David Lowry

David Shane Lowry is an anthropologist and member (citizen) of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. He grew up in the Lumbee community in Robeson County, North Carolina. In 2022-2023, he was Visiting Senior Fellow in the School of Social Policy at Brandeis University. In 2021-22, he was Distinguished Fellow in Native American Studies at MIT. In this role, David led a new conversation at MIT about the responsibilities of MIT (and science/technology education, more generally) in the theft of American Indian land and the dismantling of American Indian health and community.

Since 2013, David has lectured across the United States – roles in which he has become well versed in conversations at the intersection of Native America, race, and science/health. His first book, titled Lumbee Pipelines: American Indian movement in the residue of settler colonialism (under contract with University of Nebraska Press), explores American Indian utilization of colonial conditions to create opportunities that are both uplifting and oppressive. He is beginning a second book with MIT Press titled Indigenous MIT: why we must save science and technology from American genocide.

David is a graduate of MIT (SB) and UNC-Chapel Hill (MA and PhD). His graduate work was funded by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF-GRF). At University of Southern Maine, David is leading IRL (Indigenous Relationships Lab) as a place for and commitment to justice and re-mattering of American Indian and other Indigenous peoples from Maine, to Massachusetts, to North Carolina. David writes and hosts conversations on InTrust: https://indigenouspeoplestrust.org