The faculty at the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy (IPLP) Program are leading scholars in their fields and have decades of experience serving Indigenous communities. Our faculty are leaders both in their academic fields and as legal advocates, producing novel and innovative legal scholarship and promoting the rights of Indigenous communities through legal advocacy. IPLP faculty instill a strong understanding of the legal foundations of federal Indian law, tribal self-determination, and the trust responsibility, informed by developing norms of contemporary international law respecting Indigenous peoples’ human rights.
IPLP Faculty
Robert A. Williams, Jr.
Regents Professor, E. Thomas Sullivan Professor of Law; Faculty Chair, Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program
Robert A. Williams, Jr. is the E. Thomas Sullivan Professor of Law at the James E. Rogers College of Law and Faculty Co-Chair of the University of Arizona Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program. Professor Williams teaches in the areas of federal Indian law, Indigenous human rights, critical race theory, comparative law, and property law. Professor Williams received his B.A. from Loyola College and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Email: lumbee@email.arizona.edu
Office Number: RH 308
Office Phone: (520) 621-5622
Rebecca Tsosie
Regents Professor, Morris K. Udall Professor of Law
Rebecca Tsosie is Regents Professor and Morris K. Udall Professor of Law at the James E. Rogers College of Law. Professor Tsosie teaches in the areas of cultural property rights, federal Indian law, property law, and environmental law and policy. Professor Tsosie received her B.A. and J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Email: rebeccatsosie@email.arizona.edu
Office Number: 221
Office Phone: (520) 621-0121
James D. Diamond
Interim Director, Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program; Professor of Practice
James D. Diamond is the Interim Director of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy (IPLP) Program and Professor of Practice at University of Arizona College of Law.
In 2021-2022 Diamond was Visiting Professor of Law at Roger Williams University School of Law where he taught Federal Indian Law, Tribal Courts, Law & Governments, Criminal Law, and Criminal Procedure. Diamond is the former Director of the IPLP Program's Tribal Justice Clinic and former law professor at the University of Arizona Law. Diamond taught the Tribal Justice Clinic, Tribal Courts/Tribal Law, and both Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure in the BA in Law Program. Diamond was a Special Prosecutor in the Pascua Yaqui Tribal Court in Arizona.
Diamond obtained a doctoral degree (SJD) in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy from the University of Arizona College of Law, a juris doctor (JD) from Brooklyn Law School and a bachelor’s degree (BA) from The State University of New York at Albany.
Email: jamesdiamond@arizona.edu
Office Number: RH 202
Heather Whiteman Runs Him
Associate Clinical Professor; Director, Tribal Justice Clinic
Heather Whiteman Runs Him joins Arizona Law from the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder Colorado, where she represented tribal clients on water rights and advised clients on claims relating to water, land, and other natural resource issues. Professor Whiteman Runs Him teaches tribal water law and policy and directs the Tribal Justice Clinic. Whiteman Runs Him received her JD from Harvard Law School, her BAFA in studio art and art history from the University of New Mexico, and her AFA in museum studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Email: whitemanrunshim@email.arizona.edu
Office Number: RH 304
Office Phone: (520) 626-9762
Melissa L. Tatum
Milton O. Riepe Professor of Law; IPLP Graduate Student Advisor
Melissa Tatum is Milton O. Riepe Professor of Law at the James E. Rogers College of Law. Professor Tatum teaches in the areas of tribal jurisdiction, tribal courts, and cultural property and sacred places. Professor Tatum received her B.A. from Trinity University and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.
Email: mtatum@email.arizona.edu
Office Number: 266
Office Phone: (520) 626-8150
Seanna Howard
Director, International Human Rights Advocacy Workshop; Associate Clinical Professor; Affiliated Faculty Human Rights Practice & Latin American Studies
Seanna Howard is Professor of Practice at the James E. Rogers College of Law. Professor Howard teaches International Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples and directs the International Human Rights Advocacy Workshop. Professor Howard received her Bachelor of Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, her LL.B. from the University of Ottawa, Ontario, and her LL.M. from the James E. Rogers College of Law.
Email: showard@email.arizona.edu
Office Number: RH 208
Office Phone: (520) 626-8223
José Francisco "Pancho" Calí Tzay
Lecturer in Law and Associate Director, IPLP Human Rights Clinical Programs
José Francisco Calí Tzay is Lecturer in Law and Associate Director of IPLP Human Rights Clinical Programs at the James E. Rogers College of Law. Professor Calí Tzay serves as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and helps direct IPLP's human rights clinical programs. Professor Calí Tzay received his Bachelor of Legal and Social Sciences from Universidad Mariano Gálvez.
Email: josefcalitzay@email.arizona.edu
Office Number: RH 215D
Office Phone: (520) 621-1373
James C. Hopkins
Associate Clinical Professor; Affiliated Professor of American Indian Studies and Latin American Studies
James Hopkins is Associate Clinical Professor at the James E. Rogers College of Law. Professor Hopkins teaches international environmental law and is clinical director of the Yaqui Human Rights Project. Profess Hopkins received his B.A. and LL.B. from the University of Toronto, and his LL.M. from Harvard Law School.
Email: hopkinsj@email.arizona.edu
Office Number: RH 209
Office Phone: (520) 621-7669
Robert A. Hershey
Professor Emeritus, Of Counsel Galanda Broadman PLLC
Robert Alan Hershey is Professor Emeritus at the James E. Rogers College of Law. Professor Hershey writes on the topic of globalization's impact on Indigenous cultures and the transformation of culture. Professor Hershey received his B.S. from the University of California, Irvine and his J.D. from the James E. Rogers College of Law.
Email: hershey@law.arizona.edu
Office Number: RH 207
Office Phone: (520) 621-5677
Pilar Thomas
Part-time Professor of Practice, Partner Quarles & Brady LLP
Pilar Thomas is a Part-time Professor of Practice and Of Counsel at Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie. Professor Thomas teaches Indian Energy Law and has extensive practice experience on Indian law, tribal renewable energy project development and finance, tribal economic development, and Indian gaming.
Email: pilar.thomas@quarles.com
Office Phone: (520) 256-6628
Akilah Kinnison
Part-time Professor of Practice
Akilah Kinnison is a Part-time Professor of Practice. She teaches Critical Race Theory. Professor Kinnison's research interests include the application of international human rights law to federal Indian law issues in the United States, including access to health care and repatriation of tangible cultural heritage. Professor Kinnison is an attorney at Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker, LLP, a national law firm representing tribal governments and national tribal organizations. Her practice areas include government relations, natural and cultural resource protection, health care and education, and tribal gaming. She holds an LL.M. and a J.D. from the University of Arizona and a B.A. from Davidson College.
Email: AKinnison@hobbsstraus.com
Francisco (Frank) Olea
Phoenix Region Director, National Indian Gaming Commission; Professor of Practice
Francisco Olea is an enrolled member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe from the Pascua Pueblo reservation in Tucson, AZ, and serves as the Phoenix Region Director at the National Indian Gaming Commission. Olea has worked in the gaming industry since 2001, holding various supervisory and management positions with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and the Tohono O’odham Nation in both the Tribal Gaming Office and Gaming Operations.
Olea received his Bachelor of Arts from The University of Arizona, and his Juris Doctor from the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law. Olea holds several gaming industry accreditations and certifications from the University of Nevada – Las Vegas (UNLV) International Gaming Institute, San Diego State University’s Sycuan Institute of Tribal Gaming, and the National Indian Gaming Association. Olea has also recently obtained his LL.M. in Tribal Policy, Law and Government with an emphasis on Indian Gaming from Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.
NNI Affiliated Faculty
Miriam Jorgensen
Research Director, Native Nations Institute; IPLP Affiliated Faculty
Miriam is Research Director for the Native Nations Institute at the University of Arizona and for its sister program, the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. Her areas of specialty are Indigenous governance and economic development, with a particular focus on the ways communities’ governance arrangements and socio-cultural characteristics affect development.
Email: mjorgens@u.arizona.edu
Office Number: 803 E. First St.
Office Phone: (520) 626-0664
Stephen Cornell
Professor of Sociology, Faculty Chair of the Native Nations Institute and former director of the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, University of Arizona; IPLP Affiliated Faculty
A political and cultural sociologist, Cornell did his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. He taught at Harvard University for nine years before moving to the University of California, San Diego, in 1989 and then to the University of Arizona in 1998. In the late 1980s, at Harvard, Cornell and economist Joseph P. Kalt founded the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development; they continue to direct that project today.
Email: scornell@email.arizona.edu
Office Number: 803 E. First St.
Office Phone: (520) 626-4393
Tory Fodder
Indigenous Governance Program Manager; Part-time Professor of Practice
Tory Fodder is the Manager of the Indigenous Governance Program and a Part-time Professor of Practice. Dr. Fodder is an emerging scholar in the field of Indigenous law with research interests in international Indigenous human rights and policy, critical race theory, Indigenous libertarianism, and Indigenous governance best practices.
Email: taf05@email.arizona.edu
Office Number: RH 303
Office Phone: (520) 626-0236
Joseph Kalt
Ford Foundation Professor (Emeritus), International Political Economy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Faculty Associate, Native Nations Institute; IPLP Affiliated Faculty
Joseph P. Kalt is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He also serves as faculty chair of Harvard's Native American Program and co-director of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. He has represented various tribes in the negotiation of contracts, the rewriting of tribal constitutions, the reform of tribal governments, the mediation of disputes, the design of tribal enterprises, and the securing of compensation for treaty violations and land confiscation.
Email: joe_kalt@hks.harvard.edu
Office Phone: (617) 495-4966