Kendall Lovely is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and earned her PhD in History at the University of California Santa Barbara.

She holds a double-major B.A. in Comparative Literature and Anthropology and an M.A. in Museum Studies from the University of New Mexico, as well as an M.A. in Comparative Humanities from Brandeis University.

In spring 2026, she completed her dissertation, From Southwest Native American Lands to Ancient Mediterranean Waters: (Re)-Storying Late Nineteenth-Early Twentieth Century Museum Anthropology for Indigenous Ancestral Futures. Her dissertation research pays attention to the history of museum anthropology and collecting of Diné and Pueblo materials toward the development of Native arts and heritage spaces in New Mexico.

She has recent publications in Forging, Public Humanities, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, and Res Difficilies.

A digital exhibition, Red Coral Stories: Reimagining Classical Pasts for Native Futures, accompanies her ongoing research.