The Ed Chamberlin Memorial
Lecture Series
WINTER 2026
Lectures are held at the Martha Liebert Public Library,
126 Calle Malinche, Bernalillo, NM.
Refreshments are served afterwards. Masks are optional.
All lectures are free to the Public.
Cultural & Natural History
Stories from the
Southern Jemez Plateau
Tom Swetnam, Ph.D.
Sunday - Feb 22 - 2:00pm​
The Jemez Mountains, a quintessential New Mexico landscape, tell many stories. Pueblo, Spanish and Anglo cultures have mixed and melded here across the mesas and in the canons below the Valles Caldera, the crater of a giant, slumbering volcano. The landscape tells tales of eruptions, lava flows, droughts, floods, forest fires, and hot springs. People tell stories of battles for land and water between conquistadores, pueblos and priests while farming and sheep herder have tales of disruptions by raiders and rustlers. This talk will summarize these stories with photographs, maps and voices from the past.
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Dr. Swetnam, a resident of Jemez Springs, is Regents Professor and Director Emeritus at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. He has studied human land-uses, climate history and forest fire ecology around the world and testified to the U.S. Congress on multiple occasions. He was appointed to the first Board of Trustees of the Valles Caldera National Preserve. A recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tree-Ring Society and the Association for Fire Ecology, he is the author of The Jemez Mountains, A Cultural and Natural History.
Tribes, Pueblos,
and Federal Control
What You Need To Know
Ed McCool
Tribal Attorney
Sunday - March 22 - 2:00pm​
Do you know what plenary power over Tribal recognition means? It’s part of our history and certainly impacts our Puebloan, Navajo and Apache neighbors. Legal constructs such as Independent Sovereign Nations, Blood Quantum and jurisdiction over criminal acts all have a historical and legal basis. And, how do Native American casinos factor into this legal scenario? This talk will explain, in a guilt-free overview, some of the Federal laws governing our Native American neighbors.
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Ed McCool, a retired attorney, served as a tribal attorney for the Navajo Nation Council for ten years. He holds a Master of law (LL.M) in Indigenous Law and Policy from the University of Arizona Rogers School of Law and a Juris Doctorate (J.D.) in law and Masters in Political Science from Temple University. He was the director and chief lobbyist for New Jersey Common Cause in addition to being an attorney for Community Legal Services.