Who We Are

Jessie Stomski is an enrolled citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

Since 2015, Jessie has served as General Counsel for the Prairie Island Indian Community. In that role, she oversees legal and government relations matters for the Tribe and its entities.

Prior to that, Jessie represented various Tribes and business clients throughout the nation in private practice. 

Jessie is the 2022 Mitchell Hamline College of Law Distinguished Alumni award recipient. In 2019, Jessie was recognized by Minnesota Lawyer Magazine as In-House Attorney of the Year. In 2015, the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development named Jessie to its 40 under 40 award-recipient list. Minnesota Super Lawyers magazine named Jessie a Minnesota “Rising Star” for several consecutive years.

Jessie currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Mitchell Hamline School of Law, and the Board of Directors for the Minnesota American Indian Bar Association. 

Jessie was a member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s women’s basketball team from 1998-2002, and she was a professional basketball player before she went to law school. The Charlotte Sting drafted Jessie into the WNBA, and she also completed seasons in France and Greece. She was inducted into the UW Badger Athletics Hall of Fame in 2020. In 2022, Jessie was a NCAA Legacy Award recipient. 

Jessie attributes her experience as an athlete and the doors it opened as the reason she went to college and law school, and why she is able to give back in her role as an attorney today. That is why Jessie is so passionate about increasing opportunities for Native athletes to experience playing sports at the collegiate and professional levels. 

As a member of the Indigenous Athletics Advancement Council and in partnership with other efforts, Jessie advocates for those increased collegiate and professional opportunities for Native athletes. She educates decision makers, administrators and coaches about the talent in Indian Country, and why there are still barriers. Jessie also contributes by coaching, mentoring, and speaking.

Dr. Alisse Ali-Joseph is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. She is a faculty member in Applied Indigenous Studies at Northern Arizona University and specializes in the importance of sports and physical activity as a vehicle for exercising sovereignty, empowerment, cultural identity, health and educational attainment for Indigenous Peoples. She also focuses on Indigenous health and wellness, with an emphasis on child and maternal health and Indigenous reproductive justice. Dr. Ali-Joseph was appointed by the President of Northern Arizona University as the Faculty Athletics Representative in Fall 2015.  In this role, Alisse works with the athletic department to ensure institutional control and maintain academic integrity with student-athletes and faculty and support the overall well-being of student-athletes. She also served on the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Minority for Opportunity and Interest Committee, and currently on the Division I Council, where she ensures the importance of minority student-athlete voice, access and opportunity. Alisse is a former Division I tennis player at UC Davis. 

Dr. Natalie Welch is originally from the Qualla Boundary (also known as the Cherokee Indian Reservation) in the mountains of Cherokee, North Carolina. She is a proud member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. She grew up with a love for sports and realized early on how it could foster a strong sense of community on the Rez. She completed her PhD at the University of Tennessee and her MBA and Master of Sport Business Management at the University of Central Florida. In 2022, she started her current role at Seattle University as an assistant professor in the marketing department in the Albers School of Business, where she teaches in the Sport and Entertainment Management MBA program. Prior to that, she spent the three years at Linfield University as the coordinator of the Sport Management program and before that, she worked at ESPN Wide World of Sports, Nike N7, and Wieden+Kennedy, an American advertising agency best known for its work for Nike. All of this experience has provided her with valuable marketing experience and she is well-versed in the producing content for advertising and documentary work. She is very passionate about storytelling and even incorporated a documentary into her dissertation. She think it's important for Natives to tell their own stories and to make their success visible to the world to counter ongoing settler colonial erasures. Her commitment to the field extends outside the university as well -- she is also the Vice President of Communications for the Seattle-based non-profit Rise Above, using sport as a modality to empower, educate, and create resiliency in Native youth.

Brent Cahwee is a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and also of Euchee descent, originally from Sapulpa, Oklahoma, he is now based in Kansas. Brent is the co-founder and editor of NDNSPORTS.COM, which has been the only online sports publication for the past 21 years dedicated to covering the stories and the successes of Native American athletes at the collegiate and professional level. Over the years, he has partnered with many organizations to foster the growth of exposure for prep athletes in Indian Country with events such as the All-Star football game, Native American Top 50 (basketball), Oklahoma Native All-State Games, and the Indigenous Bowl football game. Brent is a graduate of Haskell Indian Nations University and Missouri State University.

Dr. Nicole Been (pronounced Bean) serves as the Senior Director of Academics and Student-Athlete Success.  Been strengthens, develops, and implements Big 12 programming and initiatives related to academics, awards, and student-athlete development across a wide range of stakeholders. She is also the staff liaison to Student-Athlete Development, Athletics Academic Leads, and campus career services.  
  
Dr. Been previously served as the Associate Athletics Director of DEI at the University of Oklahoma where she was responsible for developing, managing, and implementing DEI strategies, policies, and initiatives for all Athletics staff and student-athletes. She oversaw the Athletics Diversity Council Graduate Assistantship Program, OU Athletics Graduate Assistantship Program, Athletics DEI Subcommittee, and the Athletes United Affinity Groups.  
  
Prior to OU, Been was the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Special Projects at Bacone College which included oversight of the Athletics Department, briefly serving as the Interim Athletics Director in 2020, and was on the President’s executive team.  Previously, she worked at Langston University as an Assistant Professor in Health, Physical Education, and Recreation and was the Faculty Athletics Representative, Director of Interns, SAAC Advisor, and a member of the University’s Institutional Review Board for Diversity.  
  
Dr. Been received her Ph.D. in Health, Leisure, and Human Performance from Oklahoma State University. She also holds an MSEdu in Sports Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training. She is a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and a member of Thlopthlocco Tribal Town. 

Dominic Tiger-Cortes is a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and a member of Thlopthlocco Tribal Town. He is the founder of Hoop Medicine, an initiative created to promote Native/Indigenous and Inner City Youth through the Arts, Sports, and Culture. Providing Wellness enriched educational services and programs that support our philosophy to Honor Our Only Passion (HOOP) which within creates Medicine. Tiger-Cortes played basketball at Haskell Indian Nations University.