Dr. Elizabeth Rule is the Founder of the Guide to Indigenous Lands Project, and Assistant Professor of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies at American University. She is an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation.

Rule’s research on Indigenous issues has been featured in the Washington Post, Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, The Atlantic, Newsy, and NPR. She is also a published author, releasing scholarly articles in the American Quarterly and in the American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Rule has two forthcoming monographs. The first, Reproducing Resistance: Gendered Violence and Indigenous Nationhood, analyzes the intersection of violence against Native women, reproductive justice, and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women; this work received the Julien Mezey Award from the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities in 2020. Rule’s second monograph, Indigenous DC: Native Peoples and the Nation’s Capital (Georgetown University Press), analyzes historical and contemporary sites of Indigenous importance in Washington and compliments her Guide to Indigenous DC mobile application.

Beyond the classroom, Rule continues her work as an educator by presenting her research and delivering invited talks on Native American issues. More than 100 public speaking engagements and interviews have taken her across three continents and to seven countries. Venues for such presentations include the United Nations Association-USA, the Institut des Amériques in Paris, France, the National Congress of American Indians, the Women’s and Gender Studies Intellectual Forum at MIT, the National Gallery of Art, various United States embassies, and more.   

Previously, Dr. Rule has held posts as Director of the Center for Indigenous Politics and Policy and Faculty in Residence at George Washington University, Director of the Native American Political Leadership Program and the INSPIRE PreCollege Program, MIT Indigenous Communities Fellow, Postdoctoral Fellow at American University, and Ford Foundation Fellow. Rule received her Ph.D. and M.A. in American Studies from Brown University, and her B.A. from Yale University.