Eileen Luna Firebaugh
Eileen Luna-Firebaugh (Choctaw/Cherokee; MPA, 1996, Harvard University/JD, 1978, Peoples College of Law) joined the University of Arizona American Indian Studies faculty in fall 1996. She is an Associate Professor of American Indian law and policy. Her most recent publications focus on the growth and development of international indigenous and tribal justice systems, tribal police, evaluation of human service delivery programs on Indian lands, community policing, juvenile justice, and criminal justice barriers to the higher education of Indigenous juveniles.
She is the author of Tribal Policing: Asserting Sovereignty, Seeking Justice published by the University of Arizona Press. She is a member of the faculty of the National Tribal Trial College; funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. In this capacity she is a trainer of tribal judges, police and prosecutors. Professor Luna-Firebaugh is a member of the Advisory Board for the Southwest Center on Law and Policy, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice and of the Western Social Sciences Assn, where she served on the Executive Board. She is a former Associate Justice of the Colorado River Indian Tribal Appellate Court, the Board of Directors for the National Center for Responsible Gambling, and of the Advisory Boards for the Harvard Medical School Division on Diversions Project on Pathological Gambling.
Prof. Luna-Firebaugh is a consultant to cities throughout the United States and to international governments that are seeking to reorganize their police complaint systems Prof. Luna-Firebaugh has worked in partnership with the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, and tribal-level project coordinators, to evaluate the CIRCLE initiative (Comprehensive Indian Resources for Community and Law Enforcement). This U. S. Office of Justice Programs initiative provided three demonstration tribes (the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Pueblo of Zuni) with the opportunity and resources needed to realign law enforcement and justice programs with tribal values and priorities. CIRCLE funded youth, victim services, law enforcement, domestic violence, tribal courts and corrections programs. Equally (and perhaps more) importantly, it encouraged Indian nations to develop a linked, comprehensive strategy for using these funds. Professor Luna-Firebaugh was the principal investigator on a major, multi-year grant on reducing violence against women funded by the National Institute of Justice, which included over 130 tribal government programs. She was also the principal investigator for a National Institute of Health study of Australian Aboriginal family violence programs, conducted throughout Eastern and Southern Australia, and the principal trainer for the Nigerian State Police, funded by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Africa, the Soros Open Society Institute, and the Nigerian Police Services commission.
Professor Luna-Firebaugh has received grants for research from the American Philosophical Society, Phillips Fund for Native American Research, the University of Arizona, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs Law Enforcement Services. recived the Toihuarera Fellowship for research of Maori Programs aimed at developing juvenile diversion programs. In this capacity she was a visiting professor at Victoria College of Law in Wellington, New Zealand. and was approinted as a member of the New Zealand Rantanage Juvenile Court
Prof. Luna-Firebaugh teaches several courses in the law and policy concentration that are required in the M.A./J.D. degree and options in the Ph.D. and M.A. programs. She also serves on the Board of the University Human Subjects Protection Program. (Revised Sept 2015)