Beth Ginondidoy Leonard is Deg Xit’an, a member of the Shageluk Tribe of Interior Alaska, and second language learner of her heritage language, Deg Xinag. Her parents are the late James and Jean Dementi. In 2014, Beth was awarded a Fulbright US Core Scholarship and spent five months at the School of Māori Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. Beth is a member of the Alaska Native Studies Council, a board member of the Doyon Foundation, and is a 2019 Arctic Indigenous Scholar. After serving as Alaska Native Studies faculty at the University of Alaska Anchorage from 2016–2020, she accepted a professorship with Alaska Pacific University, a private institution moving towards tribal university status. Beth’s research investigates the confluences of Indigenous methodologies, knowledges, and pedagogies in shaping Indigenous spaces in higher education.
