Mary Amanda McNeil

Mary Amanda McNeil is a Mashpee Wampanoag scholar with deep kinship ties to the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah. She is Mellon Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University and Curator and Collections Manager at the Aquinnah Cultural Center. McNeil's research, curatorial, and teaching interests sit at the intersections of Black studies; Native American and Indigenous studies; environmental studies; visual and material culture studies; and social history. Her current book project examines the relationships between settler colonialism and environmentalism in Wampanoag homelands and homewaters. With the rest of the ACC team, she is developing , "Maintaining Our Sovereignty," an exhibit that foregrounds oral history and the works of contemporary Aquinnah Wampanoag artists to tell the story of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah's fight for federal recognition and land return. McNeil was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and she lives in Boston.