Denise is an enrolled Citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Belcourt, North Dakota. She has been involved in education for forty-four years as an Elementary teacher, Principal, and professor, earning her Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate degrees from the University of North Dakota. Dr. Lajimodiere is a retired Associate Professor from the School of Education, Ed. Leadership program, North Dakota State University, Fargo.

She is one of the founders of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (N-NABS-HC). Her parents and grandparents were sent to Chemawa, Ft. Totten, Marty, Stephan and Wahpeton boarding schools. Denise is a poet – Dragonfly Dance; Thunderbird; Bitter Tears; His Feathers Were Chains; Children’s book author, Josie Dances, and academic book author, Stringing Rosaries: The History, The Unforgivable, The Healing of Northern Plains Boarding School Survivors. Denise is a traditional Jingle Dress dancer, Ojibwe Birch Bark Biting artist, and lives in a cozy cottage by a lake on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation.