Profile

Jennifer R. O'Neal is an Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon, and affiliated faculty with the History department and Robert D. Clark Honors College. Her interdisciplinary research and teaching focus on Native American, United States, and international relations history in the twentieth century to the present, with an emphasis on sovereignty, self-determination, cultural heritage, global Indigenous rights, activism, and legal issues. Her scholarship has appeared in various research journals and book chapters. She’s currently working on a book manuscript on international Native American activism in the 1970s. 

O’Neal’s work is dedicated to centering Indigenous traditional knowledge, applying decolonizing methodologies and Indigenous research methods, developing place-based education, and implementing guidelines for the ethical research of Native American communities and management of cultural heritage collections. Over the past fifteen years she has led the implementation of best practices, frameworks, and protocols for Native American archival materials in non-tribal repositories in the United States through the collective development of the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (2006). She also serves on various international and national committees and boards for various organizations, including the American Philosophical Society, the National Native American Boarding School Coalition, the Association for Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums, and the Indigenous Archive Collective. Alongside colleagues from UO Libraries and Washington State University, she recently completed a multi-year grant titled, "Mukurtu Hubs and Spokes: A Sustainable National Hub for Digital Community Archiving," that provided training and implementation of the platform to UO and Oregon tribal communities. She is currently working on research focused on developing an Indigenous Research Center at UO to bridge connections between tribal communities and faculty, staff and students engaged in research with tribal communities. She also serves as a faculty co-director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Academic Residential Community. 

Prior to joining the UO, she held previous positions at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian and the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC. She is an enrolled member of The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in Oregon.