Kaluhyanu:wes
Michelle D. Schenandoah

JD, LL.M., & MA, is a writer, speaker, media creator, and traditional member of the Oneida Nation Wolf Clan of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

She and her husband, Neal Powless, operate Indigenous Concepts Consulting with the goal of incorporating Indigenous perspectives into the mainstream, and in existing business and media paradigms.

“Healing not only helps individuals, but their family and community - along with the past generations who experienced trauma, and those generations into the future.”

— Michelle Schenandoah

As founder of the nonprofit, Rematriation, dedicating uplifting Indigenous women’s voices, Michelle is focused on inspirational storytelling for transformation. Rematriation is a powerful word used to describe how human kind can begin to restore balance in the world by centering Indigenous knowledge. Michelle helped to define rematriation as “Returning the Sacred to the Mother,” to support the movement of Indigenous women leading healing and cultural regeneration.

Michelle released her new talk show, Rematriated Voices with Michelle Schenandoah, that is now streaming on PBS. In 2025. Along with Mohawk director, Katsitsionni Fox, she directed and produced: An Indigenous Response to #MeToo and the 10-part series, Indigenous Women’s Voices.

Rematriation

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Rematriated Voices

Gathering spaces for collective healing and creating new narratives

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In 2022, she presented as a spiritual advisor to Pope Francis with the First Nations Delegation at the Vatican in 2022 that prompted his apology to Indigenous Peoples in Canada regarding the mistreatment of Indigenous children who attended Canada’s Indian Residential Schools.

Inspired by her grandmothers who led generations of Oneida Nation land claims, Michelle carries her ancestors' passion to rematriate her people’s lands and bring about the truthful telling of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s global influence on modern democracy and women’s rights.

Michelle was a Sgat ędwatahíne Haudenosuanee Fellow at Cornell University; a recipient of the Soros Open Societies Equality Fellowship and the MIT SOLVE Indigenous Communities Fellowship.

Michelle holds a JD and LL.M. in Taxation from New York Law School, a MA in online journalism, newspapers and magazines from the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University, and a BA from Cornell University. She lives in her people’s homelands with her husband and their beautiful children.