SDSU Sycuan Institute on Tribal Gaming Welcomes New Chair

San Diego State University’s Sycuan Institute on Tribal Gaming has welcomed a new chair to the program, Katherine Spilde Contreras.

"We are thrilled to have recruited such a luminary in the area tribal issues and particularly tribal gaming," said Carl Winston, director of the SDSU School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, which the institute is a part of. "Dr. Spilde Contreras wrote the federal legislation on tribal gaming for Congress 20 years ago, is editor of several notable Indian gaming journals, a prolific researcher and an outstanding teacher which make her uniquely qualified to lead SDSU’s Sycuan Institute on Tribal Gaming."

Spilde served as a research fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where she worked on the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development; and was a policy analyst and writer for the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, a federal commission that produced a comprehensive study of U.S. gambling policy for Congress and President Clinton in 1999.

"In the future, I see the institute strengthening research in Indian tribal gaming by becoming a clearinghouse and providing timely data, special studies and objective information on tribal gaming policy issues," said Contreras. "We will also work with tribal governments to develop 'best practices' in both gaming management and tribal governance, since the government and operations are mutually reinforcing."

Prior to joining the Sycuan Institute, Contreras served as the executive director for the Center for California Native Nations at the University of California, Riverside. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from University of California Santa Cruz and an MBA in entrepreneurship focused on Native American issues from UC Riverside.

Contreras’s areas of research include the economic and social impacts of gambling and Indian gaming, responsible gaming and corporate social responsibility, needs assessment and program evaluation, federal recognition, and tribal governance.

The Sycuan Institute on Tribal Gaming focuses on research, policy studies and education related to the area of tribal gaming management. The institute, centered in the largest tribal gaming community in the world, is geared to studying tribal gaming within the broader industry of hospitality and tourism management.