Native intelligence: Otakuye Conroy will become the first Lakota to earn a doctorate degree in environmental engineering.

By Mary Garrigan, Journal Staff Writer | Wednesday, May 03, 2006

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No one ever told Otakuye Conroy that Lakota girls aren’t good at math.

“I never got that message,” said the 29-year-old Lakota woman and math whiz from Rapid City, who may become the first Lakota — if not the first American Indian — to earn a doctorate degree in environmental engineering when she graduates from the University of Arizona on May 6.

“I was never told that girls don’t do math,” Conroy said of the stereotype. “In fact, most of the science and math teachers I’ve ever had were females.”

Her own aptitude for numbers was apparent early in life.

“I was always better in math and science. It always made more sense than English or history did,” she said.

Conroy (whose first name is pronounced “Oh-TOCK-oo-yay” and means Many Relatives Woman in Lakota) was born on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. She and her family moved from Porcupine in time for her to start kindergarten in Rapid City.

What Conroy did not see in the classroom, even after 22 years of formal education, was an American Indian teacher.

“I’ve never had a Native American teacher — not in grade school, high school, college or graduate school,” she said. “I’ve had Native counselors, but never a teacher.”

Conroy first remembers being excited by science at Horace Mann Elementary School in Rapid City. When she progressed faster than her fifth-grade classmates, the teacher let her study independently. “Pretty soon, I was a year ahead of the rest of the class,” she said.

At Rapid City Central High School, physics teacher Mark Farrand remembers Conroy as a hard-working, self-motivated student who excelled in the classroom. Farrand had lost touch with his former student after she graduated in 1994, but he was not surprised to learn of her academic accomplishments.

“What I remember was that she really didn’t need a lot of special attention,” Farrand said. “You can typically tell by the time they’re seniors which ones are going to go on to achieve great things academically. Otak was definitely one of them.”

It was Farrand who first exposed Conroy to the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. Nationally, AISES provides opportunities for American Indian students to pursue their interests in science, technology, engineering and math, also known as the STEM disciplines.

Conroy attended an AISES convention during her junior year in high school and, for the first time, the idea of pursuing a career in science became a real possibility to the bright Lakota teen with a gift for math.

That pleases Pamala Silas, executive director of AISES, who works to open science and math fields to American Indian students.

“AISES is very pleased to hear of the success of Ms. Conroy. There are too few Native Americans that have obtained this level of achievement, and through her accomplishments, she blazes a path for others,” Silas said.

Conroy earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry from the University of Notre Dame and two master’s degrees in chemistry and engineering from UA.

Her parents, Vina and Arlo Conroy, will be in the audience when the oldest of their five children walks across the stage wearing a doctoral-degree hood.

“We’re all going,” said her mom, Vina. “Her dad, her sister and brothers, even her grandma.” Her grandmother is planning a big honoring ceremony and Lakota giveaway at her home in Porcupine later this summer to celebrate Otakuye’s graduation.

The importance of education was a message that was sent early and often in the Conroy home.

“My mom and dad always sent the message that education was important,” Otakuye said.

Both of her parents work for Indian Health Service in Rapid City and, although they have taken college courses, neither has a college degree.

They wanted more education and better job opportunities for their five children.

“We just raised all the kids that way,” Vina said. “Everyday, me and my husband told the kids that good grades mattered, that college was important.”

Otakuye’s sister, Weewashte, 24, attends nursing school and a brother, Jesse, is planning to attend a vocational-technical school. The youngest son, 12-year-old Shota, is in middle school.

Vina Conroy said her oldest daughter has always been driven to succeed.

“She has that drive in her,” she said. “She always had that drive.”

And academics weren’t her only interest. She was chosen as Miss Black Hills Nation at the Black Hills Powwow in the mid-1990s and she had a short-lived movie career that included a small role in “Dances with Wolves” and the role of Mary in “Miracle in the Wilderness.”

Joe Hiller, Ph.D., is an assistant dean at the University of Arizona and a role model of sorts for Conroy. He is of Lakota heritage and graduated from Hot Springs High School in 1970.

“Otakuye is quite a scholar,” Hiller said.

Hiller mentors Indian students such as Conroy in the Alfred P. Sloan Program, which is part of the university’s strong track record of enrolling and graduating Indian students. Approximately 600 undergraduates and 200 graduate native students attend UA, and it ranks among the top five universities in conferring doctoral degrees to American Indians.

As a Sloan scholar, Conroy is unusual in that she is Lakota, but not because she is a woman.

“Most of the graduate students I know are Navajo, perhaps because the school is in Arizona,” she said. Navajos are the largest U.S. Indian tribe.

And although engineering is still a male-dominated field, that may be changing in environmental engineering. “Half of my classmates are female,” Conroy said, “and in my doctorate program, there are more females than men.”

After four years of college and six years of graduate school, Conroy is excited to finally get to apply her academic degrees in the real world where environmental pollution and water contamination threaten the nation’s water sources.

Her doctoral research measured concentrations of human hormones, chiefly estrogen, found in Arizona ground water supplies and focused on endocrine disruption caused by wastewater effluent.

“There’s a water shortage here in Tucson, and the area will soon need to start using treated wastewater as a water resource,” she said.

But sewage contains estrogen in amounts that can be harmful to humans. Regulating and removing estrogen from water supplies are future challenges that scientists such as Conroy will face.

It is a fascinating field of research in which she could easily spend her entire career, Conroy said. “I would like to focus on water quality monitoring in some way. That would be very exciting to be a part of,” she said.

Whether that happens in an academic setting, in private industry or in tribal government, she doesn’t know yet.

“I have to decide soon,” she said of her job options. She’s applying for faculty positions at the university level, but she also considers working for the Indian Health Service as an environmental engineer or coming back to South Dakota to work with water management and water quality issues at the tribal level.

Stacy Phelps, a science educator at Oglala Lakota College, would love to see Conroy return to Pine Ridge Reservation to work on water issues.

“We operate an EPA-certified water quality lab at OLC and are very interested in offering her a position to work with our labs and to begin working as an instructor down the road,” Phelps said. “... If we can get her back, she’ll be a great role model for our students.”

Vina Conroy tells her daughter to follow her own heart.

“Me and her dad would both like her to do what she wants to do,” Vina said. “She’s worked really hard to get to this point. It’s her choice. Wherever she wants to go, whatever she chooses is fine with us.”

Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8410 or mary.garrigan@rapidcityjournal.com