Maura Sullivan

Maura M. Sullivan earned her Ph.D. from Tulane University in 2024, writing her dissertation Nuxawiš: ‘unwilling to give up’ (Redefining our Record: Chumash Inquiry in Smithsonian Archives). During her time at UC Davis she has focused on revitalization and sustainability of Chumash languages, in particular Shmuwich, a language within the Chumashan language family. She is an enrolled member of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, from her mother’s family and her grandfather’s village of Saticoy in Ventura County. She is an active member of the Chumash community, attending ceremonies and gatherings, working with elders and youth and taking care of various wild places and sacred sites.

Her postdoctoral work focused on Montessori for Indigenous languages with visits to the Keres Children’s Language Center and the Indigenous Montessori Institute in New Mexico. She is not a certified Montessori guide, but her work synthesizes these techniques in her language teaching philosophies.

She began learning about cultural fire in 2023 and has a paper accepted to present at the Linguistic Society of America in January 2027 conference on the topic “How we talk about fire” a sociolinguistic analysis of how various groups relay their ideological beliefs about fire in how they talk about the beneficial uses of fire.

Her postdoc also looked at the UC Natural Reserve system, now known as Nature, as a site for language curriculum building, drawing inspiration from Gaelic and European philosophies around breathing spaces.

Mixed media and traditional forms of art have also been entry points for language uses and her portfolio spans from linocut print making to photography and videos, along with traditional crafting such as tule and juncus weaving. As an anarchist Maura believes in autonomous forms of language learning and seeks ways to inspire herself and her friends and family to use their languages everyday.

She is on the planning committee for the UC Davis Conference On Indigenous Languages (COIL).

During her graduate research she was also able to visit British Museum collection and created video archives of the cultural belongings there.