Dr. Kate Beane
Dr. Kate Beane (Flandreau Santee Sioux Dakota and Muscogee Creek) holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the Executive Director of the Minnesota Museum of American Art and serves as adjunct faculty in the American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. She is chair of the board for Vision Maker Media, a national organization based out of Nebraska, chair of the board for Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi in St. Paul (Imnizaska), and in 2020 was appointed by Governor Walz to serve on the Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board (CAAPB), which oversees Capitol complex preservation and development (including public art) in downtown St. Paul. In 2018 Kate and her father Syd Beane completed a documentary film, Ohiyesa: The Soul of an Indian, which shares the story of her grandfather, writer, reformer, and physician Charles A. Eastman and in 2019 she presented a TEDxMinneapolis talk titled “The Lasting Legacy of Place Names,” which spoke to her family’s work restoring the Dakota name Bde Maka Ska in south Minneapolis (Bdeota).