Kim TallBear

Kim TallBear, author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science (2013), is Professor in the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota.

From 2015-2025, she was Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta. In addition to studying genome science disruptions to Indigenous self-definitions and the colonial ethics of genomic and other physical sciences, Dr. TallBear studies colonial disruptions to Indigenous sexualities. She also studies and promotes Indigenous scientific and cultural challenges to settler-colonial study and objectification of Indigenous populations and our social and cultural practices. Dr. TallBear is a co-founder of the Summer internship for INdigenous peoples in Genomics (SING) Canada. You can follow SING Canada's work at https://sing-canada.ca/.

TallBear has published research, policy, review, and opinion articles on a variety of issues related to science, technology, environment, sexualities, and Indigenous peoples in academic and popular journals including Wicazo Sa Review, Social Studies of Science; Science, Technology, & Human Values, Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics, Journal of Research Practice, Indian Country Today, Buzzfeed, and High Country News as well as in edited volumes published by University of Chicago Press and by Routledge. You can read Dr. TallBear's regular essays and posts on her Substack newsletter, Unsettle: Indigenous affairs, cultural politics & (de)colonization. She is also a regular panelist on the Media Indigena podcast, hosted by Rick Harp.

Kim TallBear is a citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in present-day South Dakota and is also descended from the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, where she is also eligible for citizenship.