Covenanter Honored for Work in Indigenous Communities
At nine years old, Marlene Watson already knew she wanted to pursue a higher education. She wanted to overcome the challenges of growing up in an urban area with few educational opportunities, especially for Indigenous people like her. Raised in Oakland, California, Watson is from the Navajo Nation originally from Wide Ruins, Arizona, and Tohlakai, New Mexico. Her Navajo clans are Kinlichii’nii (Red House People) and Nakai Dine (Mexican Clan People).
She began attending UC Berkley at 16 as a structural engineering major. Realizing that she wanted to work with Native communities, she added architecture to her studies.
“I wanted to incorporate architecture into my career to work with tribes from the very beginning of a community’s conceptual phase all the way to the occupancy phase of a project,” says Watson. “That’s what I wanted to do—design communities, Native communities. Some Native tribes in California lost their tribal status and later had their federal tribal status reinstated. Eventually they bought land, got it titled, and built houses. Next, they needed community centers, and those are the projects I worked on throughout northern California.”
Now a member of First Covenant Church in Anchorage, Alaska, Watson works as a supervisory civil engineer with the US Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs with the Alaska Region Tribal Transportation Program. She travels to villages, offering technical assistance with rural road projects, transit facilities, and bridge projects. She also serves as a brigade chaplain for the Alaska State Defense Force with a rank of captain.
Recently she received the Ely S. Parker award at the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) National Conference in Spokane, Washington, which is the highest honor AISES confers. Watson was presented with a blanket and medallion to a standing ovation from the crowd of 3,000 people, followed by an intertribal powwow hosted by the local AISES planning committee and Northwest tribal communities.
The award is bestowed in honor of Ely S. Parker, who was educated as an engineer and attorney but was denied a license to practice law because as an Indigenous person, he was not considered a U.S. citizen. He served in the military under Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War and rose to the rank of brigadier general. He was appointed as the first commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs after Grant became president.
A lifelong learner, Watson holds three master’s degrees: an MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary, an MS in construction engineering management from UC Berkeley, and an MA in architecture also from UC Berkeley.
After working on Native community projects in Washington and Oregon, Watson felt called to return to her hometown of Oakland and committed her life to Jesus at age 36. For 10 years she served in prayer ministry, Bible studies, street ministry, and teaching while working in the architectural and engineering fields. She then felt called to go to seminary.
The Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program at Providence Alaska Medical Center brought Watson to Anchorage in 2012. She completed the program and settled in Alaska. In 2023, she was honored by the state of Alaska with the Alaska Humanitarian Service Medal and the Alaska Community Service Medal.
The Ely S. Parker award represents the common goal of Watson and the AISES family to reach, inspire, and create opportunities in STEM fields. She says it is an honor to represent AISES because it speaks to the dreams, values, and aspirations of so many Indigenous Americans.
In her acceptance speech, Watson said, “Isn’t that why we are all here? What we all long for? To be acknowledged, to be seen for who we are—being Native, being an engineer, being an architect, being a scientist. We can’t split ourselves into pieces. We are all one. God created each and every one of us for his purpose.”
