A member of the Mescalero Apache tribe, Inés M. Talamantez is a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Professor Talamantez is the author of Teaching Religion and Healing and has contributed articles to Native Religions and Cultures of North America: Anthropology of the Sacred and Unspoken Worlds: Women's Religious Lives. Film interviews with Professor Talamantez on American Indian spirituality and advice for American Indian youth are a featured part of the documentary film and DVD on the Crow Shoshone Sun Dance entitled, Native Spirit: The Sun Dance Way.

A selection of these video clips can be viewed by visiting World Wisdom's American Indian Resources page.

She is the past president of the Indigenous Studies Group at the American Academy of Religion and is one of the most well known American Indian scholars. She has pioneered the creation of a PhD program in religious studies with an emphasis in Native American Religious Traditions at UCSB, awarding PhDs to twenty-six Native American scholars.