Faculty Profiles

Yoli Ngandali is a member of the Ngbaka Tribe from the DR Congo. She is a Ronald E. McNair Fellow and a Ph.D. Candidate in Archaeology at the University of Washington (UW). She obtained a B.S. in Archaeological Studies from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (2014) and an M.A. in Archaeology from UW (2017). Her research, supported by the Social Science Research Council and the Wenner-Gren’s Engaged Research Grant, in partnership with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde’s Cultural Resources Department, focuses on developing digital and community-based approaches to Indigenous art revitalization within museum settings specifically highlighting the long-standing carving traditions from the Lower Columbia River. Her teaching and research interests span Indigenous archaeology, museum studies, digital curation, conservation science, re-analysis of legacy data, Black and Indigenous futurity, multi-spectral imaging, geophysical survey, Pacific Northwest archaeology, and African archaeology. Additionally, she was a co-host of Our Past is Our Future (2022) SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human Season 4 (2022) which explored stories of Black and Indigenous scholars in archaeology, produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation.