Vanessa Anthony-Stevens holds a PhD in Language, Reading and Culture from the University of Arizona. She is an Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Studies in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Idaho. She the Principal Investigator of Indigenous Knowledge for Effective Education Program (IKEEP), a program to prepare and nurture Indigenous educators to lead in K-12 schools and tribal education. She served as the founding director of IKEEP from 2016-2021. Vanessa’s research is grounded in Critical Indigenous Research Methodologies (CIRM) and collaborative, action-oriented ethnographic methods. She explores intersections of identity, language, place, and coloniality in contexts of K-12 and higher education. She specializes in Indigenous educational sovereignty and tribal nation building in the Americas. Vanessa’s work has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the Spencer Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. She has published in journals such as the Journal of American Indian Education, Cultural Studies of Science Education, The Rural Educator, and the Journal of Teacher Education. She was awarded the Dr. Arthur Maxwell Taylor Excellence in Diversity Award for faculty in 2022.

Prior to joining the University of Idaho, Anthony-Stevens worked in youth education as an Americorps volunteer (Jacksonville, Florida, and Baltimore, Maryland, 1999-2001) and a Peace Corps volunteer (Paraguay, 2002-04). She worked alongside Indigenous communities and schools in Arizona teaching upper elementary and middle school grades (2004-10). While at the University of Arizona, she served as coordinator and co-Principal investigator of a professional development program for Indigenous elementary educators from diverse regions of Mexico (2010-14).

She is married to Dr. Philip J. Stevens and is the mother to two daughters who are proud members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. Her family participates in many practices central to Apache culture. She is an avid sports fan and enjoys many team sports. She has been a member of intramural and collegiate sports teams at the University of Arizona and Marquette University. She is fluent in English and Spanish, has intermediate proficiency in Guarani, and emergent ability in Western Apache.

• Principal Investigator (with co-PI Y. Bisbee). Indigenous Knowledge for Effective Education Program (IKEEP). Funded by the U.S. Department of Education. 2018-2023. Award Notification #S299B180040. $998,704.
• Co-Principal Investigator (with PI R. Pilgeram, co-PI R. Meeuf and co-PI P. Stevens). Cross-Cultural Digital Story Telling. Faculty summer grants, College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences and College of Education Collaborative Grant Projects. 2017. $5,000
• Principal Investigator (with co-PI Y. Bisbee). Indigenous Knowledge for Effective Education Program (IKEEP). Funded by the U.S. Department of Education. 2016-2020. Award Notification #S299B160015. $1,206,049.
• Education Consultant, Coeur d’ Alene Tribal Department of Education, Plummer, ID. 2016-present.
• Education Consultant, Office of Indian Education, Idaho State Board of Education, 2016-present.

• Faculty Fellow. 2019-2020. Understanding Tribal Sovereignty in Education. Think Open Fellowship. University of Idaho Library, Open Education Resources. Moscow, ID. 2019-2020. $1,750.
• Co-Principal Investigator (with PI P. Stevens and co-PI D. Hedden-Nicely). Higher Education and Tribal Nation Building. Funded by the Spencer Foundation. 2019-2020. Award Notification #202000024. $75,153.
• Faculty sponsor for undergraduate research dissemination. Office of Undergraduate Research Student Travel Awards, 2017 and 2018. $2,000.
• Principal Investigator. Developing intercultural competencies among pre-service teachers through meaningful collaborations with difference and diversity. College of Education Faculty Funding Award. University of Idaho. 2015-2016. $8,000.
• Co-principal Investigator (with PI S. Casanova and co-PI B. O’Connor). Ecologies of cultural and linguistic adaptation for Indigenous Latina/o im/migrant families with children: Implications for development and learning. Arizona State University, School of Transborder Studies. 2014-2016. $7,500.
• Principal Investigator. Impact Assessment of Critical Professional Development for Indigenous K-8 Educators. University of Arizona Office of the Senior Vice President for Research. 2014-2015. $9,267.

• Mahfouz, J., & Anthony-Stevens, V. (2020). Why trouble SEL? The need for cultural relevance in SEL, Bank Street College of Education Occasional Papers Series, 43(6).
• Anthony-Stevens, V., & Matsaw, S. (2020). The possibilities of Indigenous and decolonizing methodologies in the preparation of interdisciplinary science researchers. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 15, 595-611. doi:10.1007/s11422-019-09942-x
• Anthony-Stevens, V. & Langford, S. (2020). “What do you need a course like that for?!”: Conceptualizing diverse ruralities in rural teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 71(3), 332-344. doi.org/10.1177/0022487119861582.
• Chew, K., Anthony-Stevens, V., LeClaire-Diaz, A., Nicholas, S., Sobotta, A., & Stevens, P. (2019). Enacting Hope through Narratives of Indigenous Language and Culture Reclamation. Transmotion (Special issue “Native American Narratives in a Global Context”), 5(1).
• Anthony-Stevens, V., & Griño, P. (2018). Transborder Indigenous Education: Survivance and Border Thinking in the Professional Development and Practice of Maestros Indígenas. Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, (Invited Special Issue “Linguistic Hegemony and Counterhegemonic Discourse in the Borderlands”), 12(2), 92-120.
• Chew, K. A. B. & Anthony-Stevens, V. (2017). Teaching from a Place of Hope in Indigenous Education. Anthropology News, 58: e265–e269. doi:10.1111/AN.383
• Anthony-Stevens, V. (2017). Cultivating alliances: Reflections on the role of non-Indigenous collaborators in Indigenous educational sovereignty. Journal of American Indian Education, 56(1), 81-104.
• Anthony-Stevens, V. (2017). Indigenous parents navigating school choice in constrained landscapes. Diaspora, Indigenous & Minority Education: Studies of Migration, Integration, Equity and Cultural Survival, 11(2), 92-105.
• Anthony-Stevens, V. (2017). When high-stakes accountability measures impact promising practices: An Indigenous-serving Charter School. In G. Q. Conchas, M. Gottfried, B. M. Hinga & L. Oseguera (Eds), Policy goes to school: Case studies on the possibilities and limitations of educational innovations (pp. 69-82). New York, NY: Routledge.
• Anthony-Stevens, V. & Stevens, P. (2017). “A place for you to be who you are”: An ethnographic account of reterritorializing Indigenous identities. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education (Special Issue: Rural Education: Social and Cultural Perspectives), 38(3), 328-341.
• Anthony-Stevens, V., Stevens, P. & Nicholas, S. (2017). Raiding and alliances: Indigenous educational sovereignty as social justice. Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis, 1(6).
• Casanova, S., O’Connor, B, & Anthony-Stevens, V. (2016). Ecologies of adaptation for Mexican Indigenous im/migrant children and families in the U.S.: Implications for Latino studies. Latino Studies, 14(2), 192-213.
• McEvoy, T., Anthony-Stevens, V., & Pérez, V. (2016). Becoming intercultural educators. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 7(1).