A Home for Native Policy

Founded in 2023, the Native Policy Lab (NPL) is a research lab aimed at strengthening data-driven and evidence-based public policy in Indian Country. In addition to projects done in collaboration with Native American Tribes, the NPL works to synthesize existing data sources and informational repositories for use by Tribes.

NPL Leadership

A photo of Professor Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz leaning on a couch

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz

Director

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz is an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. She is a writer and policy practitioner.

Professor Schuettpelz currently serves as an Associate Professor of Practice in the School of Planning and Public Affairs (SPPA) at the University of Iowa. She is also the Director of Undergraduate Studies for SPPA. Her policy areas of expertise include Tribal policy, homelessness, and affordable housing. She is the recipient of a 2025 Mellon Foundation grant to support her work as the Director of the Native Policy Lab.

Prior to joining the faculty at Iowa, Professor Schuettpelz was a policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, focusing especially on homelessness and Tribal policy. Prior to that, she was a Fulbright Scholar in Copenhagen, Denmark. She holds a Master in Public Policy degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, as well as an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Professor Schuettpelz's first book, The Indian Card: Who Gets to Be Native in America was the recipient of the Whiting Nonfiction Grant. Her second book, Trust: How Native Land Was Stolen and How We Get It Back is forthcoming from Flatiron Books. She is represented by Ayesha Pande.

NPL Team

A headshot photo of a woman wearing a blue shirt standing in front of a background of green leaves.
Pinned content, custom sorted.

LilliAnna Scott

Title/Position
Project Coordinator
Photo of Serenity Delgado, Graduate Research Assistant

Serenity Delgado

Title/Position
Graduate Student Researcher
Sophie Shuckahosee

Sophie Shuckahosee

Title/Position
Student Researcher
An image of Ava Wheelock standing in the park, posing for the photo with her hand on her hip.

Ava Wheelock

Title/Position
Student Researcher

NPL Partners

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition Logo

National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

Website link

CSSI Logo

Center for Social Science Innovation

Website link

University Libraries Logo

Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio

Website link

The Native Policy Lab is a scholarly endeavor and research lab of Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz at the University of Iowa. This work is funded in part by grant funding from the Mellon Foundation.