Janne Underriner, PhD, is a Research Associate Professor with NILI where she served as Director from 2005-2021. She co-founded NILI with Tribes of the Pacific Northwest in 1997-98 in response to their language teacher training requests. A trained linguist and language teacher, one of her roles at NILI is to mentor Native American (NA) language teachers in developing Native language curriculum, assessment, and materials. Together with NILI and the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community (CTGR) Dr. Underriner developed and taught Chinuk Wawa language at Lane Community College (2006-2018). With the Oregon Tribes and the Department of Indian Education (OIE), Dr. Underriner has developed NA language education policy. Dr. Underriner’s research interests include the relationship between language, culture and health; collaborative research models that strengthen Tribal communities and academic institutions; and the relationship of pragmatics, word order and intonation. She serves as PI on numerous federal grants since 2004 focusing on NA language and culture as protective factors to risky behaviors in Native youth. She currently leads a study to investigate disparate Native student discipline infractions in Oregon public schools. This project requires collaboration with various Tribal Nations and educational systems and is sponsored by OIE.