Rethinking Engineering: Why It Matters

During the pandemic, I was a graduate student in Stanford’s School of Engineering. At the time, I lived in a small FEMA trailer on the reservation without running water. I wasn’t far from my parents’ home, so I filled buckets and hauled water back to my house. I was also taking a class at Stanford called Water Systems for Developing Countries, and I was struggling to get through a problem set while I had COVID.

After class, I would fill a small white plastic container and do my best to bathe. My Ina would deliver food wrapped in aluminum foil — food I couldn’t taste — and coffee I couldn’t enjoy. I love coffee: the smell, the taste, the warmth it brings when I work on problem sets. At the same time, I boiled bear root tea, prayed, and burned sage. My parents coached me to be mentally strong and to focus on prayer when things were hard. I did my best.

At night, I tossed and turned on a bed of blankets on the floor, anxious about the problem set I needed to turn in — knowing it would likely be submitted late because my energy was focused on surviving. I also knew I had to continue my education, because it was one way I could offer solutions. I was determined.

Moments like that could have made me feel like a victim if I let them. Instead, they taught me what I’m made of. They strengthened my spirit.

A few years later, I was invited back to Stanford’s Environment and Energy course to give a talk on Indigenous solutions in engineering. Since then, I have traveled the world carrying a purpose-driven belief that meaningful change is possible. I have spoken on the floor of the United Nations, leveraging both my lived experience and academic training. I have published numerous articles advocating for the elevation of Indigenous voices in climate and planetary health.

STEM is a tool. And the Indigenous experience — our ways of being — is full of power, strength, and beauty. Together, they can change everything.

This blog exists to share another perspective on why we must rethink engineering. Rethinking engineering means placing an additional lens on the world’s most pressing climate and planetary challenges. It means not only acknowledging that Indigenous Science is innovation, but acting on it and investing in it like our lives depend on it. Because for those like me, it does.

These systems were never designed to be sustainable. And that is exactly why an Indigenous perspective is necessary in reshaping them.

Welcome to Rethinking Engineering on Anpoetry — stories that light change.