Francine D. Spang-Willis
Affiliations
Adjunct Faculty, Roots & Branches II
Contact
fds2115@columbia.edu | (406) 580-4724
About
Francine D. Spang-Willis, a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation and of Pawnee and European settler descent, is an oral historian and scholar in Native American Studies and Oral History. As the founder and CEO of Appearing Flying Woman Consulting, she provides extensive consultation and lectures on community-based and land-based oral history and museum initiatives, in addition to assisting nonprofit organizations with development. She serves on the Oral History Association's Council, and as a Council liaison to the Diversity Committee and the Oral History and the Law Task Force, chair of the Indigenous Initiative Research Fund Committee, co-chair of the 2026 Trauma-Informed Interviewing, Reckoning & Beyond: A Virtual Symposium, and co-chair of the Indigenous Caucus.
Francine's recent affiliations include a fellowship with the Emerson Collective, and before that, a fellowship and subsequent role as an editorial supervisor for Columbia University's Obama Presidential Oral History project. She also co-founded and directed the Western Heritage Center's American Indian Tribal Histories Project.
She received an MA in Oral History from Columbia University, where her thesis, "Becoming Wild Again in America: The Restoration and Resurgence of the Pablo-Allard Bison Herd," received an exceptional distinction recognition in the 2021 Jeffrey H. Brodsky Award selection. She also holds an MA in Native American Studies from Montana State University.
Her research has been funded by the Mellon Foundation, Emerson Collective, Park County Community Foundation, Humanities Montana, and the U.S. Department of the Interior-Office of Indian Education.