Krystal Tsosie

An outspoken leader on issues including equity in genetics and genomics research and Indigenous data sovereignty, Krystal Tsosie recently became the first Indigenous human geneticist at Arizona State University. In 2023, she received a $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to design ethical approaches to data collection and analysis as part of the institute’s broader Tribal Data Repository initiative, established to improve community health in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Tsosie, a member of the Diné/Navajo Nation who also co-founded the Indigenous-led Native BioData Consortium, said in a 2023 interview: “I entered the field of human genetics to ensure that, if genetics is going to be pursued with Indigenous people, that it benefits Indigenous peoples first and foremost.”