Indigenous values like humility allow groups to achieve more innovation. Indigenous knowledge can revolutionize collective thinking, unleashing creativity for global solutions.
I just want to be a good ancestor to my people…I am working on this MRI scanner because I know that it's going to benefit my people someday.
Angela Teeple loves a challenge. When it was time to learn nuclear systems theory, her undergraduate classmates ran the other way.
“I kind of went the other direction and I said I’m really interested in it – how nuclear codes work,” she says.
The codes track many sub-atomic particle types over broad ranges of energies. For nuclear science, Teeple brings curiosity, a love of math, and determination to solve a problem.
“She is brilliant,” says doctoral advisor Michael Garwood, PhD. “But also she has a mind that wants to dig deep and understand things…like not all students do.”
Dr. Garwood’s style was a big attraction for Teeple to pursue a PhD at the medical school of the University of Minnesota, where she can take classes in the Ojibwe language of her Bay Mills tribal community. Besides directing leading-edge design of mobile MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) at the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, Dr. Garwood encourages Teeple’s Ojibwe practices.
“I knew that I was going to be accepted (for who I am),” says Teeple. “I just want to be a good ancestor to my people…I am working on this MRI scanner because I know that it’s going to benefit my people someday.”
Early in her career, Teeple didn’t always feel support. She recalls supervisors being dismissive and failing to provide opportunities they offered male co-workers. Teeple became an Air Force civilian scientist, winning a prestigious SMART scholarship reserved for the military’s “top technical talent.” Now, her mobile MRI research is in line potentially to earn two patents for innovation.
“There’s a lot of people that are afraid of being wrong,” says Parker Jenkins, a biomedical engineer working on the MRI. “I think she’s willing to take chances and take risks because it’s science….(She) challenges our thoughts and our beliefs.”
Typically, MRI uses a full-body scanner based on a large, cylindrical magnet. With a uniform magnetic field, combined with radio waves, the machine manipulates hydrogen atoms within water molecules that make up most bodily tissue and organs. Electromagnetic pulses and physics-based analysis produce a medical image clearer than X-ray or CT scan.
The mobile MRI would shrink the 9000-pound cylinder to a 900-pound helmet lowered over a patient’s head, to assess brain functioning. This smaller dome would be portable, expanding MRI’s reach to underserved rural areas including Indian reservations. The design challenge involves recreating a typical uniform magnetic field’s sub-atomic imaging capabilities in a non-uniform field made up of 30 different magnetic coils.
A bonus, says Teeple, is that the dome includes a small window for patients, reducing claustrophobic discomfort common in full-body scanners. Teeple’s mom, Melody, has experienced such discomfort, making a daughter’s research even more personal.
“Portable MRI is going to start out in a research area first…” says Teeple, named AISES Most Promising Scientist in 2022. “That means Native American communities can start doing…their own neurological research. We’re completely capable people that can do our own research….That’s why I’m part of (AISES)….We’re some of the original scientists in the world.”
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AISES National Conference
Portland, Oregon
October 15-16, 2026
