Valerie L. Lambert is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the president of the Association of Indigenous Anthropologists (a section of the American Anthropological Association). She is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation and is also of documented Chickasaw ancestry. Her first book, Choctaw Nation: A Story of American Indian Resurgence, is a story of tribal nation building in the modern era. It is the winner of the North American Indian Prose Award and was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award.