Sheilah E. Nicholas

Sheilah E. Nicholas, Hopisino, is a member of the Hopiit, the Hopi People, who continue to reside on aboriginal lands in the Black Mesa region of now known Arizona.  She is a professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning and Sciocultural Studies and the American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) at the University of Arizona (UAZ), Tucson.  Along with colleagues Dr. Teresa McCarty and Dr. Michael Seltzer at UCLA and Dr. Tiffany Lee at UNM, she is the UAZ Co-PI of the Spencer funded national study, “Indigenous-Language Immersion and Native American Student Achievement” which will establish a national database of Indigenous-language immersion (ILI) programs and identify the conditions under which ILI is beneficial as an innovative education practice. This and her research focus on Indigenous/Hopi language maintenance and reclamation, the intersection of language, culture and identity, and Indigenous language teacher education have been published in Journal of Language, Identity & Education, Native Studies Review Journal, and co-edited volume (2019), A World of Indigenous Languages: Politics, Pedagogies, and Prospects for Language Reclamation, Multilingual Matters.  She is an instructor consultant for the Indigenous Language Institute (ILI), Santa Fe, NM, an organization that assists tribal communities in their language revitalization/reclamation efforts.