Gabrielle Tayac

Gabrielle Tayac is a historian and curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. She is a member of the Piscataway Indian Nation and Tayac Territory, a state-recognized tribe in southern Maryland.

Early life and education Tayac was born in Greenwich Village, New York City. She received her BS in social work and American Indian studies from Cornell University in 1989 and her PhD in sociology from Harvard University in 1999. She is the niece of Piscataway Chief Billy Redwing Tayac. Previously, she had worked to develop a school curriculum that would present the complexity of native peoples and address contemporary issues such as intellectual property. In 2016, she participated in protests against the imprisonment of Leonard Peltier, a member of the American Indian Movement arrested in the Pine Ridge Reservation protests in the 1970s. In 2017, Tayac provided one of the opening remarks at the People's Climate March on President Trump's 100th day in office.