London Vallery

Hello! My name is London Vallery and I’m an MPhil student in the History and Philosophy of Science department. I come from the Talimali Band of the Apalachee Tribe and the Chitimacha Tribe in Louisiana, but identify as broadly Kouri Vini. My research focuses on the intersection of indigeneity politics and the global development of the aerospace industry. I started to lean further into indigenous methodologies in 2020 when I went to live within my father’s indigenous community in Louisiana during the pandemic. I was being trained in western astrophysics at my undergrad university but realized that I didn’t know any of the traditional tribal astronomical practices that my community had perfected over the centuries. I realized this generational loss of indigenous knowledge and methodologies is not uncommon amongst other Indigenous youth and this ultimately led me to use filmmaking as an accessible way to share and preserve the various indigenous astronomical practices of tribes I work with across the US. With my western background in astrophysics and my indigenous background in celestial reading, I’ve come to deeply appreciate the uniquely valuable ways indigenous communities ask, pursue, and answer scientific inquiry and believe these concepts can improve the research of all.