I am Associate Professor of American Indian Studies and Anthropology and Director of the American Indian Studies Program at Iowa State University. After getting my lic.phil.I in Ethnology, History, and Philosophy from Universitaet Basel, I earned an MA in Anthropology and Folklore and a PhD in Anthropology from Indiana University. I worked in the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of North Dakota from 2004-2015, the last three years as department chair, and joined Iowa State in 2015. My main research interests lie in the intersections of ecology, economics, politics, and culture. My first fieldwork experience was working in vineyards in southern Germany; I have also worked with the Swiss East Asian Mission (SOAM); I worked as a lighting roadie, in a chemical warehouse, as a data entry and software tester for a database on toxicology and carcinogenicity of dyestuffs; and I served in the Swiss Army. My lic.phil.I thesis was on pre- and protohistorical relations between peoples in Alaska and the Yukon. For my dissertation fieldwork on tribal buffalo ranching, I worked with Pte Hca Ka on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. Since 2012, I have been working on the impacts of the Bakken oil boom on communities in North Dakota. My publications include Buffalo Inc. American Indians and Economic Development (OU Press 2008/13) and, as editor, Transforming Ethnohistories. Narrative, Meaning, and Community (OU Press 2013). I have also co-authored three textbooks on American Indian Studies and a range of other publications.