Spilde, Katherine A.

Katherine A. Spilde, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist who specializes in the social, economic, and political impact of casino gaming on American Indian tribal governments and communities in the United States. Dr. Spilde starting investigating the impacts of tribal government gaming in 1994 when she started ethnographic fieldwork in her hometown of Mahnomen, Minnesota. That work became the foundation of her PhD dissertation, “Acts of Sovereignty, Acts of Identity: Negotiating Interdependence through Tribal Government Gaming on the White Earth Indian Reservation,” at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1998.

After completing her PhD, Dr. Spilde worked as a policy analyst and report writer for the National Gambling Impact Study Commission (NGISC), which sought to identify the social and economic impacts of gambling in the United States, including those stemming from tribal government-owned gaming enterprises. After the NGISC released its Final Report in 1999, she worked as the Director of Research for the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA), where she established national research initiatives, created economic development and tribal gaming policy platforms, and established the open-source National Indian Gaming Library and Resource Center. In 2001, Dr. Spilde left her position at NIGA to work as a Senior Research Associate for the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, which focuses on identifying social and economic impacts of gaming on American Indian communities. In 2000, Dr. Spilde was appointed to the Board of the National Council on Problem Gaming, a Washington DC organization that develops national policy and assistance programs for people affected by problem gambling.

In 2004, Dr. Spilde became the Executive Director for the Center for California Native Nations at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), organizing and overseeing the first state-level impact study of tribal government gaming in California. Since 2008, Dr. Spilde has been an associate professor in the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at San Diego State University, where she created the nation’s first four-year degree in Tribal Casino Operations Management. She also serves as the Endowed Chair of the Sycuan Institute on Tribal Gaming. In 2016, Dr. Spilde was appointed to the Board of the National Center for Responsible Gaming, a nonprofit that funds research about pathological and youth gambling in the US.

“About Us | National Council on Problem Gambling.” Accessed January 17, 2017. http://www.ncpgambling.org/about-us/.

“About NCRG | NCRG.” Accessed January 17, 2017. http://www.ncrg.org/about-ncrg/.