Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear (Northern Cheyenne & Chicana) is committed to growing data warriors in Indigenous communities and advancing Indigenous data sovereignty as a catalyst towards health equity for Indigenous Peoples. She has had the honor of partnering with Native nations and Indigenous communities in both the United States and Aotearoa New Zealand on research projects for more than a decade, including leading one of the largest national surveys of tribal leaders in the U.S. She is the Co-Founder of the U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network (USIDSN), an entity that helps ensure that data for and about Indigenous nations and peoples are utilized to advance Indigenous aspirations for collective and individual wellbeing. Desi is a dual PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Arizona and demography at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. As a social demographer, her research employs mixed methods to answer questions related to statistical statecraft, inequality, health disparities, and collective identity. Her dissertation research is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation where she is a Health Policy Research Scholar.
