An undergraduate student at the University of Washington, I am a double major in American Indian Studies and History. My primary interests are in Native American and Polynesian history and language especially as relates to treaty rights, governance, and language revitalization. I am currently studying the Hawaiian and Lushootseed languages. Born in the midwest to descendants of Norwegian immigrants, my interest in Native American history (a question I get frequently asked) comes from a desire to understand and share the truth about a part of American history and culture about which people are frequently misinformed and which still affects the lives of countless people today, indigenous and non-indigenous alike.
Otherwise, I am an avid outdoorsman with a goal to make it to every national park in my lifetime. Practically speaking, I am currently at four of fifty-nine (there are three or four others that I have been to in passing or when I was much younger, so I will be revisiting those), and I will be visiting Glacier Bay and Wrangell-St. Elias in Alaska this upcoming summer. I am also an Eagle Scout and a member of the Order of the Arrow.