Maria Williams University of Alaska Anchorage

Maria Williams was born in Tikahtnu – or Anchorage, Alaska and is an enrolled member of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska. She is of the Raven Moiety, and of the Deisheetaan clan. She received her M.A. and PhD in Music, specializing in Ethnomusicology from UCLA. The title of her M.A. Thesis is: Clan Identification and Social Structure in Tlingit Music (1989) and the title of her dissertation is Alaska Native Music: The Spirit of Survival (1996). She was a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in 1998 and researched surviving ceremonial music/dance in Alaska. She taught at the Institute for American Indian arts from 1993-1995, and at the University of New Mexico from 1999-2011 with a joint appointment in the department of Native American Studies and Music. She moved back to Alaska in 2011 and has been teaching at the University of Alaska Anchorage since 2011 in the departments of Alaska Native Studies and Music, where she is a full professor. Her publications include The Alaska Native Reader: History, Culture & Politics (2009); a documentary film on Athabascan Basket maker Daisy Stridzatze Demientieff (A Beautiful Journey 2009), and various articles on Alaska Native cultural revitalization. Research interests include contemporary Alaska Native music and dance practices; Alaska Native history, the impact of colonialism and cultural revitalization.