Michael Yellow Bird, PhD, is Dean and Professor of the Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba. He is a member of the MHA Nation (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) in North Dakota, USA. He is a certified, internationally trained mindfulness meditation teacher, professional, and scholar. He is a Member of the Mindfulness Council of Canada Board of Directors, a Member of the Global Compassion Coalition Board of Directors, a Member of the Brown University Mindfulness Center External Advisory Board, and a Member of the Council of Elders for Indigenous Mindfulness
Practices. He is a mindfulness consultant and trainer to many organizations, programs, and communities, and serves as a Decolonial Contemplative Mentor to mindfulness and contemplative practitioners and scholars.

Dr. Yellow Bird is a social work and Indigenous studies scholar. He has held faculty and administrative appointments at the University of British Columbia, University of Kansas, Arizona State University, Cal Poly Humboldt, and North Dakota State University. His research focuses on colonization, decolonization, and neurodecolonization; Indigenous mindfulness and contemplative practices and research; healthy Indigenous aging; Arikara ethnobotany and traditional agriculture, and the cultural significance of Rez dogs. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and the co-editor of four books: For Indigenous Eyes Only: The Decolonization Handbook, 2005; For Indigenous Minds Only: A Decolonization Handbook, 2012; Indigenous Social Work around the World: Towards Culturally Relevant Education and Practice, 2008; and Decolonizing Social Work, 2013. He is the co-author of two books: A Sahnish (Arikara) Ethnobotany (2020) and Decolonizing Holistic Pathways Towards Integrative Healing in Social Work (2021).

He is co-authoring three forthcoming books: Arikara Corn and Traditional Agriculture, Decolonizing the Social Work Curriculum, The Memoirs of a Mindful Rez Kid, and Rez Dog Meditations. His most recent scholarly articles include Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation Perspectives on Rez Dogs on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, U.S.A (2023), The Cultural Determinants of Healthy Indigenous Aging (2023), Promising findings that the Cultivating Healthy Intentional Mindful Educators’ Program (CHIME) Strengthens Early Childhood Teachers’ Emotional Resources: An Iterative Study (2022), and Molecular Decolonization: An Indigenous Microcosm Perspective of Planetary Health (2020).
His most recent mindfulness media includes “Meaningful Mindfulness: Social work dean promotes technique for positive impact, both individually and collectively (2022)," and “All our relations: Four Indigenous Lessons on Mindfulness (2021)."