morgan is a research affiliate with the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and President and CEO of Ho-Chunk, Inc., an Honoring Nations High Honors recipient in 2000. He is a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.

Mr. Morgan has experience in a variety of fields, from the U.S. Army Reserves to academia and economic development. He has recently served as an Economic Policy Consultant for the U.S. Department of the Interior, Owner/Consultant of Lance Morgan Consulting, and an adjunct professor at several universities. He is a frequent speaker on tribal economic and legal issues, invited by the National Congress of American Indians, the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, the Federal Reserve Bank, and many other national organizations. Mr. Morgan has also served as a board member for many organizations both nationally and within his own community, including Little Priest Tribal College, the State of Nebraska Rural Development Advisory Board and Fort Peck, Inc. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the Minnesota Bar Association, and the Nebraska Bar Association.

Mr. Morgan is best known for his work with Ho Chunk, Inc., the economic development corporation of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. Since becoming the developer and first employee of Ho Chunk, Inc. in 1995, Mr. Morgan has helped the company, a tribal conglomerate, develop as many non-gaming aspects of the Winnebago tribal economy as possible. Recently, this has included the Ho-Chunk Community Development Corporation, a non-profit corporation which focuses on attracting capital to the Winnebago Reservation to increase the social impact of Ho Chunk, Inc.

Mr. Morgan holds a B.S. in Economics from the University of Nebraska (1990) and a J.D. from Harvard Law School (1993).

Jonathan Taylor is a research fellow at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, and a senior policy scholar at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona.

Mr. Taylor has provided expertise to tribes and bands in the United States and Canada in the areas of strategic management and economic development. Mr. Taylor has worked in a wide variety of institutional and cultural contexts and on a wide variety of projects. These projects have included assessing changes in quality of life due to major enterprise success (including casino gaming), designing tax regimes, assisting in constitutional evaluation and reform, providing public policy analysis and negotiation support in the context of resource development, valuing non-market attributes of natural resources, and educating tribal executives. At present, he is studying the national evidence on the socioeconomic effects of Indian gaming on Indians and non-Indians. He has authored or supported testimony in litigation and in public hearings for a number of Native American groups needing economic analysis to support treaty rights or tribal policies.

Mr. Taylor holds an A.B. in politics from Princeton University (1986) and an M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (1992).

Contact :
Tel. (617) 480-2074
Email: jonathan@taylorpolicy.com