Sharon Hausam Ph.D.

Sharon Hausam was the New Mexico Water Dialogue’s first Executive Director, from 1999 to 2001, and returned as a member of the board in 2015. She has been the Planning Program Manager for the Pueblo of Laguna since 2008. She has also worked for the Pueblo of Sandia, the Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments, and as a consultant, giving her over 20 years of experience in planning. Sharon has been involved in regional and local water planning since 1996, when she helped write and facilitate public input for the Northwest New Mexico Regional Water Plan. She participated in the 2003 state water planning process and in the 2015-2017 regional water planning processes in the Middle Rio Grande and Northwest regions as an employee of tribal governments. Sharon’s primary interests are tribal involvement and public participation in planning. She is the author of “Maybe, maybe not: Native American participation in regional water planning,” a chapter in the edited book Reclaiming Indigenous Planning. Her doctoral dissertation (University of Wisconsin-Madison) research studied Native American and non-Native involvement in collaborative planning processes. She also has a Master of Environmental Studies degree from Yale University and a Bachelor of Science degree with a double major in biology and art from the State University of New York. Sharon teaches “Planning on Native American Lands” and “Indigenous Environmental Planning” at the University of New Mexico in the Community and Regional Planning Program, and “Tribal Environmental Management” online certificate courses through Northern Arizona University’s Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals. She is affiliated with the Indigenous Design + Planning Institute. Sharon lives in Albuquerque’s Near North Valley, gardens, and irrigates off the Los Griegos Acequia.