Michael Spears

Michael Spears is an American Indian Studies scholar and applied anthropologist who conducts collaborative research Tribes primarily in the greater U.S. Southwest. Much of his research focuses on collaborating with Tribal communities to document Native American history and connections to place through place-based ethnographic and oral history research. In 2025, he completed a collaborative ethnographic study for the National Park Service with 14 Tribes on the history and legacy of nuclear development, testing, and uranium mining for Southwest Tribal communities. Mr. Spears also conducts research on how U.S. environmental law and policy relate to and affect Tribes, and has supported numerous tribes in creating federally recognized Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPO). His doctoral research centers on analyzing how Tribes express sovereignty in historic preservation practice through the THPO program. Mr. Spears holds an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Arizona. He is also a Principal at MOS Research, LLC, which provides direct research services to Tribes and non-profits centered on topics of cultural heritage.

Recent Scholarly Publications:

Welch, John R., Michael C. Spears, Sean M. O’Meara, Katherine A. Portman, and Alexander J. Binford-Walsh, Cultural Landscape Studies Are Tools for Matching Cultural Resource Identification and Assessment Efforts to Federal Undertaking Size and Complexity in the Section 106 Process, 2025, Advances in Archaeological Practice 13(2):181–205.

Spears, Michael C., Kurt Dongoske, Octavius Seowtewa, Maren P. Hopkins, and T. J. Ferguson, 2024, Zuni Perspectives on Historic Preservation. Human Organization 83(1):31–42.