Board of Trustees

Loren Kieve
(Cherokee)
Chair
Board of Trustees
P (505) 424-2301
Biography

Ann Marie Bledsoe Downes
(Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska)
Board of Trustees
P (505) 424-2301
Biography

Bidtah N. Becker
(Diné)
Board of Trustees
P (505) 424-2301
Biography

Princess Daazhraii Johnson
(Neets’aii Gwich’in)
Trustee
Board of Trustees
P (505) 424-2301
Biography

Beverly Wright Morris
(Aleut)
Board of Trustees
P (505) 424-2301
Biography

Andrea Akalleq Burgess
(Yup‘ik)
Trustee
Board of Trustees
P (505) 424-2301
Biography
She received her BA in government from Georgetown University.

Barbara J. Ells
Trustee
Board of Trustees
P (505) 424-2301
Biography

Lawrence Scott Roberts II
(Oneida)
Trustee
Board of Trustees
P (505) 424-2301
Biography

Brenda L. Kingery
(Chickasaw)
Board of Trustees
P (505) 424-2301
Biography
Kingery’s holds a MFA from University of Oklahoma, and has completed post graduate studies at the University of Okinawa, Japan, Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.
Kingery was appointed by the President of the United States to the Board of Trustees of IAIA in 2007, and in 2017 was named and celebrated as the Dynamic Woman of the Year by the Chickasaw Nation for her service as a role model and for her significant contributions to the Nation.

JoAnn Balzer
Member at Large
Board of Trustees
P (505) 424-2301
Biography
In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed her as a Trustee of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). In 2009 she was appointed by Governor Bill Richardson to serve as a New Mexico Arts Commissioner. She is a 2015 recipient of the Santa Fe Mayor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts and was appointed Chair of the Santa Fe Arts Commission’s Cultural Affairs Working Group to help create, Culture Connects, the City’s first-ever cultural plan.
Balzer helped open two Santa Fe Museums—the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) in 1991 and the Spanish Colonial Arts Museum in 2002. As a Trustee at IAIA, she and her husband named the Balzer Contemporary Edge Gallery on campus for students and the Balzer Alumni Gallery on campus for alumni to display their work. She is a Lensic Board member, an Honorary Director of the Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, and on the Advisory Boards of the International Folk Art Market and the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, where she co-founded Friends of Indian Art at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. She is a former board member of the Southwest Museum and the Autry National Center in Los Angeles.
She and her husband Bob sponsored the inaugural Indian Market EDGE to support SWAIA and its contemporary component, and are Founding Sponsors of the Innovation component of Santa Fe’s International Folk Art Market.
Before concentrating on the non-profit sector, JoAnn worked in advanced technology at IBM. She also taught college-level mathematics at Pepperdine University and Pennsylvania State University. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Westminster College, earning a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. She holds a Masters of Science in Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University and an Honorary Doctorate in the Sciences from Westminster College.

Charles W. Galbraith
(Navajo)
Board of Trustees
P (505) 424-2301
Biography

C. Matthew Snipp
(Oklahoma Cherokee/Choctaw)
Trustee
Board of Trustees
P (505) 424-2301
Biography
Ex Officio Members
The President of IAIA is a board member ex officio, as is the president of the IAIA Associated Student Government.

Dr. Robert Martin
(Cherokee)
President
Office of the President
P (505) 424-2301
E president@iaia.edu
Biography
Dr. Martin is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and received his Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Kansas and his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Appalachian State University.
He currently serves on the boards of American Indian Higher Education Consortium, Lensic Performing Arts Center and the Higher Learning Commission—a regional accreditor for colleges and universities. Dr. Martin was awarded the Liberty Bell Award by the Douglas County (Kansas) Bar Association, bestowed on Law Day USA to recognize individual contributions to human rights. He also was awarded an honorary doctorate from Baker University and in 2010 he received the Tribal College President of the Year Award.