Dr. Koyana Flotte is a Harvard-trained ethnographer and applied anthropologist whose work bridges qualitative and field-based research, cultural resource management, and community-based consultation. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from Harvard University, where her dissertation combined ethnographic and humanitarian applied research across Central America, Mexico, and the United States. A proud alumna of the University of Texas at Austin, she graduated Magna Cum Laude and received the Dean’s Distinguished Graduate Award—the College of Liberal Arts’ highest honor—for her undergraduate thesis.
Since establishing her consulting practice, Dr. Flotte has partnered with businesses, universities, museums, foundations, and community organizations to advance projects in research design, cultural heritage stewardship, cross-sector collaboration, and organizational strategy. Her portfolio includes collaborations with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mariposas Sin Fronteras, Big Bend Conservation Alliance, the Judd Foundation, the Center for Cultural Power, People of La Junta for Preservation, the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, and Marfa Public Radio, among others.
Her current projects include conducting original research and developing historically grounded land acknowledgment frameworks for the Judd Foundation, informed by archival research, ethnographic methods, and consultation with lineal descendants and Tribal representatives. She is also a subcontractor with the Association on American Indian Affairs on an international repatriation initiative in collaboration with the U.S. Department of State, where she leads qualitative and quantitative analysis of global auction data, museum holdings, and transnational policy frameworks concerning the circulation and return of Indigenous cultural patrimony. In addition, she currently serves as a subcontracted ethnographer with Living Heritage Anthropology LLC in Colorado, conducting field-based research, providing Tribal consultation support, and documenting cultural resources.
She is the Senior NAGPRA Coordinator for the Centennial Museum and Chihuahuan Desert Gardens and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Her broader professional commitments include serving as a Community Folklife Fellow (2025–2026) for the Texas Folklife.
