JESSICA ALCORN
The Starbucks in Cherry Creek was bustling with shoppers thirsting for their mid afternoon caffeine as Jessica Rae Alcorn sipped a latte at a small table near the window and talked about her plans for the future.

"We need more Indian lawyers out there. I want to go to law school at U.C. Boulder. They have a very good environmental law program.."

Alcorn was spending a few days in Denver to make a presentation on the Department of Energy's American Indian and Alaskan Native Tribal Government Policy at a workshop given by the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management.

She was happy to be back in Denver among friends. Alcorn, a member of the Assiniboine Tribe, was an intern with the Institute from 1998-1999. During her internship she researched the environmental justice policies of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and their implications for Indian tribes. "I focused on the Rocky Flats clean up."

Today, Alcorn is a post graduate student with the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT) where she works in the DOE's Office of Intergovernmental and Public Accountability, Office of Environmental Management in Washington, D.C. The office is in charge of cleaning up all the legacy waste from Cold War DOE facilities including Los Alamos, the Nevada nuclear test sites and the Hanford nuclear waste site.

"A lot of tribes have land around these sites and there are stewardship issues. That's a really big issue because a lot of sites can't be cleaned up."

Alcorn says her interest in this issue was developed and nurtured during her internship with the Institute.

She had just graduated from Brigham Young University's Hawaii campus with a B.A. in political science specializing in comparative Polynesian governments. She was particularly interested in the relationship between Polynesian governments and the U.S. government. The Institute gave her a new focus.

"The Institute gave me the foundation. I didn't know what environmental justice was. It was nice having intense conversations with people… with Merv and Jeanne because they have so much experience. It really opened up my views. I didn't know a whole lot. I just knew what I read."

In her present job Alcorn focuses on American Indian and Alaskan Native policy and program development. Her primary research project is the role tribes and other stakeholders play in federal facility environmental restoration.

She also helped establish the American Indian Alaskan Native Environmental Justice Roundtable which brings 60 tribal leaders, federal agency senior management, members of tribal community groups and scholars together to discuss how environmental justice is being implemented in Indian country.

"...I would not have been able to be as successful in my position if it hadn't been for the Institute."

As she looks to her future in law school U.C. Boulder 's environmental law program has one other attraction for Alcorn ; continuing her work with the Institute.

"It would allow me to work with the Institute on some of these risk issues and resource management issues."

When she graduates law school Alcorn wants to work with tribes. "I want to be a consultant and work with Indian law firms. I would like to go back and work for my own tribe but that might be really hard to do. We are a really small tribe and they would see me as an outside Washington D.C. person because I've been away so long."