Staff

Dorma Sahneyah (Hopi & Tewa) serves as the Deputy Director of the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC). In this capacity, she works closely with the Executive Director on the day-to-day operations of NIWRC and operative teams and serves as a liaison to the Board of Directors.Ms. Sahneyah previously served as the Executive Director for the Hopi Tribe where she was responsible for overall operations of seven departments and six administrative support offices. Ms. Sahneyah also served as Executive Director for the Hopi-Tewa Women’s Coalition, which together with others, she helped to found. She also served for several years as Chief Prosecutor for the Hopi Tribe where she implemented a tribal domestic violence program, which included victim and child advocacy, batterer’s intervention program, intense domestic violence probation supervision, and civil legal services for domestic and sexual violence survivors.

Ms. Sahneyah has dedicated her career to addressing the unacceptable high rates of violent crime that has plagued Indian country for decades and restoring to justice systems development the culture, values and traditions wrongfully and purposefully taken from Indigenous peoples. Ms. Sahneyah received her Juris Doctor degree from Arizona State University School of Law in 1993.

Ms. Sahneyah is a proud mother of five adult children, grandmother of 15, and great grandmother of one. She is blessed to have her mother, who is almost 86 years old, to support her work and guide the cultural education and activities of her family. She currently resides in San Tan Valley, Arizona with her husband, Calvin.