---
title: Indigenous Scholar Weaves ‘Futures of Flourishing’
date: 2023-11-20T05:30:00-05:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/indigenous-scholar-weaves-futures-of-flourishing"
section: Articles
---
# Indigenous Scholar Weaves ‘Futures of Flourishing’

*November 20, 2023* — by [Jessica Weiss ’05](/author/jessica-weiss-05)


> Newly Arrived Professor's Lab Seeks to Expand Understanding of Native Cultures, History, Practices

*Indigenous Futures Lab 11032023 SC 50773202 1920x1080 — Assistant Professor Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner, center in black, shares a laugh with some of the attendees of the first "Bead, Weave and Read" at the Indigenous Futures Lab.*

Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner grew up knowing that the language of her Native American ancestors, Luiseño, was endangered. So she was shocked when, in a linguistics class at New Mexico State University, her professor announced an assignment on Luiseño.

“I took my homework all the way to Phoenix to show my mother,” said Meissner, a new assistant professor in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. “I said, ‘Mom, look, this is our language!’”

Meissner went on to study Luiseño for six years during graduate school at Michigan State University, and eventually taught it in K-12 programs on the reservation of the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians in Southern California.

Now Meissner has founded the [Indigenous Futures Lab](https://wgss.umd.edu/ifl) at the University of Maryland, where she’s hoping to do similar “reclamation” work with local Indigenous peoples. One of the lab’s first projects, tentatively named “Piscataway Pathways,” is an effort to help Piscataway communities in their work to locate and secure access to their language and cultural resources, which are currently dispersed in archives across the region. UMD sits on the ancestral lands of the Piscataway People.


*bundle of sage, cards that say "corn, beans, squash and the patriarchy" in a woven basket*


*students gathered around a table with woven baskets and crafting materials — From left, UMD students Nelly Cooley, Eva Stavisky, Briajah Blackwell and Anika Reddy, Britney Bibeault and Xandie Iti Luskabi look for inspiration for their beaded projects at the Indigenous Futures Lab.*




**Topics:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research)


**Tags:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research), [Multicultural Community](https://today.umd.edu/topic/multicultural-community)


**Units:** [College of Arts and Humanities](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-arts-and-humanities)