MICRO-BIO

• Jessa Rae Growing Thunder comes from the Fort Peck Dakota/Nakoda tribes of Northeastern Montana. She is a third-generation traditional artist and is famously known for her beadwork and quillwork. Jessa Rae won the prestigious title of Miss Indian Wo...More

  Jessa Rae Growing Thunder comes from the Fort Peck Dakota/Nakoda tribes of Northeastern Montana. She is a third-generation traditional artist and is famously known for her beadwork and quillwork. Jessa Rae won the prestigious title of Miss Indian World 2012/2013 where she spent the year traveling North American promoting cultural presevation tactics. In 2012, Jessa Rae and her childhood friend, Lauren Chief Elk, co-founded the Save Wiyabi Project to address violence against Indigenous women. The two worked directly with community efforts and discussions of the 2013 Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). In 2018, she worked with the State Department on an arts and culture envoy program in Saudi Arabia. Jessa Rae has a B.A. in Native American and Indigenous Studies from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. She obtained her M.A. in Native American Studies in 2016 from University of California, Davis. Jessa Rae is currently pursuing her doctorate in Native American Studies from the University of California, Davis where her work examines Fort Peck Dakota/Nakoda women's creative testimonies of history. 

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EXPERIENCE

• University of California, Davis

  • Ph.D. Candidate
  • Native American Studies
  • Present

EDUCATION

• University of California, Davis

  • M.A.
  • September 2014 to April 2016

  Major: Native American Studies

• University of California, Davis

  • Doctoral
  • September 2014 to Present

  Major: Native American Studies

• Fort Lewis College

  • B.A.
  • August 2011 to December 2013

  Major: Native American and Indigenous Studies

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