I am involved in public history conversations addressing local and national memories and storytelling, including the ways in which designated "green” or “park” spaces account for human histories.

In September 2019 National Park Service (NPS) officials, Union Pacific Railroad employees, representatives from Tribal Nations, and scholars met for a wide-ranging conversation about the historic and contemporary impact of trains on Indigenous peoples. “Railroads in Native America” was a counter-commemoration held on the 150th anniversary of the completion of North America’s first transcontinental railroad. I received the 2020 Western History Associations Louise Pubols Public History Prize for this work.

As a founding member of the Program Committee, I helped organize the event, including a second one that took place in May 2022 near the Golden Spike National Historic Park in Utah. See a write up of this gathering in High Country News. The Utah gathering will produce curriculums and open-access bibliographies for use by higher ed institutions, including tribal colleges. Local partners include the Office of Utah Tribal Leaders, representatives from the Northwestern Band of Shoshone Nation and Navajo Nation, the Utah Department of Heritage and Arts, and the National Park Service.

In 2016 and 2017 I collaborated with the Center of the American West, CU Boulder scholars, Tribal Nations, and NPS officials on a project aimed building partnerships with Indigenous communities whose homelands include Rocky Mountain National Park. You can learn more about the project here and here.