Daniel Wildcat is a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma.  His service as teacher and administrator at Haskell spans 37 years. In 2013 he was the Gordon Russell visiting professor of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College. Dr. Wildcat received an interdisciplinary Ph. D. from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.  In 1994 he partnered with the Hazardous Substance Research Center at Kansas State University to create the Haskell Environmental Research Studies (HERS) Center and subsequently started the HERS summer undergraduate internship program with KU professor Dr. Joane Nagel. He is a noted speaker on Traditional Ecological Knowledges and has offered programs for NOAA, NASA, AGU, ESA, NCAR, and many scientific organizations and universities.

Dr. Wildcat is currently the principal investigator of a 20M, 5 year, NSF-funded project to develop the Rising Voices, Changing Coasts Research Hub at Haskell: a research hub where Indigenous knowledges will be intrinsic to the climate science developed to understand climate change impacts on Indigenous coastal Peoples of the U.S. and its territories. He is the author and editor of several books: "Power and Place: Indian Education In America", with Vine Deloria, Jr.; Destroying Dogma: "Vine Deloria’s Legacy on Intellectual America", with Steve Pavlik.  

His book, "Red Alert: Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge", suggests Indigenous ingenuity — Indigenuity — is required to reduce the environmental damage in the Anthropocene. He is a co-author of the Southern Great Plains chapter of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. Dr. Wildcat’s forthcoming book, "Indigenuity: Learning the Lessons of Mother Earth", will be released in late November 2023.