Susan Bayro has been employed with the Osage Nation since 2011. From 2011 to 2019, she was the Information Technology Department’s business systems analyst/business relationship manager. From 2019 to 2024, she was the strategic planning analyst for the Self-Governance and Strategic Planning Department. On May 7, 2024, she was elected the first Osage mayor of the City of Pawhuska.

With an MBA in international business, Bayro brings a wealth of knowledge to Osage Nation. Her academic background has been instrumental in her contributions to the Osage Nation. She was crucial in advancing the Osage Nation CDFI’s “A Place to Borrow Money” and broadband internet expansion, securing over $40 million from the National Telecommunications Information Administration.

Estakio Beltran joined Native Americans in Philanthropy as partnership advisor to lead the new Office of Strategic Engagement at the U.S. Department of the Interior. He collaborates regularly with the White House Council on Native American Affairs and other federal agencies that house initiatives focused on conservation, economic development, and revitalizing Native languages through public-private engagement among philanthropy, tribal organizations, and the business sector.

Beltran grew up in central Washington on the Yakama Nation. After spending over a decade advising senior members of Congress and high-ranking officials in Washington, D.C., he returned home to work in philanthropy with community-based organizations to co-design partnerships that improved the economic resilience of tribal and rural communities.

Beltran’s success is rooted in a bold vision for systems change through community-centered solutions. He earned his BA from Gonzaga University, and his master’s in public administration from Columbia University in New York City.

Liz Boyd is the homeowner program manager for the Red Cliff Chippewa Housing Authority and project manager for the Red Cliff Tribe. During her three years in this position, she has developed homeowner assistance programs, policies, and tribal home repair programs. She is a certified loan packager for the USDA Rural Development 502 program and is certified to teach home buyer education courses using the Pathways curriculum. She has been able to help more than 10 tribal families secure a mortgage to purchase their own homes. Currently, Boyd is working with the Tribal Planning Department on new housing development projects, two eight-unit rental apartment buildings and two 12-unit apartment buildings for the elderly. Being an enrolled member of the tribe and knowing the community members, she was recruited as a field staff worker for the 2018 Red Cliff Tribal Census and served as the survey manager for the Red Cliff Housing Authority’s 2021 Housing Needs Assessment and as survey manager for the 2023 Red Cliff Tribal Census.

Stephanie Russo Carroll is an associate research professor with the University of Arizona’s Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and the Native Nations Institute housed at the Udall Center; an associate professor in the University of Arizona’s Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health; an affiliate faculty in the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law; and director of the Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance.

Carroll co-founded the U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network and the Research Data Alliance’s International Indigenous Data Sovereignty Group. She is a founding member and current chair of the Global Indigenous Data Alliance. Carroll co-edited the book Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Policy and led the publication of the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance. She was a founding member of the University of Arizona’s American Indian and Indigenous Health Alliance Club and is a founding member and past president of the University of Arizona Native Faculty group. She is a founding board member of the Copper River Tribal College in Chitina, Alaska.

Carroll received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and Master of Public Health and Doctor of Public Health from the University of Arizona’s Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

Dave Castillo serves as CEO of Native Community Capital (NCC)—a Native Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). In 2020, NCC secured its status as a licensed mortgage bank to further focus its work of addressing the unmet demand for residential construction and mortgage lending on tribal trust lands. Castillo’s professional contributions to tribal community and economic development began in 1997, first through work with the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc.; later in tribal government and financial institution settings; and, since 2009, in the CDFI industry. He serves on the boards of directors for New Mexico Community Capital, the Housing Assistance Council, the Tribal Homeownership Coalition of the Southwest, Southwest Native Assets Coalition, and the Arizona Finance Authority; is a trustee of the Vitalyst Foundation; and is an advisory board member for Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco as well as Enterprise Bank & Trust. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University and an MBA from Arizona State University. He is a member of FHFA’s Inaugural Federal Advisory Committee on Affordable, Equitable, and Sustainable Housing.

Chrystel Cornelius is the President and CEO of Oweesta Corporation, a national Native CDFI intermediary predominantly serving Native communities across the United States, Alaska, and Hawaii. Cornelius has worked with Native communities for most of her professional career, with more than 26 years of experience working in the Native economic development field. She is an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians located in North Dakota. She has dedicated her career to capitalizing Native communities’ upholding of tribal sovereignty and self-determination measures through the issuance of capital and organizational capacity-building efforts.

Cornelius is a founding board member for the Native CDFI Network. She is also a former board member of Opportunity Finance Network, a current board member of the Community Reinvestment Fund, and holds the position of chairwoman for the Red Feather Development Group. She is a BALLE Fellow and Skoll Fellow. She was also a recipient of the 27th Heinz Awards for the Economy.

Cornelius attained a bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Karen Diver is currently the inaugural senior advisor to the president for Native American affairs at the University of Minnesota. Her previous roles in higher education included serving as a Faculty Fellow for Inclusive Excellence at the College of St. Scholastica, and as faculty with the Masters in Tribal Administration and Governance at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Her current service includes as a U.S. Commissioner for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and membership on the Climate Related Financial Risk Advisory Committee of the Financial Stability Oversight Council at the U.S. Department of Treasury. She is on the board of governors for the Honoring Nations Program with the Harvard Kennedy School Project for Indigenous Governance and Development.

Diver was also an appointee of President Barack Obama as the Special Assistant to the President for Native American Affairs and was part of the Domestic Policy Council from November 2015 until the end of the Obama Administration.

She served as chairwoman of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa from 2007 to 2015, managing the second-largest workforce in northern Minnesota and a high-capacity tribal government.

She has a bachelor’s in economics from the University of Minnesota Duluth and a master’s in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Nelda Goodman grew up on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin. She has lived in Minneapolis for 51 years. Up until she received her G.E.D., she worked several odd jobs, after which she attended college at the University of Minnesota. Her work in the community involves working at a battered women’s shelter in the Twin Cities, mentoring First Nations women and girls, and working as a wellness and recovery case manager at the American Indian Family Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Goodman has raised 10 children, some of whom were adults before she started a career in human services focusing on the Native American community. In her work, she shares her own personal struggles with being a single parent due to domestic violence and how her challenges inspired her and others. This has led to her own successful recovery, going on 58 years.

Dustin Goslin (Pam-Mbwit-M’ko) is a proud member of the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation of Mayetta, Kansas. In his role, he works to build economic vibrancy in the Mille Lacs tribal economy by relentlessly connecting people and capital to leverage sustainable investments in business, workforce housing, and planned infrastructure. Goslin is rooted in community work and believes in giving back by finding ways to use his role in business to help support and grow others. His new role is as the chief talent officer of the organization, overseeing the investment strategies in the over 2,000 folks that live and work in the Mille Lacs tribal economy.

Matthew Gregg is a senior economist in Community Development and Engagement at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, where he focuses on research for CICD. Before joining the Bank, Gregg was an associate professor of economics at Roger Williams University and, prior to that, a visiting economics professor at Grinnell College. He has conducted research on a wide range of topics within tribal economic development and published work on historical development, Indian removal, land rights, and agricultural productivity. He is a member of the Association for Economic Research of Indigenous People.

Gregg received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia, where he specialized in applied microeconomics and economic history.

Eric Henson is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and has been a research fellow/affiliate with the Harvard Project on Indigenous Governance and Development since 1998. He is also the inaugural Director of the Ittapila Program for Nation Building Education and Outreach at Harvard University.

Henson teaches Nation Building II/Native Americans in the Twenty-First Century and Native Nations and Contemporary Land Use. In his role at Harvard, he has continuously served as an evaluator for Honoring Nations, an awards program that identifies, evaluates, and honors best practices in tribal governance all across the United States.

He is also an executive vice president with the economics consulting firm Compass Lexecon. Henson holds a master’s degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, an MA in economics from Southern Methodist University, and a BBA in business economics from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Henson is a primary author of The State of the Native Nations: Conditions under U.S. Policies of Self-Determination, which was published by Oxford University Press. He has provided testimony to the U.S. Congress on several occasions on issues relating to tribal governance and economic development.

Andrew Huff is the senior policy and legal advisor to CICD. He is an enrolled member of the Rocky Boy’s Reservation of north-central Montana. He graduated from Harvard College in 1991 and the University of Colorado Law School in 1999.

Over the course of his legal career, Huff has served in a variety of positions, including as a tribal judge for the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation; as chief legal counsel to Governor Steve Bullock of Montana (2013–2017); and as an assistant attorney general for the Montana Department of Justice (2010–2012).

Neel Kashkari took office as president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis on January 1, 2016. Neel leads the Bank’s many initiatives. He was instrumental in establishing the Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute, whose mission is to ensure that world-class research helps to improve the economic well-being of all Americans.

Most recently, he’s supported the expansion of the CICD, which advances the prosperity of Native nations and Indigenous communities through actionable data and research.

Kashkari began his career as an aerospace engineer at TRW (now Northrop Grumman), where he developed technology for NASA space science missions. Following graduate school, he joined Goldman Sachs in San Francisco.

From 2006 to 2009, he served in several senior positions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In 2008, he was confirmed as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. In this role, he oversaw the Troubled Assets Relief Program during the financial crisis. He received the Alexander Hamilton Award, the Treasury Department’s highest honor for distinguished service.

Kashkari earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Kevin Klingbeil is the owner and managing director of Big Water Consulting. He is a geographer and former law center director, Indian housing lawyer, and regional quality assurance manager for the U.S. Census Bureau. Klingbeil has designed and implemented data collection, planning, and technical assistance projects for dozens of tribes and Native communities throughout the country. He has also coordinated state, regional, and national Native studies and initiatives for the Seattle Indian Services Commission, the State of Washington, the South Dakota Native Homeownership Coalition, the National American Indian Housing Council (NAIHC), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA), and the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s CDFI Fund. From 2014 to 2016, he served as one of four technical experts for the Indian Housing Block Grant Formula Negotiated Rulemaking Committee’s Data Study Group. Klingbeil is currently coordinating numerous tribal data collection projects in addition to the EDA-funded Indigenous Economic Development Community of Practice in partnership with the Urban Institute and NAIHC.

Anita Welch Lossiah, JD, is an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and resides on ancestral lands in Cherokee, North Carolina. She is the director of human services within the division of Public Health and Human Services (PHHS) at the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians tribal government.

Before joining PHHS, Lossiah was policy analyst for the Office of the Attorney General within the Civil Law Office. Her work focused on policy development, strategy, and results-based implementation within the top governmental priorities. Within this role, she assisted in developing a policy structure of multisystem collaboration for more improved data-informed management and decision-making. She also worked with a team of professionals to bring the first electronic tribal census in 2023.

Lossiah additionally serves as a Cherokee Police commissioner, an executive board member for the Museum of the Cherokee People, and a board member for the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, and is a former tribal council representative for the Yellowhill Community. She earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Mississippi.

Casey Lozar is a vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and director of CICD, a research and policy institute that works to advance the economic self-determination and prosperity of Native nations and Indigenous communities. Before assuming leadership of CICD, he was assistant vice president/outreach executive in the Bank’s department of Public Affairs, and the leader of our Helena Branch.

Prior to joining the Minneapolis Fed in 2018, Lozar served in economic development and higher education roles for the State of Montana. Additionally, he held executive leadership positions in national Native American nonprofits, including the American Indian College Fund and the Notah Begay III Foundation.

He received degrees from Dartmouth College and Harvard University and an MBA from the University of Colorado-Denver. He serves on the Montana Board of Regents of Higher Education (past chair).

Lozar is the 2021 recipient of the Janet L. Yellen Award for Excellence in Community Development and a 2022 recipient of the Honorary Leadership Award from the Native American Finance Officers Association.

A Montana native, he was raised on the Flathead Indian Reservation and is an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

Traci Morris is the executive director of the American Indian Policy Institute at Arizona State University. She is a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma. As an expert on tribal digital equity, broadband policies, and digital sovereignty, Morris has testified at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and on Capitol Hill. Morris spearheaded and co-authored the groundbreaking Tribal Technology Assessment: The State of Internet Service on Tribal Lands in 2019. Her book Native American Voices: A Reader continues to be a primary teaching tool in colleges.

She is a board member and former president of the Phoenix Indian Center, serves on the American Indian Science and Engineering Society board of directors and the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums advisory council, and serves on the National Tribal Library Broadband Council. Formerly, Morris held two-year appointments to the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee and was a member of the advisory board for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Native American Employment and Training Council.

Morris has an MA and Ph.D. from the University of Arizona’s American Indian Studies program and a BA in liberal arts from Colorado State University.

As the data director for CICD, Vanessa Palmer supports the center’s mission to advance the economic self-determination and prosperity of Native nations and Indigenous communities by leading efforts to collect, harmonize, and sustainably manage research-ready data. She also contributes to CICD’s work as an applied researcher, using statistical tools and data visualization to help stakeholders better understand issues affecting Indian Country.

Palmer joined the Minneapolis Fed in 2020 as a data scientist. Her prior professional roles focused on supporting a range of organizations—primarily in public education—in designing systems and using data to make evidence-based decisions. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington and a master’s degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

David Sanders is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, born in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and raised in the rural Oglala community on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. As the vice president of research, evaluation, and faculty development, he oversees all aspects of research and program evaluation at the American Indian College Fund. He assists and guides the use of research data and evaluation to demonstrate the impact of the College Fund’s programming.

He is leading the development of database infrastructure of College Fund scholar graduation and retention data and integrating program data and outcomes, while collaborating with tribal colleges and universities.

Sanders’ career is situated in Indian education. He taught secondary mathematics at Chinle High School on the Navajo Nation. He also led the University of Colorado (CU) Upward Bound Program, working with low-income, first-generation high school students from 21 tribal communities across an eight-state region.

Sanders earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from CU-Boulder. He also received a secondary mathematics teacher credential, master’s, and Ph.D. degree in instruction and curriculum in mathematics education from CU-Boulder. His graduate work focused on the impact of self-determination policy on the teaching and learning of mathematics in a Lakota K-8 school.

Christina Sparling had the incredible honor of being elected to the Snoqualmie Tribal Council in 2023. As a fifth-generation leader, she is passionate about strengthening her community and making sure every member feels connected and heard. She believes clear, open communication between leadership and membership is key to building that strong connection and ensuring everyone is working together toward a common goal.

One of the things she’s most focused on is using data to guide decisions. She believes that by understanding the needs of the community, leaders can expand programs that truly make a difference in people’s lives. At the same time, Sparling is dedicated to preserving cultural traditions and ensuring they remain a vital part of the community’s future.

For Sparling, leadership is about collaboration and creating an environment where every voice matters. She wants to make sure that, together, the tribe builds a future that honors the past and sets the community up for success in the years ahead.

Alene Tchourumoff, senior vice president of Community Development and CICD, leads the Bank’s engagement with communities throughout the Ninth Federal Reserve District to promote economic opportunity for low- and moderate-income people and those living in Indian Country. Key focus areas include early childhood development and affordable housing.

Prior to joining the Bank in December 2018, Tchourumoff served as chair of Minnesota’s Metropolitan Council, where she built strong partnerships with local governments and community groups to advance transit, housing, and other critical infrastructure. Previously, she served as Minnesota’s first state rail director, led Hennepin County Public Works’ Planning Department, and worked extensively in China and Southeast Asia on public policy and public health initiatives—including combating HIV/AIDS in China and Vietnam.

Tchourumoff holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from George Washington University School of Business and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

She was named a 2020 Women in Business honoree by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal and is a member of the Minnesota State Attorney General’s task force dedicated to improving women’s economic security.

Governor Reggie Wassana began serving his people at the Oklahoma-based Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in 1992 as a tribal planner in the planning office. Later he served as the housing authority’s executive director for 15 years.

After working for various tribal nations, Wassana was elected to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Legislature as Cheyenne District Three legislator. Selected by his peers, he was the speaker of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Sixth Legislature for two years.

In 2018, Wassana was sworn into office as the fourth governor of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. Governor Wassana was reelected in 2021, marking the first time in modern history that a governor was elected for a consecutive second four-year term. Governor Wassana has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, Oklahoma.

Governor Wassana serves on the Indian Health Service Direct Service Tribes Advisory Committee, as a Southern Plains Region primary member of the Secretary of the Interior’s Tribal Advisory Committee, and as the National Congress of American Indians executive committee’s Southern Plains vice president. Governor Wassana’s administration is committed to healing and moving the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes forward and together as great nations while providing the best possible services for all tribal members.

Larry Wright Jr. is an enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and served as tribal chairman for his tribal nation for 11 years. Currently, Wright is the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), which describes itself as the oldest, largest, and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization serving the broad interests of tribal governments and communities. In this position, Wright is responsible for managing the organization’s day-to-day operations and creating a strategic pathway to long-term success for NCAI and its public-education arm, the NCAI Fund.

Before joining NCAI as a staff member, Wright represented the Great Plains region as the NCAI executive committee’s area vice president. In addition, he served as a board member for the National Indian Health Board, as chairman of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs board of directors, and as chairman of the Nebraska Inter-Tribal Coalition.

Wright is a military veteran who brings with him a diverse background in education, management, and entrepreneurship. He previously served as a secondary social studies teacher in Lincoln, Nebraska, public schools and owned a general contracting business.