Brittani R. Orona, (Hupa)

Dr. Brittani R. Orona is a Hupa environmental, public humanities scholar and an Assistant Professor of Native American Studies at University of California, Davis. Prior to joining Davis, she was an UC President's and Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at UC Santa Cruz and an Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at San Diego State University. 

Dr. Orona concentrates on environmental justice, abolition ecology and geography in California and the American West, broadly. Her current book project details river and water rights struggles in Northwestern California in the Klamath River Basin in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to environmental scholarship, Dr. Orona's research centers Indigenous public humanities through museum exhibition, archival studies, visual sovereignty, and cultural resources management. 

She currently serves as a 2024-2027 Council of Leadership Member for the California Indian Studies and Scholars Association (CISSA), the University of California Systemwide Repatriation Committee as a Voting Member, and the National Council on Public History (NCPH) Advisory Committee for National Park Service Projects. She previously served as Board Secretary for Save California Salmon, Board Member at Large for the California Association of Museums (CAM), and a Board Member at Large/Board Secretary for Preservation Sacramento.