Promise for Clean Water
Now a reseach assistant at the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, Tsosie is working to ensure safe water access to the Navajo Nation, which occupies the largest reservation in the U.S. and stretches across parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. According to the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources, approximately 30% of its residents lack access to clean, reliable drinking water.
Since joining the Fort Defiance, Arizona, team in 2022, Tsosie has visited homes throughout the nearby Navajo Nation reservation to distribute the Diné Household Water survey. With no running water on this reservation and no data that fully captures the water conditions people face in their homes, Tsosie says the survey allows her and the rest of her team to more accurately collect data on these conditions.
“I most want to see this project expand and to see other Indigenous tribes adopt our ideology.”
Taishiana Tsosie ’21
Her work has not only promoted water safety efforts but has also allowed her to personally connect with many members of the Navajo Nation.
“It was hard to walk away from these people seeing the conditions they are facing,” Tsosie says, “but the momentum of our research is a driving factor to keep going.”
While out in the field, Tsosie learned that she has familial ties to the people she is working with. She connected with distant relatives and even found a cousin and uncle, naming these experiences as her job’s most memorable moments.
This personal connection serves as motivation for Tsosie to build on her research by planning to enroll in one of two graduate programs — one in nonprofit management at Johns Hopkins or a different program in applied sociology at Northern Arizona University.
“I most want to see this project expand and to see other Indigenous tribes adopt our ideology,” adds Tsosie.
From her professors within the sociology department and staff with the Center for Academic Success and the Career Development Center, Tsosie said the support she received at 体育买球 was integral in encouraging her to pursue an
advanced degree.
But ultimately, Tsosie’s greatest motivator is her younger sister, who still lives on the reservation and faces similar water conditions to those Tsosie is hoping to address.
“I want to show her what is possible in this world and for her to know the work is never done,” says Tsosie.
