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AI and Tribal Issues - OU Tulsa - Spring 2025

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PANEL DISCUSSION

AI, DATA SOVEREIGNTY, AND TRIBAL ISSUES

March 5, 2025

Wednesday

12:00 pm - 1:15 pm

Central Time

Deco Room

Administrative Building
OU Tulsa Campus

Streaming Online via Zoom

Link Available Upon Registration

  OVERVIEW

Join the Native Nations Center, in collaboration with Associate Vice President of Tribal Relations and the Center for Faculty Excellence, for a continuation of the Ethical Tribal Engagement Series. This event features a panel of experts consisting of Chief Benjamin J. Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe, discussing tribal governance and data sovereignty; Matt Beattie, Dean of Engineering, providing an AI 101 overview; and Alex Pearl, Chickasaw Nation citizen and OU Law professor, examining legal and policy implications for tribal sovereignty and decision-making. Panelists will foster discussions on the prospects and challenges of AI in tribal contexts, including issues of privacy, ethics, and responsible adoption.

  FEATURED PANELISTS

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BENJAMIN J BARNES (SHAWNEE)

Chief of the Shawnee Tribe

Chief Benjamin Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe was elected to his position in 2019. Prior to that, he served the Shawnee Tribe as Second Chief for seven years and was a leader in the tribal gaming industry for 20 years. The roots of Chief Barnes’ service go back to his volunteer efforts to revive the Shawnee language. Upon taking office with only a few fluent Shawnee speakers remaining, Barnes declared 2021-2030 the Decade of the Shawnee Language.

Barnes previously founded an interdisciplinary research group called the Ancestral Pottery Traditions of the Shawnee Project, an initiative to reclaim traditional Shawnee ceramic practices. He has worked closely with tribal scholars, artisans, archaeologists, and historians to learn more about ancient ceramic technologies. From this knowledge, he and other tribal citizens have worked toward reviving and recreating their ancestral arts.

Chief Barnes passionately advocates for truth, accountability, reconciliation, justice, education, and human rights. His work, however, extends beyond service to his nation, bringing together truths and traditions in framing and crafting tribal policy and law. Most recently, Barnes co-edited the book Replanting Cultures: Community-Engaged Scholarship in Indian Country.

Being a member of his people’s traditional religious community at White Oak, OK, has framed Chief Barnes’ efforts to find redress to the harm traditional communities suffered from Indian boarding schools and reeducation centers. Looking through this lens has shaped Chief Barnes’ and the Shawnee Tribe’s efforts to find legislative activism at local, state and national levels, as well as a voice for Indigenous peoples at the United Nations.

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ALEXANDER PEARL (CHICKASAW)

Professor of Law - University of Oklahoma

Professor Alex Pearl is an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and a Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma. Professor Pearl is a nationally recognized scholar in the field of Federal Indian Law. His academic scholarship focuses on the fields of Federal Indian Law, water rights, Constitutional Law, and statutory interpretation. Professor Pearl’s scholarship is forthcoming or has been published at journals from Yale University, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, UCLA and many other legal publications. Professor Pearl’s work was cited by Justice Gorsuch in his concurring opinion in the Supreme Court’s decision in Haaland v. Brackeen. In addition to his scholarly work, Professor Pearl serves as an Associate Justice on the Cheyenne and Arapaho Nations Supreme Court.  

Professor Pearl obtained his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley—School of Law. While at Berkeley Law, he was a research assistant for the late esteemed scholar of federal Indian law, Professor Philip Frickey. After graduation, Professor Pearl clerked for the Honorable William J. Holloway Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and then worked as an associate at Kilpatrick Townsend in Washington, D.C. where he exclusively represented Indian tribes and individual Indians including the plaintiff class in the historic Cobell litigation. 

Professor Pearl joined the faculty at the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 2020. At OU he is affiliate faculty in the Department of Native American Studies as well as with the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center. For the previous six years, he was a member of the faculty at Texas Tech University School of Law, where he was the Director of the Center for Water Law and Policy and affiliate faculty with the Texas Tech Climate Science Center.  

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DR. MATTHEW BEATTIE

Adjunct Professor of Applied Artificial Intelligence - OU Polytechnic Institute

Dr. Matthew Beattie teaches at the University of Oklahoma Gallogly College of Engineering and at the OU Polytechnic Institute. He received his PhD in Engineering from OU and his research has focused on the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to social challenges. He also works in industry running a Data Science organization and has had executive roles in sales, product management, and operations in the telecommunication industry.  Dr. Beattie is a U.S. Army veteran who left the service in 2002 as a Major following his activation for Operation Enduring Freedom.

  VENUE & PARKING

We are thrilled to welcome you to our upcoming event, and we want to ensure that your experience is as smooth and enjoyable as possible. To help you navigate the venue and parking arrangements, we have compiled important information for your convenience.

Event Venue: This event will be hosted in the Deco Room which is located on the OU Tulsa Campus, on the southeast corner of the Administration Building. 

Directions to the Deco Room: Take the south entrance into the Administration Building and it is the 1st room on the right / If you enter by the buffalo statue, make a left and it is the last room on the left

Address:
4502 E 41st Street
Tulsa, OK 74135

Parking Information: Parking is available on the east and west side of the Administration Building.

  POST-EVENT SURVEY

We sincerely appreciate your participation in this event. Your insights are crucial in helping us refine and improve our future events. We kindly request you to take a few moments to share your feedback through our post-event survey. Your thoughtful responses will contribute significantly to our ongoing efforts to enhance an overall experience.

*Available at the conclusion of the event on March 5, 2025