I am a citizen of the MHA Nation, the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold; Hidatsa on my father's side (plus a mixture of various European peoples), and Ho-Chunk plus Prairie Band Potawatomi on my mother's side. The reason I choose use American Indian because our sovereignty and political power grow from that distinction; and the alternatives don't carry the same weight in politics or law.

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On the professional side, I hold a PhD in Communication (media studies) and work as a curriculum developer and cultural consultant for games. The bulk of my cultural consulting work has been for Wizards of the Coast on their Dungeons and Dragons IP. I also co-designed Potlatch with my fellow players on this website, and for reasons not entirely understood even by me, I’m the one who put it on Tabletop Simulator.

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My scholarly work lives at the intersection of Indigenous representation, power, and multimedia in film, video, print, and games by applying critical theory and decolonizing methodologies to ask hard questions about who gets to tell stories in popular culture and what gets told and what gets suppressed. Right now, that work includes co-authoring with my fellow NDN Players in a forthcoming chapter for an edited volume on gaming and anthropology.

When I am not doing any of that, I am developing curriculum, consulting, running and playing games. My gaming journey began with Stratego, Risk, Chess, and Avalon Hill’s Luftwaffe, then I got a copy Dungeons and Dragons Holmes Basic Set (1977) for my birthday, and everything changed. I quickly graduated to AD&D 1st Edition and spent years playing other RPGs and wargames. I even owned a copy of Magic Realm (which I still have) back when no one, including me, had any idea how to play it. In other words, I have been playing before THAC0 (and this confession does age me) was even a thing, and I have no regrets.

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If you want to talk games, research, or both, feel free to email me at suburb.ndn@gmail.com

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