Summer Wildbill

Summer Wildbill (she/her) is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and is deeply committed to advancing culturally relevant financial education for Indigenous communities. Her work centers on incorporating behavioral approaches to money that reflect and uphold Indigenous values. Summer is currently a junior at New York University, where she studies International Relations. As a Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar, which is a prestigious social justice program at NYU, she has spent multiple summers researching financial literacy inequities on reservations and identifying strategies to close educational gaps in order to strengthen tribal economies. Through her research, grant support, and the backing of her Tribe, Summer has been developing a financial education application focused on rebuilding healthy relationships with money while providing Indigenous youth with culturally grounded, accessible learning materials. In addition, she has collaborated with the Federal Reserve Bank to curate curriculum and has worked with the Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) on youth-centered financial education initiatives & as a Remembering Our Sisters Fellow.

Professionally, Summer has a strong interest in public service and policy-driven research. She has worked with the Research Alliance for New York City Schools on Culturally Responsive–Sustaining Education (CR-SE) and previously served with the office of U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon. Most recently, she is an intern with the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, where she continues to engage in global Indigenous policy and advocacy. Summer’s academic, professional, and lived experiences are deeply interconnected, shaping her commitment to using research and public service as tools to support Indigenous communities and contribute to long-term economic and educational equity.

About Summer’s Remembering Our Sisters Project

Healing Through Art: Indigenous Resilience combines painting, poetry and advocacy to raise awareness of the MMIW movement in urban spaces. She centered her portfolio of oil paintings around the movement to bring different perspectives and contextualize the pieces with a series of poems.