Dean Michel

Motivation to pursue a graduate degree

I chose FSU because of their close relationship to the Seminole tribe and the Christian testimony of Bobby Bowden. Certainly not how one should select a university, but God brings us through his pathway in strange ways.

Importance and/or impact of research and work

My dissertation, A Watery Grave in the Desert: Termination, Survivance, and the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, examines Indigeneity, federal environmental policies, and dam building in the twentieth century. These policies created a crisis for my ancestors that ultimately resulted in detribalization and a renewed struggle to reclaim our relationship to homelands. Chemehuevi adaptation to diaspora and ecologically transformed land pushes back against models that see a unidirectional path of Indigenous eradication.

Career aspirations

God willing, I will become a professor of Native American history while completing the first history of my tribe written by a tribal member.

Advice for anyone considering graduate school

Schedule time to do the things you enjoy because this will take all your time if you let it. God will bring you through this if you let him.

Accomplishments during graduate career

I am most proud of two accomplishments: My Mellon Fellowship in the Democracy and Landscape Initiative at Dumbarton Oaks Harvard Trusteeship in Washington DC allowed me to work in an amazing place and with excellent group of scholars. Second, being the first ever Florida PhD to win the Carter Manny Writing Award that often goes to Ivy League PhDs was an amazing accomplishment. In both God blessed me tremendously.