Nicholas Courtney is a Makah Tribal Citizen and currently works for the U.S. Department of Commerce as a Team Lead for the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program as well as a Guest Lecturer at Cornell University in Washington, D.C. Before working for the federal government and teaching, Nicholas was the Director of Policy at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the oldest and largest Native non-profit serving the broad interest of Tribal Nations. Nicholas’s work contributed to more than $30 billion in direct funding for Tribal Governments in emergency COVID-19 legislation. Nicholas is encouraged and hopeful that indigenous ways of knowing and being are recognized when thinking of climate solutions and interested in examining the structures of power that continue the oppression and exclusion of minoritized populations from decision-making opportunities.
