Margaret Hiza Redsteer

Margaret Hiza Redsteer is a Crow tribal member who earned her master’s degree in sedimentology (earth science) from Montana State University in 1993, funded by a National Science Foundation fellowship. She then completed a doctorate in geochemistry and is now an internationally known climate change scientist.  Redsteer has been a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II Report‚ probably the only MSU graduate with that distinction, and most likely the first Native American woman to serve in such a capacity.  As a geomorphologist, she has been leading community-engaged research with the Navajo Nation on the history and mechanisms that produce sand and dust storms. She has been one of the first to integrate western science with the environmental knowledge of tribal elders in conducting climate change research. Hence, she has been an inspiration and guiding light for research being conducted by the Crow environmental health steering committee, with support from both MSU and Little Big Horn College.  Redsteer is an assistant professor of conservation, restoration and earth systems sciences at the University of Washington, Bothell.

Margaret Hiza Redsteer (Crow) has the ability to integrate western science with tribal environmental knowledge, thus adding a new dimension to climate change research and the study of weather phenomena.