Smithsonian Journeys Experts

Farina King, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is the Horizon Chair of Native American Ecology and Culture and Associate Professor of Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma. She received her Ph.D. at Arizona State University in History. King specializes in twentieth-century Native American Studies, especially Indigenous experiences in boarding schools. She is the author of The Earth Memory Compass: Diné Landscapes and Education in the Twentieth Century, and co-author with Michael P. Taylor and James R. Swensen of Returning Home: Diné Creative Works from the Intermountain Indian School. She is one of the series editors for the Lyda Conley Series on Trailblazing Indigenous Futures of the University Press of Kansas, and she co-hosts the Native Circles podcast with Sarah Newcomb. She is the past President of the Southwest Oral History Association (2021-2022). Previously, between 2016 and 2022, she was Associate Professor of History and affiliated faculty of Cherokee and Indigenous Studies at Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, in the homelands of the Cherokee Nation and United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees. She also directed and founded the NSU Center for Indigenous Community Engagement.