Kouslaa Kessler-Mata is a dissertation fellow at USF and is
completing her dissertation in political theory at the University
of Chicago. Her work focuses on the rights of self-determination
for American Indian tribes, and she was in residence 2006-07 at the
National Congress of American Indians in Washington, D.C. She
received her M.A. in political science from Chicago in 2003.
Mrs. Kessler-Mata's research interests include:
democratic politics; the normative dimensions of policy making;
negotiating political boundaries between local and tribal
governments; the rights and powers of local government; and Federal
Indian law in general.
Mrs. Kessler-Mata serves as a board member for California Indian
Legal Services and as a graduate student representative for the
Race, Ethnicity and Politics organized section of the American
Political Science Association (APSA). She is co-organizer of
APSA's Working Group on Indigenous People, Politics and
Tribal Sovereignty.
Prior to graduate school, Mrs. Kessler-Mata was a Fellow in the
Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs in San Francisco
(FPPA'01), and received her B.A. with honors from San
Francisco State University (2000). She is enrolled in the Coastal
Band of Chumash and is Yokut.
