Cedric Woods is a citizen of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. He combines over a decade of tribal government experience with a research background, and is the founding director of UMass Boston’s Institute for New England Native American Studies and Graduate Program Director of the MS in Critical Ethnic and Community Studies.
The institute's purpose is to connect Native New England with university research, innovation, and education. Currently, Cedric is working on projects with tribes in the areas of tribal government capacity building, Indian education, economic development, and substance misuse prevention.
He holds a B.A. in Political Science from UNC-Chapel Hill, a M.A. in Political Science from the University of Arizona-Tucson, and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut.