About Annita
Annita Hetoevehotohke'e (Evening Star Woman) Lucchesi is a researcher and scholar of Cheyenne and Italian descent, currently residing on her ancestral homelands in southeast Montana. She has served as Program Manager for Artemis Sportswomen, a women's hunting, fishing, and conservation leadership program of National Wildlife Federation, since 2024. Annita's love for her Cheyenne culture, homelands, and people lie at the heart of her professional and personal passions, and outside her work, Annita finds joy in her horses and farm animals, hunting, fishing, plant medicine gathering, beadwork, and being a community auntie.
Annita has years of experience in academia and higher education, community based research, cartography, community organizing, and advocacy. She earned her PhD from the School of Geography, Development, & Environment at the University of Arizona in 2023, with a minor in Gender & Women's Studies. Before that, she studied Cheyenne language and culture at Chief Dull Knife College, earned her BA in Geography with a minor in Global Poverty and Practice from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed her MA in American Studies from Washington State University.She is currently pursuing a Master's in Natural Resources Management from North Dakota State University.
Her areas of specialty include Indigenous cartography, geography, and earth sciences; Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous research methodologies; and violence against Indigenous peoples (especially as it intersects with land-based violence). Current research interests include:
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Identification, study, and management of cultural keystone wildlife
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Indigenous range ecology, wildlife management, and environmental/earth sciences methods & applications
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Landscape genetics, with particular focus on spatially explicit genetic simulation, Indigenous landscape genetics, and conservation science
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Theorizing Indigenous sciences
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Uplifting Black, Indigenous, and People of Color sciences and ways of knowing; underrepresented scientists; addressing racism, colonialism, and heteropatriarchy in science