Xavier Nokes

Dr. Xavier Nokes serves professionally as an Assistant Teaching Professor for the Design School (TDS) at Arizona State University (ASU), joining in 2024 after having previously taught at Mesa Community College for several years. In their academic tenure as a student, Xavier has served in various organizations, groups and labs, including the Geometric Media Lab (GML), is an Weaving Relations - IIITSE (immersive, interdisciplinary, identity based science experiences) scholar within ESSA (Earth Systems Science for the Anthropocene), and member of the Indigenous Design Collaborative (IDC) within TDS.

Dr. Nokes' dissertation titled Informed Digital Systems: Knowledge Procurement, Gate/Keeping, and Experience was completed in 2025 under the guidance of chair Dr. Pavan Turaga, and committee members Max Bernstein, Laura Cechanowicz, and Sven Ortel. Dr. Nokes' dissertation primarily engages with the concepts of knowledge procurement, (gate)keeping, and experience, focusing particularly on traditional non-Western knowledge sources amongst marginalized communities against Western counterparts, and in utilizing digital systems as a platform. 

Xavier's work has been recognized and/or published at conferences and events such as the CyberPsychology, CyberTherapy & Social Networking (CyPsy) Conference, the International Conference on Movement and Computing (MoCo/SloMoCo), the Psychedelic Science (PsySci) Conference, the Indigenous Computational Futures Institute, the American Indian Studies Association (AISA) Conference, Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) Conference, and the Society for Literature, Science & the Arts (SLSA) Conference.         

Additionally, their community focused work includes research and projects with members of the Coast Miwok, Pomo (located in Northern California), Diné/Navajo, Acoma, and Zuni (located in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado) tribes, as well as various other communities and groups across the world.