Dr. Daniel Wildcat
Daniel R. Wildcat is a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma. He is director of the Haskell Environmental Research Studies (HERS) Center and member of the Indigenous & American Indian Studies Program at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. In 2013 he was the Gordon Russell visiting professor of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College. He has served as adjunct faculty for the Bloch School - UMKC for the past decade. Dr. Wildcat received B.A. and M.A. degrees in sociology from the University of Kansas and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Dr. Wildcat has been an invited speaker on American Indian worldviews at Goddard Space Flight Center, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Harvard Medical School, Dartmouth College, University of Kansas Medical School, Kansas State University, University of California (Riverside) and many other institutions of higher education. Dr. Wildcat frequently speaks to community groups and organizations on the issue of cultural diversity. In 1992 Dr. Wildcat was honored with the Heart Peace Award by the Kansas City organization The Future Is Now for his efforts to promote world peace and cultural diversity.
In 1994 he formed a partnership with the Hazardous Substance Research Center at Kansas State University to create the Haskell Environmental Research Studies (HERS) Center as a non-profit Native American research center to facilitate: 1) technology transfer to tribal governments and communities, 2) transfer of accurate environmental information to tribes, and 3) research opportunities to tribal college and university faculty and students.
In 1996 Dr. Wildcat helped plan and organize an American Indian educational program to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Earth Day where he moderated a live nationally broadcast dialogue between traditional American Indian Elders and American Indian scientists and engineers about the way we must live if we are to ensure a healthy planet for our children. He helped plan and design a four-part video series entitled All Things Are Connected: The Circle of Life (1997).
Dr. Wildcat’s recent activities have revolved around forming the American Indian and Alaska Native Climate Change Working Group, now known as the Indigenous Peoples’ Climate Change Working Group. In 2008 he helped organize the Planning for Seven Generations climate change conference sponsored by the NationalCenter for Atmospheric Research. Dr. Wildcat also co-chaired with Winona La Duke the national Native Peoples-Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop at the Mystic Lake Hotel & Casino, November 18-21, 2009.
He is the author and editor of several books: Power and Place: Indian Education In America, with Vine Deloria, Jr.; Destroying Dogma: Vine Deloria’s Legacy on Intellectual America, with Steve Pavlik. His most recent book, Red Alert: Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge, suggests current global climate change issues will require the exercise of indigenous ingenuity - indigenuity - and wisdom if humankind is reduce the ecological damage well underway.