Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles, Ph.D. (he\/they; Ojibwemowin pronoun: wiin) is an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies in the School of Humanities at Bemidji State University. A citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, of Ojibwe, Black, and Swedish descent, their Ojibwemowin name translates to “Stands on Four Earths.” Dr. Smiles is an Indigenous geographer whose scholarship focuses on Indigenous geographies and epistemologies, science and technology studies (STS), and tribal cultural resource preservation and protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Smiles serves as director of the Geographies of Indigenous Futures Collaboratory, a research collective centered on Indigenous geographic methodologies and collaborative community partnerships. Additionally, they hold research affiliations with the EGESTA Lab at the University of British Columbia and the Rising Voices, Changing Coasts Hub through the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and Haskell Indian Nations University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prior to joining the faculty at Bemidji State, Dr. Smiles held research and teaching appointments across North America, including at the University of Victoria, the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, and The Ohio State University. They earned a bachelor’s degree in Geography from Saint Cloud State University (2013), a master’s degree in Global Indigenous Studies from the University of Minnesota Duluth (2016), and a Ph.D. in Geography from The Ohio State University (2020), where they also completed a postdoctoral appointment as a President’s Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of History (2020–2021).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dedicated to community leadership and public scholarship, Dr. Smiles serves on the Board of Trustees for Leech Lake Tribal College, sits on the board of the University of Minnesota Extension Central Regional Sustainable Development Partnership, and serves on the editorial board of the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"bsu_hero":"","bsu_hero_on_children":false,"bsu_hero_height":"200","bsu_hero_video":"","bsu_hero_focal_point":"","bsu_hero_media":"","bsu_hero_display":"random","bsu_hero_slider_interval":5,"bsu_hide_from_navigation":false,"bsu_redirect_enabled":false,"bsu_redirect_url":"","bsu_redirect_target":false,"bsu_require_auth":false,"bsu_require_auth_usertypes":"","_bsu_seo_title":"","_bsu_seo_description":"","_bsu_robots_noindex":false,"_bsu_sitemap_priority":"","_bsu_og_title":"","_bsu_og_description":"","_bsu_og_use_hero":false,"_bsu_og_image":"","photo":1983,"websites":"[{\"name\":\"Personal Website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/deondresmiles.com\\\/\"},{\"name\":\"Lab Website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.giflab.org\\\/\"}]","facstaff-manual":0,"facstaff-created-by-cron":0,"facstaff-cron-created-on":"","facstaff-cron-unpublished-on":"","facstaff-pre":"","facstaff-fname":"Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre","facstaff-lname":"Smiles","facstaff-title":"Asst Prof of Indigenous Studies","facstaff-email":"niiyokamigaabawdeondre.smiles@bemidjistate.edu","facstaff-phone":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1502","facstaff","type-facstaff","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/facstaff\/1502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/facstaff"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/facstaff"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/facstaff\/1502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1985,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/facstaff\/1502\/revisions\/1985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}