Buffy SAINTE-MARIE is founder and president of the Cradleboard Teaching Project
in Hawaii, which aims to increase public awareness of Native American culture.
Dr. Sainte-Marie conducts the Cradleboard 101 Teacher Training Workshops for
teachers and college level educators in the United States and Canada. She also
serves on First Lady Hillary Clinton’s Committee to Save America’s Treasures. Dr.
Sainte-Marie is founder and former president of the Nihewan Foundation for Native
American Education. She is best known as an Academy Award winning songwriter,
and for her work on television’s Sesame Street, where she taught about Native
American people and culture. In 1967, she began her groundbreaking work in
electronic music when she recorded the first electronic quadraphonic vocal album,
and began scoring movies using computers as her instrument. Her huge digital
paintings were also the first large scale works to appear in museums and galleries in
North America. Dr. Sainte-Marie was Native American Philanthropist of the Year
in 1997, and in 1998 the American Indian College Fund presented her with a Lifetime
Achievement Award. In 1999, Canada awarded her the Order of Canada. Dr.
Sainte-Marie received a B.A. in philosophy and a Ph.D. in fine arts from the
University of Massachusetts.