Dana E. Powell (she/hers) is an Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Graduate Institute of Medical Humanities and Director of the Center for Humanities Innovation and Social Engagement at Taipei Medical University (Taiwan). She completed her MA and PhD in Anthropology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she was a founding contributor to the UNC Social Movements Working Group. Powell has been a Faculty Fellow in the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University (2019-2020) and in the College of Indigenous Studies at National Dong Hwa University (2021-2022). She is author of Landscapes of Power: Politics of Energy in the Navajo Nation (Duke Press, 2018) and numerous articles and chapters in environmental anthropology. 

Powell’s research lies at the intersection of environmental health and justice, gender, political ecology, and Indigenous sovereignty, in contexts of extractivist development and socio-ecological vulnerability. Her work in Navajo Nation, eastern North Carolina, and Taiwan foregrounds collaborative and community-aligned qualitative research that uplifts mentorship, advocacy, and social justice. At Taipei Medical University, she works with graduate students in medical humanities, global health, and Indigenous studies to bring transnational and ethnographic analytics into medical and social science education. Before joining the interdisciplinary faculty at TMU, Powell served as assistant and then associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at Appalachian State University, where she developed the B.A. in Social Practice and Sustainability. She lives in Hualien City, Taiwan.