Tlingit law student Gloria Wolfe wins the Judson L. Brown Leadership Award

Gloria Wolfe, a Tlingit student in law and policy at the University of Arizona, has won the 2026 Judson L. Brown Leadership Award and its $5,000 scholarship, Sealaska Heritage Institute announced Sunday.

Wolfe has served as Indigenous leadership director at First Alaskans Institute, cultural heritage director for the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe and secretary for the Alaska Native Sisterhood. She directs the nonprofit White Raven, created the Yakutat Surf Club and in 2024 founded Khaaswóot Collective, an Indigenous consultancy. She graduates next May.

Chris and Mary McNeil established the award in 2006 to honor Chris's uncle, Judson Lawrence Brown, the first chair of the Sealaska Heritage Foundation, now the institute.

"The generations before us carried our languages, our songs, our protocols and our ways of living through extraordinary hardship so I could stand where I am today," Wolfe said.