The Two Tribes of Florida: A Shared Environment
Participants
Lonnie Billie was raised along the Tamiami Trail, in his family’s traditional camp, before he moved to the Seminole Big Cypress Reservation. Mr. Billie was born to the Wind Clan, and is a traditional chickee builder who has built a successful business plying this multi-generational trade. Mr. Billie serves as a cultural advisor for the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Tribal Historic Preservation Office, in which role he counsels Tribal staff to ensure that the Tribal government takes culturally appropriate actions.
Juan J. Cancel serves as the Assistant Director for the Tribal Historic Preservation Office. He graduated from Hunter College – City University of New York, where he earned a B.A. in Geography. He has served in different capacities for the Seminole Tribe since he started back in 2007, including the THPO Chief Data Analyst and the THPO GIS Specialist. He has an on-going passion to work with the THPO team to carry out the mission of championing Tribal sovereignty through the preservation of Seminole cultural interests and incorporating GIS into that work. He is a recipient of both the ESRI Special Achievement in GIS award in 2009 and the National Tribal Geographic Information Support Center – Outstanding Tribal GIS Award in 2014.
Kathleen Powers Conti is an assistant professor of history at FSU. Her research spans across the Americas and the former Soviet Union, focusing on how to preserve and interpret places of “difficult heritage”—sites of trauma, contested history, or atrocities. She’s published several book chapters, including in Revisiting the Past in Museums and Historic Sites and Architectures of Slavery: Ruins & Reconstructions and is currently writing her first book project, “Tell It Like It Was”: Race, Memory, and Historic Preservation in the American South. Kathleen’s research has been supported by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Park Service, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the Association for Preservation Technology, the Society for Architectural Historians, Dumbarton Oaks, PEO International, and the Mellon Urban Initiative. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas and serves on the Academic Advisory Board for FSU’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Center.
Kevin Cunniff serves as the Chief Sustainability Officer of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, in which role he oversees the departments of the Miccosukee Environmental Protection Agency. Before his tenure with the Miccosukee, Mr. Cunniff served as Director of the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Environmental Resource Management Department, and formerly served as the Research Coordinator of the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve- a management unit of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Mr. Cunniff holds a Masters of Science in Biology from the Florida International University, and sits on the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force which brings together the federal, state, Tribal, and local agencies charged with restoring and protecting the Greater Everglades.
Jason Daniel serves as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, where he oversees the Tribe’s Historical Working Group and compliance for the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act. Before his tenure with the Tribe, Dr. Daniel served as the Senior Historian for the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM). He holds a Ph.D. in History from Florida International University, with expertise in colonial Latin America, Caribbean, and the Atlantic World. Dr. Daniel has held research fellowships and postings throughout the Atlantic region. His work for the Miccosukee Tribe builds on knowledge of the region, and he has collaborated with Tribal educators to develop appropriate curriculum for instruction at the Miccosukee Indian School.
Kristin Dowell specializes in art of Native North America with an emphasis on global Indigenous cinema and contemporary art. She is a scholar of Irish American heritage deeply committed to a research and teaching practice that amplifies the work of the Indigenous filmmakers and artists with whom she has collaborated for over 20 years. Her book Sovereign Screens: Aboriginal Media on the Canadian West Coast (2013) was the first monograph of the vibrant and dynamic Indigenous media world in Vancouver. Her research investigates the active processes through which Indigenous filmmakers and artists enact visual sovereignty through their on-screen aesthetics and off-screen production practices. She is a proud speaker of the endangered Irish language. She serves on the Academic Advisory Board for FSU’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Center.
FSU’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Center.
Michelle Diffenderfer began her career with the West Palm Beach firm, Lewis Longman Walker, 29 years ago, advancing from law clerk to president. She is the first female president and third female shareholder of the firm, and co-chairs the firm’s Native American Law Practice Group, in which capacity she represents the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Ms. Diffenderfer was born in Jamaica, before moving to the United States where she earned her Bachelors from Brown University and Juris Doctorate from University of Miami Law. She is the co-founder of Girls II Women, a nonprofit providing mentorship in underserved communities, a former chair of the Chamber of Commerce of the Palm Beaches and co-chair of the chamber’s Water Task Force, and former Chair of the ABA Native American Natural Resource Law Committee (now Indigenous Law Committee) and of the ABA Section on Energy, Environment, and Resources.
Andrew Frank is the Director of FSU's Native American and Indigenous Studies Center and the Allen Morris Professor of History. He is an ethnohistorian who specializes on the history of the Florida Seminoles and the Native South. His research has been supported by grants and fellowships from institutions that include the American Philosophical Society, American Historical Association, Newberry Library, and Huntington Library. His is the author or editor of 11 books, including Before the Pioneers: Indians, Settlers, Slaves, and the Founding of Miami (University Press of Florida, 2017) and Creeks and Southerners: Biculturalism on the Early American Frontier (University of Nebraksa Press, 2005); andThe Routledge Historical Atlas of the American South (1999), The Seminole (History and Culture of Native Americans) (2011), and Borderland Narratives: Exploring North America's Contested Spaces, 1500-1850 (2017).
Tyler McCreary is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at FSU. Primarily focusing on Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest, his research focuses on the enduring colonialism of environmental and community governance processes in Canada. He has published over forty journal articles and book chapters, as well as four books. His most recent book, Indigenous Legalities, Pipeline Viscosities: Colonial Extractivism and Wet’suwet’en Resistance, was published by University of Alberta Press in 2024. He serves on the Academic Advisory Board for FSU's Native American and Indigenous Studies Center.
Lymarie Muñiz Velazquez serves as the Chief Education Officer of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. Ms. Muñiz received her Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from Florida International University and her Masters in Educational Leadership and Administration from the American College of Education. As Chief Education Officer, Lymarie serves as the Superintendent of the Miccosukee Indian School and oversees the Recreation, Employment & Training, Daycare, Preschool, and Senior Center departments of the Tribe. Prior to her role as Chief Education Officer, Ms. Muñiz served as Vice Principal at the Centner Academy of Miami, and formerly served for a decade as the Curriculum Specialist and Program Coordinator of the Miccosukee Indian School.
Edward Randall Ornstein serves as the Deputy General Counsel for the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, formerly Special Counsel on Environmental Affairs, and as the Co-Chair of the American Bar Association’s Indigenous Law Committee. Mr. Ornstein was born to the Wind Clan and is an enrolled citizen of the Southeastern Mvskoke Nation, a state-recognized Tribe of Alabama, but grew up in the Orlando area. Edward earned his Juris Doctorate with certifications in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy and Environmental Law, Science, and Policy at the University of Arizona, where he also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Arizona Journal of Environmental Law and Policy. Mr. Ornstein is an alum of Florida State University, where he earned a Bachelors in Classics and Religion. His advocacy, publications, and lectures focus on the intersections between Tribal interests, environmental stewardship, and public policy.
Betty Osceola is a Miccosukee grandmother, environmental activist, educator, anti-fracking, and clean water advocate. Judge Osceola is the matriarch of a traditional Miccosukee village in Big Cypress National Preserve and was born to the Panther Clan. She became an airboat captain and the operator of Buffalo Tiger Airboat Tours, an enterprise originally founded by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida’s first Chairman, Buffalo Tiger, to educate visitors about the Everglades and the Miccosukee culture. She founded Walk for Mother Earth, a non-profit which leads prayer walks throughout the Greater Everglades, and now serves as a judge on the bench of the Miccosukee Tribal Court. Betty Osceola was featured in the National Geographic documentary Path of the Panther (2022), produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, and on season two of PBS Native America (2023).
Francine Osceola serves as the Director of the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Tribal Language Program. Ms. Osceola is a fluent speaker of the Elaponke (Miccosukee) language, the traditional language of the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s southernmost reservations and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, and teaches classes in the same. Ms. Osceola was born along the Tamiami Trail, before moving to the Big Cypress Reservation where she lived until her late teens, when she moved to the more urbanized Hollywood Reservation. Prior to her role in cultural affairs, she served for eight years as Community Affairs Specialist in the Office of Councilman Chris Osceola. Today, she teaches Elaponke language classes in her capacity as Manager of the Hollywood Reservation’s Community Culture Center.
Tina Marie Osceola, an enrolled member of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, serves as the Acting Executive Director of Operations for the Tribe and as Director of the Tribal Historic Preservation Office. Osceola is a graduate of Rollins College, where she earned a B.A. in Political Science, and of Nova Southeastern University, where she received a Master's in Public Administration. Osceola has served her Tribe in many capacities, including being appointed an Associate Trial Judge on the first Tribal Court. Osceola is a lifelong resident of Naples, Florida, where she lives with her family.
William “Popeye” Osceola serves as the elected Secretary of the Miccosukee Business Council, which governs the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. Secretary Osceola earned his degree in Animation at Full Sail University and taught language, culture, and digital arts at the Miccosukee Indian School before he was elected to council. A grandson of past-Chairman Billie Cypress, Secretary Osceola is the youngest elected official of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. Secretary Osceola was born to the Bird Clan and raised in the traditional villages along the Tamiami Trail before moving to Connecticut and then returning to the Miccosukee community as a teenager. Secretary Osceola’s work in office has focused on cultivating the next generation of Tribal leaders and ensuring that every Tribal citizen has the space, resources, and services that they need to thrive.
Eren Ozguven is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and Director of the Resilient Infrastructure and Disaster Response Center (RIDER) Center. Dr. Ozguven is focused on investigating the relationships among different infrastructure networks in Florida, utilizing his academic research in transportation engineering, and background in industrial engineering and optimization. His work examines the simultaneous and interdependent movements of populations—including the aging and other vulnerable groups, and the commodities and services that meet their needs. During this process, he has established long-lasting multi-disciplinary collaborations with researchers from psychology, sociology, public policy, communications, urban planning, geography, civil, electrical and industrial engineering
Christine Rizzi is an Assistant Teaching Faculty member of the history department and a specialist in the history of U.S. South, Native American history, and African American history. Her book, Permitted to Roam at Large: Mobility and the American Colonization of Florida, 1810s-1890s, is currently under contract with University Press of Florida, with an anticipated release date in 2025. The book explores how white settlers, Black people, and Native Floridians used mobility to understand and grapple with the American conquest of the Florida peninsula. Her current research focuses on mobility, canoes, and tourism in the Native South. She serves on the Academic Advisory Board for FSU’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Center.
Stacey Rutledge is a professor in the Educational Leadership/Administration and Educational Policy and Evaluation programs in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. She has a Master of Arts in Teaching social studies degree from Brown University and a Ph.D. in education from the University of Chicago. Her research focuses broadly on understanding how the work of administrators, teachers, guidance counselors, and students is nested within institutional and policy environments and how different approaches to school reform shape school practices and student outcomes. She is currently serving as a Project Investigator for the National Center for Scaling Up Effective High Schools (NCSU), a center that has as its purpose identifying the programs, policies and practices that make some urban high schools particularly effective and working with these districts to scale these practices.
David Scheidecker serves as the Senior Research Coordinator for the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Tribal Historical Preservation Office. His work before joining the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s team included archaeological field work in Texas, Ecuador, and Zimbabwe. He holds a Masters in Anthropology, with a focus in historic archaeology, from Texas Tech University. He has served the Tribal Historical Preservation Office for more than a decade, and has conducted extensive research and lectures on the history of the Tribe and of the Seminole Wars throughout that time.
Diane Smith serves as the Director of the Brighton Reservation Culture Program. She is a lifelong resident of Seminole’s Brighton Reservation, a fluent Mvskoke (Creek) Speaker, and was born to the Panther Clan. She is a founder of the Annual Smith Family Cattle Drive & Ranch Rodeo, and a proud mother of four daughters. In order to ensure her children and others in the community had the resources to learn Mvskoke (Creek), she lobbied for and became a cofounder of the reservation’s Mvskoke (Creek) immersion program, before moving into the role of culture program director.
Michele Thomas was born on the Brighton Reservation of the Seminole Tribe of Florida and studied at Indian River State College. When her son was in preschool, she lobbied for a school which could teach their traditional Mvskoke (Creek) language in an immersion setting. When the Pemayetv Emahakv Charter School was founded in collaboration with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, responsive to the advocacy of Ms. Thomas and her fellow parents, she left her role in Tribal politics and became an administrator at the newly founded school. She now serves as Administrative Assistant to the Principal and Liaison between the Tribal community and the Glades County school board. Her work at Pemayetv Emahakv has seen the Mvskoke (Creek) language and culture reenergized throughout the youngest generations on the reservation.