David E. Wilkins (Lumbee Nation) is the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professor in Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond Jepson School of Leadership Studies. He is also professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota where he held the McKnight Presidential Professorship in American Indian Studies with appointments in law, political science, and American studies. He earned his PhD in political science from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill in December 1990.  
 
He is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including Indigenous Governance: Clans, Constitutions, and Consent (2024), Documents of Native American Political Development (2019), and Hollow Justice (2013). The Legal Universe (2011) and Tribes, Treaties and Constitutional Tribulations (2000) were coauthored with Vine Deloria, Jr. His articles have appeared in a range of social science, law, history, and ethnic studies journals. 
 
 
Shelly Hulse Wilkins is an analyst and consultant with the Wilkins Forum, LLC. She holds an MPA with an emphasis in Tribal–state relations and has worked on issues of importance to Native governments for twenty-five years. Before convening the Wilkins Forum with her partner, David, she worked as a state legislative caucus liaison, senior analyst for the Washington State Senate, and program principal for the State-Tribal Institute at the National Conference of State Legislatures. With David Wilkins, she coauthored Dismembered: Native Disenrollment and the Battle for Human Rights (2017).