Peter Thais, a 3rd year undergraduate student, placed 2nd in the undergraduate oral presentation research category at the American Indian Science and Engineering (AISES) National Conference. His presentation titled “Impacts of Dispossession on Indigenous Food Systems that Benefitted Land Grant Universities”, highlighted a novel dataset that is extending previous data from “Land Grab University” (Lee and Ahtone, 2020) to include metrics such as food productivity and production potential compared between current federally recognized Tribal land and land that founded university endowments associated with the Morrill Act of 1862.

Peter and classmate Alexander Bentley (pictured left with Cornell Alumnus Ben Oster and Dr. Charles) were also awarded Sequoyah Fellowships this year, a lifelong membership and commitment to AISES and its mission. Adding to the success at this year’s conference, the Cornell AISES Chapter won the “Pursuit of Excellence” chapter award and Christopher Casler-Goncalves (Assistant Director in Cornell Diversity Programs in Engineering) won Chapter Advisor of the Year!