Wunetu Tarrant

Wunetu is a doctoral student in the Linguistic program. She grew up on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation in New York. She graduated with a BFA in Art and Design, as well as minors in Education and Art History from Alfred University; in addition, she has an MA in Linguistics from the UA, where she focused on Native American Linguistics and Languages with a specialization in Indigenous Language Revitalization. From 2011 to 2016, Wunetu taught elementary and middle school children and served as Director of the Art department for the school’s summer camp. She has also taught the Shinnecock dialect of Algonquin in her home community. Her research interest is language revitalization, especially the Shinnecock dialect of Southern New England Algonquian, which is currently classified as dormant. Wunetu plans to develop a language teaching model appropriate to Shinnecock and to construct curricula and classroom ready resources for teachers and students. She enjoys learning about the local environment, Indigenous peoples, and the land. Although she misses the ocean, she has found an appreciation for the desert through Tucson’s cacti, the Desert Museum, and Tucson’s botanical gardens, museums, and art galleries.