Phillip H. Duran

Phillip H. Duran, descendent of the Tigua Indians (not enrolled), earned B.S. and M.S. degrees at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he also conducted physics research, developed computer software, and taught courses in physics, mathematics, computer assembler language, and computer science. In 1971, he moved with his wife and three children to the Pacific Northwest to study at Washington State University, where he earned a second M.S. degree, in computer science, and became a candidate for the Ph.D. in computer science with considerable coursework in numerical analysis and theoretical physics. At WSU he later held a lengthy appointment in Information Technology and became industry-certified in computer Disaster Recovery Planning.

He currently resides in Rio Rancho, NM as an independent author, lecturer, and consultant. He is Vice President of the board of directors of Hamaatsa, a Native non-profit organization, assisting in the establishment of an eco-retreat center and indigenous learning model whose purpose is to promote spiritural wholeness and healing systems from traditional cultures and to revive indigenous life-ways and sustainable land stewardship principles for restoring our world.

To see his full vitae, including publications, click here.

He also served as faculty advisor to the student chapter of the American Science and Engineering Society (AISES), was known on campus and the community for screening video documentaries on indigenous peoples, and (with his wife) was also deeply involved with the Chicano(a)/Latino(a) community. He was also a campus activist working diligently on crucial issues for Chicano, Native American, and African American students and faculty, becoming the recipient, along with his wife, of numerous awards of recognition.

During his time at WSU, he was greatly influenced by the late Ricardo Sánchez, Ph.D., a full professor, activist, and poet of renown, with whom Duran performed in numerous public poetry readings. His poetry and other works have been published in various journals, some appearing in different languages, and in a Chicano poetic anthology, Vasos Comunicantes, published in Spain. His poems, columns, and essays have appeared in RiverSedge (UT-Pan American); Poetry: An American Heritage (Western Poetry Association); Poetic Voices of America, A Break in the Clouds (National Library of Poetry), Paterson Literary Review (Passaic County Community College, New Jersey), La Voz (Council for the Spanish-Speaking, Seattle, WA), Shades of Crimson (Washington State University), SA: An Opinionated Journal of Opinionated Essays, Rio Grande Review (The University of Texas at El Paso), Revista Apple, WSU Week (WSU), Beaver Tail Journal, Ethnies (poem translated into French in Survival International Annual Review, 1998); Ricardo Sánchez archival video; forword to book Codex Tamuanchan: on Becoming Human by Roberto Rodríguez; included in poetic anthology, Los Vasos Comunicantes: Antología de Poesía Chicana, J. Rosa, ed. (Huerga & Fierro: España, 1999). Public presentations include conferences, workshops, coffeehouse poetry reading sessions, and television.

In 1998 he went to South Dakota to serve as director of First Nations Institute, a post-secondary school for American Indian students, where he also taught seminars for non-Indians on the American Indian Christian experience.

From 2000 until 2003 he was a member of the faculty in the Division of Science and Mathematics at Northwest Indian College, where he taught physics and American Indian history and directed the Tribal Environmental and Natural Resource Management academic degree program (TENRM). He also served as Dean of the Division for part of the time.

His book, Bringing Back the Spirit, which he refers to as “a prayer for humanity to understand and experience wholeness,” was published in May 2005.

He is currently writing a second book that links quantum physics and relativity theory with traditional indigenous metaphysics, and the concept of wholeness as the basis for transformation.

To read a narrative version of his story, click here.