Faculty, staff, and students in the Department of Religious Studies deeply mourns the loss of Dr. Michelene Pesantubbee, Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Religious Studies, who passed away on July 13, 2021 at her home in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Michelene was a specialist in Native American Religious Traditions, who will be remembered as a colleague who made many important contributions to the department, and a passionate teacher and scholar who was deeply committed to her field of study, to environmentalism, and to social justice.
Michelene received her MA in Business Education from the University of Oklahoma, and an MA and a PhD in Religious Studies (1991) from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She taught for several years at the University of Colorado, Boulder, before coming to the University of Iowa in 2003. Michelene is the author of Choctaw Women in a Chaotic World: The Clash of Cultures in the Colonial Southeast, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005, and the co-editor of the recent Native Foodways (SUNY Series, Native Traces), New York: SUNY Press, 2021. She is also the author of a number of articles and book chapters.
Michelene was an inspiring presence in the department, always cheerful and friendly, with an infectious laugh. She was also a deeply caring and insightful person, whose counsel was greatly valued by colleagues and students alike. She is sorely missed by us all.