The sun-drenched lab on the fourth floor of Susquehanna
Hall is anchored by a large wooden table that will host projects and
events from feasts and crafting workshops to a speaker series—all
centered on Indigenous knowledge. The room features colorful art, a
weaving loom, crafting supplies and bundles of tobacco, sage and
sweetgrass.

“In this lab, we’re here to use our privilege and access to
honor and serve local Indigenous communities in their struggles for
justice and to co-create futures of flourishing,” said Meissner, who is
also Cupeño. “That requires tools to build community and have
conversations.”

Though Meissner’s ancestors are from California, she was
raised in New Mexico and Arizona after her family moved to work for the
U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. She received her Ph.D. from Michigan
State in 2019 and then moved to Washington, D.C. to teach at Georgetown
University. After spending her life among Indigenous
communities—primarily Diné and Pueblo in the Southwest and Anishinaabe
in the Great Lakes, as well as her Luiseño and Cupeño family members—she
said she was surprised to find a “profound absence of Indigenous
voices” in the national capital region.

“I started thinking about how I could start lifting up the
voices of people whose land this is,” she said. “I drafted an
initiative, a strategic plan for a lab, and started talking about it to
anyone who would listen.”

[Who Owns the Sounds and Images of Native People’s Pasts?: UMD Faculty Members Work to Reunite Native People With Archival Materials]

Meissner was recruited to the university this year as part
of UMD’s FAMILE initiative, a $40 million investment to help attract
tenure-track faculty from diverse backgrounds. She will begin teaching
classes next semester in Indigenous feminisms and Indigenous aesthetics.

Neda Atanasoski, professor and chair of the Harriet Tubman
Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, said the department
was immediately drawn to the idea of creating the lab.

“It’s essential that we’re really paying attention to how
the work that we do can affect for the better not just the lives of our
students but also beyond—into the community,” Atanasoski said. “What’s
so exciting about the lab is that it can be this kind of hub for
bridging Indigenous community activism with students and faculty.
Hopefully, this is just the beginning of a more robust Indigenous
studies presence on campus.”

Indigenous research and evaluation practices often counter
Western approaches. For instance, methods like storytelling, ceremonies
or art creation are used to ground research in tribal knowledge and
worldviews. When knowledge is offered, such as from an elder, it’s
common practice for researchers to offer traditional medicines in
exchange.

Meissner was recently recognized by the National Science
Foundation (NSF) as an Ocean Decade Champion for her work with
Indigenous communities in the Great Lakes region, where she has focused
on water rights, dam removal and more. For instance, she and her team
developed novel ways to evaluate an NSF project to monitor wild rice ecosystems that takes into account the land, animals, plants and other “relatives.”

Last month, 20 students, faculty members and staff showed
up for the Indigenous Futures Lab’s first workshop in a “Bead, Weave and
Read” series. Meissner said she was heartened by the group’s openness
to learn the tradition of beadwork, and even more so their willingness
to talk—about crafting, creativity and honoring their family members and
friends through their pieces. Meissner comes from a family of basket
weavers.

“We often say that when you hold a single basket made in an
Indigenous community, you’re holding something that overheard so much
storytelling—so much knowledge,” she said. “That’s what I want to create
here.”

Other ongoing events in the lab include a “Decolonizing Death Café”
to build community around Indigenous death and grieving practices, a
faculty consortium to explore “Black and Indigenous Environmental
Futures,” and a speaker series.