People

I am an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation and I have a B.A. in Political Science from UC Berkeley, and an M.S. in International Development and Management from Lund University, Sweden. I did my master's thesis in Aotearoa New Zealand on the role of the United Nations' Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples' role there, from the perspective of Māori activists. I also worked with the New Zealand Human Rights Commission on their Indigenous Rights Team and in conjunction with the Independent Indigenous Rights Monitoring Mechanism, and my masters research has been published by the MAI Journal in Aotearoa. I love traveling with my partner to learn about other Indigenous Peoples around the world and how they confront challenges and Indigenize spaces. Combining this with my love for food, cooking, plants, and animals, I am very interested in Indigenous food and seed sovereignty and traditional food systems. I have been engaged in the food system as a farmer, seed keeper and cook. As a UC Berkeley third year doctoral candidate and Chancellor's Fellow, my research combines agroecology and Indigenous food sovereignty to analyze challenges and supports for food sovereignty and traditional food systems among the Chickasaw Nation, and support food system revitalization efforts. After completing my PhD, I will continue to support Chickasaw food sovereignty through research and a youth education food system NGO I intend to create.