John Truden received his B.A. from UNC-Wilmington in 2016, his M.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 2018, and advanced to doctoral candidacy within the same program in 2021. His dissertation explores how Indigenous people in Oklahoma wielded alliances with White settlers to combat a century long assault on Native ways of life. He has published in notable academic journals such as Western Historical Quarterly, collaborated with public institutions such as Metro Library Podcast and Oklahoma Humanities magazine, and served as a volunteer researcher for the Cultural Preservation Office – Absentee Shawnee Tribe and the Oglala Lakota College Archives. In early 2021, prominent Native American Studies scholar Amanda Cobb sought out and hired John Truden for the 2021-22 school year as part of her fellowship from the Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
