Gabrielle A Tayac

Associate Professor

Public History Native American and Indigenous Studies Museum Studies Community Engaged Methodology

Dr. Gabrielle Tayac (Piscataway), is a community-engaged public historian and museum curator. She grounds her work in both living Indigenous knowledge systems and historical methods. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University. Gabi centers relationship building in research processes and exhibitions. She served as an inaugural curator, historian, and educator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, helping to transform museum practices to mutually energize Native reunification with cultural sources for research, community development, and common understanding. This work upholds tribal sovereignty and civic education. Gabi threads her research most consistently over time in the Chesapeake Bay while also drawing in decades-long experience with Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas - and the world. At Mason, she oversees the CoCreative History Space to train new generations of public historians in their pursuits to understand and interpret histories, near and far, ancient and modern. She supports students as an undergraduate advisor and advisor to the Native American and Indigenous Alliance. She is an Associate Director for Mason Legacies and a Faculty Fellow coordinating the CHSS Faculty Network.

Gabi has served on numerous advisory boards, councils, and committees, including America250, Dumbarton Oaks' Mellon Initiative on Democracy and Landscape, Historic St. Mary's Commission, the Maryland Commission on Indian Affairs, Survival International, and Amnesty International. She has consulted with the Mellon Foundation, National Geographic, and many agencies and institutes. She lectures widely, ranging in venues from the White House to kindergarten classes to motorcycle rallies. She is currently a distinguished lecuturer with the Organization of American Historians. Gabi continues to curate exhibits with the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She is rooted in the tidewater lands, caring for places especially along Nanjemoy Creek, with family, striving always to be a good relative and ancestor.

Major Exhibitions

Native New York https://americanindian.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/item?id=981

Our LIves: Contemporary Life and Identity https://americanindian.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/item?id=528

Return to a Native Place: Algonquian Peoples of the Chesapeake https://www.si.edu/exhibitions/return-native-place-algonquian-peoples-chesapeake%3Aevent-exhib-326#:~:text=Through%20photographs%2C%20maps%2C%20ceremonial%20and,1600s%20to%20the%20present%20day.

Indivisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas https://americanindian.si.edu/press/kits/indivisible

Selected Publications

Select Exhibitions

Native New York https://americanindian.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/item?id=981

Offerings to Tauxenent: Acknowledging Indigenous Place https://savingplaces.org/stories/offerings-for-tauxenent-acknowledging-indigenous-place-at-woodlawn-and-pope-leighey-house#:~:text=%E2%80%9COfferings%20for%20Tauxenent%2C%E2%80%9D%20housed,of%20the%20land%20before%20colonization.

Our LIves: Contemporary Life and Identity https://americanindian.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/item?id=528

Indivisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas https://americanindian.si.edu/press/kits/indivisibl