Stephanie Russo Carroll is associate director of the Native Nations Institute, director of the Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance and an
associate professor in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at UArizona. Carroll is Dene/Ahtna, a citizen of the village of Kluti-Kaah in
Alaska.
Kris Hanning/University of Arizona Health Sciences
Stephanie Russo Carroll, a University of Arizona expert in Indigenous data sovereignty, led development of protocols for Indigenous data collection, use and management now adopted by UNESCO, the governments of Australia and New Zealand and other entities.
Denice Ross, deputy U.S. chief technology officer for tech capacity and a UArizona alumna, has also connected with Carroll about ways to implement the CARE principles within the federal government.
When completing her doctoral dissertation on health programs run by six Native American tribes, Carroll struggled to find a single area that she could compare across tribes.
The information available described only deficits and shortcomings, a distortion she attributes to the Learn More fact that state and federal agencies, not tribes, defined what mattered and determined what data was collected.
Much of Carroll’s work now focuses on influencing institutions to follow emerging policies for Indigenous data sovereignty and governance: the rights of Indigenous Peoples to control the creation, stewardship and use of data about themselves, their lands and their cultures, often abbreviated IDSov and IDGov.
Carroll helped create the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance, which provide guidance to ensure collective benefit from research; authority seated in Indigenous communities; responsible data use, storage and access; and ethics front and center, always.