Mike Dockry is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation with traditional territories around Lake Michigan and a reservation in central Oklahoma. He was born and raised in Green Bay, WI. Mike is a nationally recognized expert in tribal forestry, tribal relations, tribal climate change planning, and building tribal partnerships. He works at the University of Minnesota as an Associate Professor for tribal natural resource management in the Department of Forest Resources, is an affiliate faculty member of the American Indian Studies Department, and an Institute on the Environment Fellow. His research and teaching focus on tribal natural resource management, planning, incorporating Indigenous knowledge into forestry, and helping state, federal, and universities form partnerships with American Indian tribes. His research supports tribal sovereignty and addresses tribal environmental issues. Mike is engaged with many professional societies including the Intertribal Timber Council, the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, the Society of American Foresters, and the American Society for Environmental History. He earned a B.S. in Forest Science from the University of Wisconsin, an M.S. in Forest Resources from Penn State University, and a Ph.D. in Forestry from the University of Wisconsin.

Mike’s research is collaborative and interdisciplinary. He brings together research teams to answer land manager’s questions in support of sustainable forest and natural resource management. His research interests include understanding social aspects of forest and natural resource management, sustainability, indigenous community forestry, strategic foresight and planning, American Indian studies, and environmental history. Mike is involved in several projects supporting sustainable forest management and climate change adaptation with American Indian communities in the Great Lakes. His dissertation research explored the environmental histories of an indigenous community in lowland Bolivia and the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin and how they have used forestry to control their territories, maintain their forests, and sustain their cultures.

Before coming to the University of Minnesota, Mike worked for the US Forest Service for two decades where he helped write national and regional tribal relations strategic plans. Mike was a research forester for the Northern Research Station of the US Forest Service in Saint Paul, MN from 2013 to 2019. As a research forester he worked to support land management planning by developing tools and methods to deal with the uncertainty and complexity of our rapidly changing social and ecological systems. From 2005 until 2013, Mike was the US Forest Service’s Liaison to the College of Menominee in Keshena, WI where he facilitated sustainable forestry research, education, and technical assistance of interest to tribal communities. Mike’s first job with the US Forest Service was as the Assistant Forest Planner for the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests where he was stationed in Hector, NY. Mike started his career as an environmental planning intern for the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bolivia. Mike enjoys camping, canoeing, speaks several languages, and has two children and a loving wife.

TSN Conference 2027

January 21st, 2027 (Thursday) // 8:45 am – 9:45 am // Big Ten Room // KEYNOTE | “Supporting Tribal Sovereignty Through Partnership and Collaborative Research”