UCLA NAGPRA Committee
By 1993, the UCLA NAGPRA Committee was created to ensure the repatriation of human remains at UCLA to the proper tribes. The committee included representatives from multiple academic disciplines, faculty, staff, and students as well as members of off-campus Native American communities. The committee was charged with providing the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor recommendations on policy and procedures, decisions regarding cultural affiliation or dispositions, and overall implementation of NAGPRA.
In September 2018, California passed legislation that outlines the composition of the UC and UC campus committees. UCLA will reconstitute the NAGPRA Committee to meet the new requirements once committee members are approved by the Native American Heritage Commission.
Current Members (effective July 1, 2021)
Repatriation Project Staff
Allison Fischer-Olson, MA
Repatriation Coordinator and Curator of Native American Cultures
Allison Fischer-Olson is the Repatriation Coordinator and Curator of Native American Cultures at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. The Repatriation Coordinator is responsible for ensuring UCLA campus compliance with the UC Native American Cultural Affiliation and Repatriation Policy, including consultation with Tribes, repatriation, disposition, and tribal access to Human Remains and Cultural Items. Allison has a BA in Anthropology and an MA in American Indian Studies from UCLA. She worked previously at the Fowler Museum at UCLA as Assistant Curator of Archaeology, and was involved as a project coordinator in UCLA's Mapping Indigenous L.A. As the Head of Research for The ONWARD Project, Allison led research around a 1930's era Expedition into the Southwest US with goals of reuniting extracted ethnographic archival materials with their communities and foregrounding Native voices and knowledge in narratives around this historical event. She also spent 8 years working in the museum community in Oregon, where she served as Co-Executive Director at the Lane County History Museum and worked in collections and on NAGPRA at the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History.
Kimberly Sheets, MA, PhD Candidate
NAGPRA Program Manager and Archeological Collections Manager
Kimberly Sheets is the NAGPRA Program Manager and Archaeological Collections Manager at the Fowler at UCLA. Kimberly received her BA in Anthropology at the University of Arizona in 2017 and her MA in Anthropology at Washington State University in 2019. She is currently a PhD candidate at Washington State University. She has experience working at the Arizona State Museum and the WSU Museum of Anthropology, where she assisted in the implementation of NAGPRA and managed the Cedar Mesa Project collection housed there. Through her experience, Kimberly has become greatly interested in repatriation in museums, both domestically and internationally.
Jessica Strayer
Repatriation Assistant
Jessica Strayer is the Repatriation Assistant at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. She assists with the implementation of NAGPRA and CalNAGPRA and facilitates tribal consultation and repatriation. Jessica earned her BA with a double major in History and Archaeology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2018. She is currently pursuing an MA in Museum Studies through the University of Oklahoma. She has archaeological field, laboratory, research, and curation experience and assisted with NAGPRA cases while at UCSB. Jessica is passionate about returning ancestors and belongings to their home communities and is honored to continue this work at UCLA.
