Bio
Sebastian Braun became director of American Indian studies at Iowa State University in 2015; he was previously chair of the department of American Indian studies at the University of North Dakota. He has been Professor of Political Science since 2025. His research interests are focused around the intersections of culture, politics, and the environment; ethnohistory (mostly the northern plains); and contemporary issues of sovereignty. His current work deals mostly with environmental and ethnohistorical issues; the extraction of natural resources and the impacts on communities, the connection to place, the sovereignty of Native nations, and overcoming the trauma of the anthropocene. Since 2005, he has been writing the chapter on the United States for The Indigenous World, the yearly summary of developments concerning indigenous peoples by the International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA).