Indigenous values like humility allow groups to achieve more innovation. Indigenous knowledge can revolutionize collective thinking, unleashing creativity for global solutions.
The next big thing that I’m very excited about is how all these technologies are being used (to promote tribal) sovereignty.
The trailer backs the boat into the lake, as if launching a day of fishing. But rather than poles and nets, there are PVC pipes and electronic sensors.
“The nice thing about this buoy is we can deploy it actually in the rice beds, whereas a lot of sensors, weather stations are nearby…are purposedly deployed to not be sensitive to the microclimate,” says Eric Greenlee, a computer science engineer. “We want to capture the microclimate, so we deploy right in the manoomin beds.”
The sensors are connected to a buoy and waterproof box labeled “STRONG Manoomin Collective,” a multi-partner effort tracking the status of manoomin, or wild rice in the Ojibwe language. The floating design is called makak, or container in Ojibwe.
“It’s kind of just been between us over the past year of a growing concept,” says Brandon Byrne, a fisheries biologist at Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC). “We’ve talked to the rice chiefs a bit too about what they want to see and what that would be useful to them on these sensors.”
One of the few grains indigenous to North America, manoomin is sacred to the Ojibwe. In recent decades, there has been decline in the health of manoomin growing beds, muddy lake bottoms across Ojibwe homelands. GLIFWC monitors lakes on both reservations and other lands ceded by treaties, lands on which tribes maintain food-gathering rights.
“We have about 368 lakes just on our inventory,” says GLIFWC’s Kathy Smith, whose job title is Genawendang Manoomin, or She Who Cares for the Rice. “That’s not accounting for what we do (and) aerial surveys on GLITFWC to help our rice chiefs really think about (deciding) for their relatives to go out and harvest on the land.”
Rice chiefs announce when harvest begins, typically a two-week period in September.
Meant to provide pinpoint data, the sensors measure 12 areas including water temperature and depth, air temperature, and humidity. It is relatively low-cost technology that can be purchased on-line, an empowering approach of the Ka Moamoa Lab led by Josiah Hester, PhD, at Georgia Institute of Technology.
“A lot of this project came from the (interest)…for some of this knowledge to be complimentary and shared,” says Hester, a Native Hawaiian named AISES 2021 Most Promising Scientist. “(Data to) enrich each of the Western side and the Indigenous side, (which) we can use to make decisions and push forward policy.”
While the makaks have had data-collection challenges – from a gnawing muskrat to uneven solar power – other parts of the large effort are examining historical climate patterns, satellite imagery, and lake and land use data. For more info, go to https://www.manoom.in/home.
Dr. Serra Hoagland (Laguna Pueblo) is a wildlife biologist reshaping how we understand forests, fire, environmental stewardship, and redefining what true ecological science looks like.
The first born of six Diné sons, Sky rose from small-town science fairs to a full scholarship at Drexel University, a biomedical research fellowship at Mayo Clinic, and now a PhD path in molecular pharmacology.
Seeking to become one of the first U.S. Indigenous veterinarians focused on wildlife, Tilley is part of a movement reshaping wildlife conservation.
AISES National Conference
Portland, Oregon
October 15-16, 2026
