Haury's Indigenous Resilience Center (IRes) Initiative supports the creation and build-out of a new UArizona community-driven, place-based tribal research center that engages in respectful outreach to tribal communities and promotes and incorporates into its work resilience and knowledge of federally-recognized tribes in seeking solutions to extreme weather events challenges.
On September 13, 2021 President Robbins announced the creation of Indigenous Resilience Center (IRes), a trans-disciplinary Center dedicated to advancement of tribal communities' resilience goals and their responses to environmental challenges.
Located within UA Arizona Institute for Resilience (AIR), Indigenous Resilience Center (IRes) seeks to leverage existing University of Arizona strengths related to resilience challenges, to expand University of Arizona's capacity to respond to these challenges, and to be nationally and internationally respected hub for such work.
The creation of IRes was only possible with the more than one million dollars investment over three years provided by the Haury Program for faculty cluster hiring, support staff recruitment, equipment, space remodeling (IndigePOD) and general operations. Yet it also was the product of remarkable support from the President, the Provost's Office, the VP for Research, AIR, Levi Esquerra, SVP of Native American Advancement and Tribal Engagement, the home departments and Colleges of these new hires, and the University of Arizona Foundation.
We, the Haury Program, regard IRes and this coordinated recruitment and support strategy as a model of how to effect significant change in a resource-strapped environment, by combining resources and leveraging existing genuine University of Arizona strengths to expand our external impact.
Watch conversation between Dr. Robbins and Dr. Karletta Chief, IRes Director here. Dr. Chief is an expert in watershed hydrology and arid environments, and her commitment to serving others, especially Native Nations and students, exemplifies our mission as Arizona’s land-grant university and further supports the 3rd Pillar of University of Arizona's Strategic plan.