JoRee LaFrance

Fellow, Climate Assessment for the Southwest

2020 recipient of the Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS) Environment & Society Graduate Fellows Program.

JoRee LaFrance (she/her) is a PhD student in the Department of Environmental Science. She comes from the Crow Reservation located in southeastern Montana and is Apsáalooke (Crow). Her Apsáalooke name is Iichiinmaaáatchilash – Fortunate with Horses and she comes from the Greasy Mouth clan and is a child of Ties in the Bundle clan. She uses the intersection of her background in earth sciences and Native American studies to focus on water quality issues on her reservation. JoRee’s PhD research aims to understand the contaminant behavior in the Indigenous Food, Energy, Water Security and Sovereignty (Indige-FEWSS) nexus in the Little Bighorn River watershed. More specifically, she will address the contaminant concentration-discharge relationship in the river to further determine any implications and to characterize exposure routes unique to Apsáalooke people. As a CLIMAS fellow, she plans to produce a short documentary about surface water sampling and will collaborate with artists to create the hydrologic cycle from an Apsáalooke perspective.