July 2021 – Graduate student
Larissa Nez – Navajo Nation
Sawmill, AZ
Scholarship: Special Higher Education Program
School: Brown University
Degree: Public Humanities
GPA: 3.78

Community Service

• Howard R. Swearer Engaged Faculty Award Committee Member, Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown University
• Student Advisory Committee Member, Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown University
• Student and Emerging Professionals Committee Member, The College Art Association
• Communications Director, Native American Alumni Board of Directors
• Member, Council for Museum Anthropology
• Member, Native Research Network, Inc.
• Member, The Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums
• Co-Founder / Team Member, Terra Incognita Media

Bio

Larissa is a Diné citizen, scholar, curator, youth advocate, activist, and writer. She is of the Mud People and born for the Mountain Cove People. Her maternal grandfather is of the Red Running Into the Water People and her paternal grandfather is of the Big Water People. She was born and raised on the Navajo Nation, in a small community in northern Arizona.

She is an alumna of the University of Notre Dame where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Sociology. She is currently a first-year Master of Arts student in Public Humanities at Brown University and is a Curatorial Fellow with the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity. Larissa also serves as the Communications Director for the Native American Alumni Board of the University of Notre Dame and is a member of the College Art Association’s Student and Emerging Professionals Committee.

Her research interests include Native modern and contemporary art, cultural heritage, historic preservation, repatriation, traditional ecological knowledge, critical theory, Diné and Indigenous studies, and public health. She is the recipient of awards from the American Indian Graduate Center, Navajo Nation, Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund, Council for Museum Anthropology, Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums, Portland Community College, and the Institute for International Education.