Congratulations to EWU McNair Scholar Madelyn Brown! Madelyn has been accepted to two more PhD programs, including the University of Toronto, Canada’s leading postsecondary research institution, with a five-year funding package, and the University of Minnesota with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship Six-Year Support Package.
Madelyn has accepted the offer from the University of Minnesota, where she will be advised by Jean O’Brien, an American historian of White Earth Band of Ojibwe ancestry who specializes in northeastern Woodlands American Indian history, and David Chang, a Native Hawaiian historian of indigenous people, colonialism, borders and migration.
Madelyn is a scholar of Indigenous History. In EWU’s McNair program, she worked on her 2019 summer research project with Lecturer SimHayKin S. Jack, a Clinical Cultural Specialist at Colville Confederated Tribes and PhD Candidate at University of California, Davis and Dr. Christina Torres Garcia, now Assistant Professor and Director of the Latino, Latin American Studies Program at Central Washington University. Madelyn’s research focused on the the historic Eurocentric discrimination against [Indigenous] Traditional Ecological Knowledge and its benefits in forest and wildfire management, proposing that that these care techniques, specifically the acceptance of fire as a viable influence in forest health, should be taken into consideration when utilizing preventative measures against human-caused events. While a student at EWU, Madelyn was the recipient of the 2018 Gingolyx Village Government scholarship for academic excellence and a member of both the Native American Student Association and Phi Alpha Theta. Madelyn is currently completing her Masters in History at the University of Oregon.
The EWU McNair staff are delighted to hear about Madelyn’s ongoing achievements and we know she will make an impact in her field. Click here to read more about Madelyn and her research.