Indigenous Speaker Series Event:
Lacrosse, Leadership & Climate Change
Speaker Series Event Bio
Oren R. Lyons
Oren Lyons is a Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan and serves as a member Chief of the Onondaga Council of Chiefs and the Grand Council of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Haudenosaunee Peoples. He is Professor Emeritus at State University New York at Buffalo and has a doctor of law degree from Syracuse University where Lyons Hall is named in his honour.
Chief Lyons is an All-American Lacrosse Hall of Famer and Honorary Chairman of the Haudenosaunee Nationals Lacrosse Team. He is an accomplished artist, environmentalist and author, and is a leading voice at the UN Permanent Forum on Human Rights for Indigenous Peoples. He acts as Chairman of the Board for both the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and Plantagon, a world leader in Green House Innovation.
Chief Lyons has been honoured with numerous awards for his work including the Green Cross International Environmental Icon award, the United Nations NGO World Peace Prize, the Ellis Island Congressional Medal of Honor, and the Rosa Parks and George Arents award for environmental and social activism.