Sheila Lopez

Sheila Lopez (born ) is an American electrical engineer and LGBTQ rights advocate. She founded and serves as president of the Native American PFLAG chapter in Phoenix, Arizona.

Life Lopez was born in Winslow, Arizona to a Navajo mother from Greasewood, Arizona and a Mexican father from Winslow. Lopez has three children- Samantha, Emanuel and Matthew. She completed an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Northern Arizona University After graduation, Lopez joined HP Inc. as a manufacturing engineer. In June 2011, she was the first person in the country to open a Native American PFLAG chapter. In 2015, Lopez received a VH1 Trailblazer Honor for her LGBTQ rights activism. In 2019, she organized the first pow wow for the Phoenix Native LGBTQ and two-spirit community with aid from the Phoenix Pride Community. She won the 2019 American Indian Science and Engineering Society Blazing Fame award.

In 2020, the Native PFLAG Chapter was closed, with Lopez citing unavailable staff as reasons for its closure. Before its closure, the Native PFLAG Chapter made a donation of $14,000 to the Phoenix Indian Center to allow pow wows to continue to be held. After the tradition was picked back up again in 2023, the 2024 powwow was not only about celebrating and healing for two-spirit and queer native people, but it also highlighted the fight against anti-LGBTQ state and federal laws. One of those was the Diné Marriage Act, which banned Navajo same-sex marriages in 2005, but was under review for the first time since then in 2024.

Lopez hopes to be an influential to indigenous peoples in STEM and help encourage their growth in the field.