Taryn M. Dixon
- taryndixon2031@u.northwestern.edu
- Field(s): United States
- Specialization: Environmental History; Political & Policy History
- Advisor(s): Doug Kiel
Biography
Taryn M. Dixon is a doctoral student specializing in Choctaw political and social changes in the post-Indian Removal period. A Mellon Cluster Fellow in Native American and Indigenous Studies, she is especially interested in studying how the Choctaw people and government acculturated their industries, ideologies, and education practices to confront assimilatory pressures in Indian Territory.
Her past work has posed questions concerning the development of the cattle industry in the Choctaw Nation at the turn of the twentieth century, as well as Choctaw and Chickasaw experiences within the boarding school phenomenon. She plans to continue her research by exploring Choctaw race-making in relation to industrial development in the late nineteenth century, as well as Choctaw Christianization.
Taryn graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2025, where she received a B.A. in History and Anthropology. As a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, she has extensive experience working for her tribal government and gaining cultural and political knowledge of her people.