Troy Pretends Eagle

Troy Pretends Eagle is an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Sioux Tribe on the Lake Traverse Reservation. Eagle, who is pursuing a degree in biology at the University of Minnesota, also has family across the Great Plains region in the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Oglala Sioux Tribe. During his 2023 summer internship with NRDC, he worked with scientists and policy advocates to contribute research in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, as they prepared for the next big policy fight on the Dakota Access Pipeline’s environmental impact statement. Eagle contributed a multidisciplinary skillset to environmental justice advocacy, informed by his background in biology research (studying sparrows), as well as lived experience as a seventh-generation believer taking up the mantle from his elders. Eagle led the team’s exploration of pipeline impacts on water systems and helped explore approaches to decolonize cumulative impact models and research methods. He aims to use his career to bridge gaps between traditional knowledge systems and contemporary science in the field of biology and beyond.