Fawn Sharp (born May 20, 1970) is a Native American politician, attorney, and policy advocate who is the current president of the

National Congress of American Indians The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is an American Indian and Alaska Native rights organization. It was founded in 1944 to represent the tribes and resist federal government pressure for termination of tribal rights and assimilati ...

. Prior to serving in this capacity, Sharp served as president of the

Quinault Indian Nation The Quinault Indian Nation ( or ; QIN), formerly known as the Quinault Tribe of the Quinault Reservation, is a federally recognized tribe of Quinault, Queets, Quileute, Hoh, Chehalis, Chinook, and Cowlitz peoples.

, as president of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, and as vice president of the National Congress of American Indians. Sharp has also served in a variety of non-tribal governmental capacities, including as an administrative law judge at the

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

Department of Revenue, a governor of the Washington State Bar Association, and as one of

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Gary Locke Gary Faye Locke (born January 21, 1950) is an American politician and diplomat serving as the interim president of Bellevue College, the largest of the institutions that make up the Washington Community and Technical Colleges system. Locke serv ...

's appointed trustees for

Grays Harbor College Grays Harbor College is a public community college in Aberdeen, Washington. Founded in 1930, the college sits on a campus overlooking the town of Aberdeen and its seaport on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Additional "learning centers" are locat ...

. Following the ''

Cobell v. Salazar ''Cobell v. Salazar'' (previously ''Cobell v. Kempthorne'' and ''Cobell v. Norton'' and ''Cobell v. Babbitt'') is a class-action lawsuit brought by Elouise Cobell (Blackfeet) and other Native American representatives in 1996 against two departm ...

'' decision, Sharp was appointed by the

United States Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...

to serve as chair of the National Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform.

Early life and education

Sharp was born in

Aberdeen, Washington Aberdeen () is a city in Grays Harbor County, Washington, United States. The population was 17,013 at the 2020 census. The city is the economic center of Grays Harbor County, bordering the cities of Hoquiam and Cosmopolis. Aberdeen is occasi ...

. Sharp graduated from

Gonzaga University Gonzaga University (GU) () is a private Jesuit university in Spokane, Washington. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. Founded in 1887 by Joseph Cataldo, an Italian-born priest and Jesuit missionary, the univ ...

in 1990 at age 19, and is a

University of Washington School of Law The University of Washington School of Law is the law school of the University of Washington, located on the northwest corner of the main campus in Seattle, Washington. The 2023 '' U.S. News & World Report'' law school rankings place Washingt ...

1995 alumna. Following law school, Sharp has since received certificates from the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

and the

University of Nevada The University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada, the University of Nevada, or UNR) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Reno, Nevada. It is the state's flagship public university and primary land grant ...

Career

Opponents attempted to

recall Recall may refer to: * Recall (bugle call), a signal to stop * Recall (information retrieval), a statistical measure * ''ReCALL'' (journal), an academic journal about computer-assisted language learning * Recall (memory) * ''Recall'' (Overwatch ...

several Quinault officials in November 2015, resulting in the removal of the nation's vice president, but Sharp kept her position. She was elected to her fourth term as Quinault president in March 2015. The Quinault Nation hosted the Canoe Journey in 2013, during her third term.

Diplomatic representative

Sharp was the first person issued

diplomatic credentials A letter of credence (french: Lettre de créance) is a formal diplomatic letter that designates a diplomat as ambassador to another sovereign state. Commonly known as diplomatic credentials, the letter is addressed from one head of state to ano ...

as a tribal leader by the United States Department of State, representing National Congress of American Indians at

2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP26, was the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference, held at the SEC Centre in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, from 31 October to 13 November 2021. The ...

(COP26).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sharp, Fawn 1971 births 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century Native Americans 21st-century American lawyers 21st-century American politicians 21st-century American women politicians 21st-century Native American politicians Living people Native American lawyers Native American leaders Native American women in politics Place of birth missing (living people) Quinault people University of Washington School of Law alumni Washington (state) lawyers 20th-century American women 20th-century Native American women 21st-century Native American women