The purpose of Amah Mutsun Speaker Series is to present issues of importance for Native Americans, particularly those relevant to Native American Students at UC Santa Cruz. The speaker series board is comprised of Amah Mutsun tribal members, AIRC staff, UCSC students, staff and faculty. The Amah Mutsun Speaker series began in 2009, conceived by American Indian Resource Center Director, Dr. Dennis Tibbetts and the Amah Mutsun Tribal Chairman, Val Lopez. A goal of the Amah Mutsun speaker series is to continue the decades long effort to strengthen the Indigenous presence at UC Santa Cruz. This is a collaborative effort between the American Indian Resource Center and the Amah Mutsun speaker series board. It is critical that this effort include the Indigenous peoples of the land as partners. The Amah Mutsun Speaker Series has brought to campus leading researchers, such as Maria Brave Heart, Joseph Gone, Sarah Deer, Jennifer Dennetdale, Deborah Miranda, Delores BigFoot and California Indian cultural experts, Ron Christman, Ron Alec, Caleen Sisk and Hawk Rosales, and most recently language revitalization expert, and MacArthur fellow, Jessie Little Doe Baird.