Navajo Pine science teacher earns national fellowships for Arctic, Pacific research

Kim Etsitty’s students at Navajo Pine High School are likely to see new lessons, new research connections and a stronger path into STEM now that she has earned two national fellowships tied to Arctic and Pacific exploration.

Etsitty, a science teacher from Chinle and a graduate of Chinle High School, was named a 2026 Grosvenor Teacher Fellow by the National Geographic Society and Lindblad Expeditions and a 2026 Lead Science Communication Fellow with the Ocean Exploration Trust. The fellowships put an Apache County educator on expedition routes that stretch from Southeast Greenland to the waters between Hawaii and Guam, with material she said she plans to bring back to her classroom and, by extension, to students across the Navajo Nation.

That matters far beyond a résumé line. Etsitty has taught students from second through 12th grade for more than a decade, mostly Diné students, and she has built science curriculum through an Indigenous lens that blends Navajo cultural knowledge with Western science. She also writes curriculum for Los Alamos National Laboratory and serves as a NASA Solar System Ambassador, giving her a rare mix of classroom experience and national science network access that Navajo Pine students do not often see in a rural school setting.

The Ocean Exploration Trust said its 2026 Nautilus season will survey deep-sea habitats in the Central and Western Pacific, including areas near the Mariana Islands, Wake Island and the Hawaiian Archipelago. On the Exploration Vessel Nautilus, Etsitty will help communicate science from expeditions that use mapping sonars and remotely operated vehicle systems, the kind of tools that can turn a lesson on ocean geography or climate into a firsthand look at how researchers collect data in extreme environments.

Her path to the trust began after a December 2023 educator workshop at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where a presentation on the undersea rover BRUIE and icy ocean worlds sparked her interest. In her Nautilus Live bio, Etsitty described herself as a science teacher, Indigenous science curriculum writer and curriculum writer with Los Alamos National Laboratory, and said she has spent over a decade teaching Diné students across the Navajo Nation.

The National Geographic fellowship is designed as a professional development opportunity for pre-K through 12 educators. Its 2025 announcement said fellows may conduct webinars, co-design resources, participate in meetups and mentor other educators, which could extend Etsitty’s reach well beyond one voyage and into daily classroom work at Navajo Pine.

The broader promise is simple: a teacher rooted in Apache County will return with Arctic and Pacific science, and her students will get a window into research careers, environmental literacy and Indigenous knowledge systems that can help shape the next generation of Navajo scientists.