Awards/Fellowships:

• Joukowsky Family Assistant Professor of American Studies, Brown University (2022)

• American Indian Youth Literature YA Honor Book Award, American Library Association (ALA) Youth Media Awards, for Notable Native People (2022)

• Civic Media Fellowship, Annenberg Innovation Lab, USC (2021-2022)

• Henry Merritt Wriston Fellowship (For Teaching Excellence), Brown University (2021-2022)

• Eva Butler Scholar Award, Tomaquoag Museum (2020)

• National Academy of Education (NAEd) Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship (2018-2019)

• Frederick Douglass 200 (2018)

• National Academy of Education (NAEd) Spencer Dissertation Fellowship (2013-2014) 

• Women’s Media Center Social Media Award- Nominee (2013)

• Kolajo Paul Afolabi Award for Educational Justice (2013)

• Christopher B. Duro Graduate Fellowship (2011)

• Harvard University Presidential Scholarship (2009-2014)

• Harvard University Native American Program Nation Building Fellowship (2011, 2012)

Bio

For the non-academic types:

Adrienne J. Keene is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, originally from southern California, and now lives on the East Coast. She writes on the Internet about representations of Native peoples in popular culture, and has been writing her blog Native Appropriations since 2010. In her academic life she researches and writes about Native students in the college process. In her free time she makes Cherokee style baskets out of contemporary materials, beads, and reads a lot of speculative fiction. 

For the academic types (feel free to shorten as needed): 

Adrienne J. Keene is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University. Her research areas include college access, transition, and persistence for American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Students, including the role of pre-college access programs in student success. Additionally, she examines representations of Native peoples in popular culture, Native cultural appropriation in fashion and design, and the ways that Indigenous peoples are using the internet, social media, and new media to challenge misrepresentations and create new and innovative spaces for art and activism.

As a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Dr. Keene has a deep personal commitment to exploring research methodologies that empower Native communities and privilege Native voices and perspectives, with the ultimate goal of increasing educational outcomes for Native students. She is also dedicated to pushing back against stereotypes and misrepresentations of Native peoples on her blog, Native Appropriations (nativeappropriations.com), which has received national and international attention as a voice on contemporary Indigenous issues. 

At Brown University, Dr. Keene teaches courses on Indigenous Education, Native representations, and Native American Studies more broadly.

She earned her BA from Stanford University in Native American Studies and Cultural Anthropology, and her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, in Culture, Communities, and Education.